Tuesday March 14th - Florida Summary

 

Tuesday March 14th – Florida Summary

          Today we are heading home after a nice visit with my in-laws.  We had great weather, lots of fine dining and saw plenty of great birds.  Mike and I had a total of 70 species in Florida of which 47 were new birds for the year and that included the Tricolored Munia which was a lifer.  Many of these birds will be heading north for the summer and we will see them again in Ohio, but some are Florida specialties.  We have been birding in Florida for many years, but it is always a treat to see these special birds.

                   

 

Comments

  1. AnnMarch 19, 2023 at 6:59 AM

    Your list for the year has had a great start. Maybe you'll have a personal record at the end of the year. Meanwhile we enjoy being taken along on your adventures.

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    1. AnonymousMarch 21, 2023 at 5:02 PM

      It has been a good birding year so far. Not a record year since we are not as crazed as last year!

      Delete
  2. AnonymousMarch 25, 2023 at 12:40 PM

    Do you keep records for each bird by date? Is there a generally recognized list of birds that are present in Ohio (or perhaps Lucas Co or any other spatial unit) in a year or a season? The crazy reason I ask, is to see if there is or could be a birding parallel to hiking peaks in NH/NE. For years the big deal for hikers was to do all 48 of the official 4K peaks in NH or all 67 of NE or even all 111/115 in the northeast (NY+NE) in a lifetime. Then another for doing them in winter. Then someone added doing these when over the age of 70. But the big thing now is doing those in every one of the twelve months in a lifetime. It's known as the Hiking Grid. Some have done multiple Grids. So by analogy to the 4K Grid, if there was a list of birds that could be reasonably be expected to be seen in Ohio (or others) in each month, then someone doing that for the whole list in each month would have completed the Ohio (or others) bird Grid. There are many other lifetime lists, such as doing the 500 highest peaks in NH/NE/Northeast or doing the high points of all the counties or towns in a state, etc. which could all have birding equivalents. Many can be found here: http://48x12.com/ There is no hiking equivalent (at least yet) for the Birding Big Year. Of course it's crazy and there's no fortune and very little fame in it. But someone made up a list, put it in a spreadsheet with cells to put a date done in, and some of them became popular and ended up on a web site for finishers. Then Facebook groups were started to discuss, show pictures and report on it. Since birders can be as crazy as the hikers there must be other birder lists I've never heard of.

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    Replies
    1. CathyMarch 27, 2023 at 8:09 PM

      John,
      We do keep records of birds by date. For example people tend to keep records of the earliest or latest date a particular species has been seen in their area. There are also records kept of all the species seen in a county or state in a specific year or all time.
      Most people tend to do a Big Day, Big Month or Big Year. The Big Day or Big Month is usually for a county or state and there are records kept of the total number of species seen. A Big Year could also be for a county or state but some birders choose to do a Big Year for the ABA (American Birding Association) area which includes the lower 48, Alaska, Canada and recently Hawaii has been added. Another option would be to limit it to just the lower 48 states.
      Many birders are big record keepers and keep all kinds of statistics but I have not heard of anyone who tries to see a specific set of birds each month. However, experienced birders of very aware of the sequence of migration particularly Spring migration. There are early migrants, mid-season migrants and late migrants. There are factors that can delay this progression such as wind conditions and storms but usually it is quite predictable and amazing.

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