Top Five Nature Moments of 2008

With all the naval-gazing about my Big Year last week I’ve neglected to unpack my birding year as a whole. That may be because the Big Year kind of overshadowed whatever else I did in 2008, but I did some other birding too, and when thinking about my top nature moments, those experiences shouldn’t be left out.

First I’ll run the numbers. You probably know I finished the year in North Carolina with 299 species, but including species outside the state I had 349. I turned up a solid 41 life birds this year, starting with an American Woodcock on January 2 and ending with Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow just a few weeks ago. In between I not only filled some gaps by heading out west for a couple weeks, but also picked up nearly all outstanding life bird possibilities within the state of North Carolina, which was a nice byproduct of the Big Year.

I don’t predict 2009 to be nearly as productive to that end, but I’ve got some excellent possibilities and a personal milestone within reach. More on that later. First though, my top five nature experiences of the year, all nicely cataloged on this here site. Hey, this blogging thing is useful…

5. The dump isn’t a fun place to spend a lot of time. But I managed to make it worth my while early on, finding an awesome Glaucous Gull and, because I wasn’t super comfortable with rare gulls, using the internets to confirm that sighting.

4. One of my earliest trips this year was an all day excursion to the Outer Banks and Pea Island, where I found such cool birds as Eurasian Wigeon and Common Eider. Nearly everything was new for the year because it was early, which made it fun, but it would have been a great trip even if I hadn’t been in a ticking frenzy.

3. The Gulf Stream out of Hatteras in late spring is rightly known as having some of the best pelagics in the world. I found out why in May, and picked up Fea’s Petrel and a completely unexpected Euro Storm-Petrel. Sure I lost my lunch, but it was still a red-letter day.

2. I had never been birding much west of the Great Plains, so I had a lot of lifers just sitting out there, waiting for me to show up and tick them. Even though the trip to Wyoming was primarily for family and not for birding specifically, I did well to get 17 new birds, including cool ones like Ferruginous Hawk and Trumpeter Swan, plus bears, bison, and wolves. Great stuff.

1. I had days where I got more lifers, days where the birding was hotter, days where everything seemed to click more, but as a birder the day that was probably the most satisfying was the one early in December where I lucked into an Ash-throated Flycatcher. Better, lots of North Carolina birders managed to refind it in the weeks that followed, including the guy who broke the NC Big Year record, and even better than that, it stuck around for the local CBC. I felt no small tinge of pride in digging that bird up, and that it was such a desired and cooperative vagrant was icing on the cake.

For 2009 I’ve got some things right off the bat that will likely make it into next years list, which is good cause once spring comes around I’ll likely be kinda busy.

But I still have some goals, one in particular. My ABA life list is coming up on the significant milestone of 500. It was a goal of mine to reach that number before my 30th birthday. On the first day of this year I turned 29. So I’ve got one calendar year and, what with a trip to the far north later this month, a good chance to get there.

So for 2009, it’s 500 or bust.

I hope you all reach your goals for 2009, too.