Tuesday, September 23, 2008

I'm a forgetful idiot who can't count

On Sunday my sighting of Pectoral Sandpiper prompted me to type:



13 to go to the ton with 4 months til year end - the easy ticks have, with pecsand, effectively run out. my monentum over the past 3 weeks or so has really been built on finally focussing my attention on iding birds I should have got on the list some time ago. I'm not really sure there are another 13 bird species on or around the islands unless I can connect with a fall of migrant passerines which are vastly underepresented on the list for good reason. If I were a betting man, I'd be betting against me right now

I am an idiot who can't count. Pec Sand was not number 87, it was number 88 - I had forgotten to include Least Tern on my list previously. However it gets better; not only can't I count, I am forgetful. You see I totally forgot about seeing this bird, the identity of which I had my suspicions about but hadn't had confirmation of.....

sandpiper

This would be a Solitary Sandpiper aka #89 on the list. Nice.

sandpiper2

Incidentally for those of you wondering about the quest to 100 and its significance beyond being a round number - the unofficial national list is only around 200 species long - a large number of which are no longer found here due to habitat change. Not only that but a big chunk are single record species many of which were ringed on an offshore nature preserve to which I don't have access and we have no birding network here, no pagers, no list serves and about 3 active birders so I feel this would be a bit like getting 450 ABA birds with no pager and no access to Florida....and suddenly I'm a lot more confident about getting 11 birds than I was about getting 13. Tomorrow I'll share my 11 step plan for success.

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