107th Bird Species for 2020

I was starting to panic as the month of November passed its halfway point and no new birds were added to my Big Year Challenge.  So you can understand my relief when I recorded my 107^th species, and it was a mega-rare at that.  The bird was a juvenile White-winged Tern (Chlidonias leucopterus). This Eurasian species breeds from southeast Europe to Central Asia also in the Russian Far East, but winters in southern and central Africa, and from India to northern Australia.  White-winged Terns though rare, are no strangers to the island.  I saw my first in 2013 at the Woodbourne shorebird Refuge (WSR), but there were other sightings in 2015 and 2019.  I am hoping to add at least one more bird to the list in November. Let’s see how that goes.

Counting Chickens Before They're Hatch

Common Gallinule nest and eggs 

"Don’t count your chickens before they're hatched" That is what my wife said to me at the end of last month, when I was celebrating needing just four birds in two months to reach my Big Year goal of 110 species.  Even though I knew she was correct, kinda - you see when it comes to birds so late in the year, new ones are difficult to find but not impossible. I was on a high, with three months with 6 or more species continuously, this challenge I thought, would be over this month.  It is now the ^15th, half of the month and so far I have not added any new birds to my tally, so I am looking at four birds in a month and a half.  Och! that is tight, but I am not panicking just yet, with  ducks starting to arrive, plus the strange weather we are having, I am sure that new birds are on the wing, I can feel it in my bones – so there are still chickens to hatch so I am still counting.    

Big Year Update: October

I can see the finishing line for one of my challenges but the other one is way off the pace.  The one which looks promising is my Big Year Challenge. For the third consecutive month, I’ve logged six or more species. For October I recorded 7 yearbirds - Buff-breasted Sandpiper (Calidris subruficollis), Black Tern (Chlidonias niger), Yellow-billed Cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus), Hudsonian Godwit (Limosa haemastica), Bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus), Bank Swallow (Riparia riparia), and Green-winged Teal (Anas crecca) closing the month at 106, just 4 species adrift of my goal of 110.  I wish I could have said the same about the Photographic Big Year, but not having a working DSLR is affecting this challenge, even so i added 10 images, which you can see below. The goal for November is to finish up the Big Year, while adding at least 15 images to the Photo Big Year challenge. 

Here are the Photo Big Year addition for October

63. Red Knot (Calidris canutus)

64. Buff-breasted Sandpiper 
(Calidris subruficollis)

65. Semipalmated Plover 

(Charadrius semipalmatus)

66. Yellow-billed Cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus)

67. Whimbrel (Numenius phaeopus)

68. Common Tern (Sterna hirundo)

69. Bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus)

70. American Redstart (Setophaga ruticilla)

71. Prothonotary Warbler (Protonotaria citrea)

72.  Masked Duck (Nomonyx dominicus)