Month: December 2019

Decade’s End

Hello friends! I’m here writing you at 8:50 pm on 12/31/19, the end of the year and the decade. I can’t believe 2020 is already upon us. 2019 was a very exciting birding year for us and 2020 is going to be just as, if not more, amazing! My New Year’s Resolution is to get back to blogging frequently again because to be honest, 2019 was a little rough to stay on task. At the end of June Dave and I moved from New Jersey to New Hampshire and its been quite an adventure. Here are BirdNation’s 2019 highlights.

Life List Birds (19 for me, 17 for Dave)

Pacific Loon (Image by David Horowitz)
  • Pine Siskin: 2/10 at Cloverdale Farm County Park, Barnegat, NJ (Dave was not here for this lifer, it was a lifer for my mom and sister though)
  • Red-breasted Nuthatch: 2/17 at Cloverdale Farm County Park, Barnegat, NJ
Red-breasted Nuthatch (Image by BirdNation)
  • Northern Saw-whet Owl: 3/1 at undisclosed location
Northern Saw-whet Owl (Image by David Horowitz)
  • Winter Wren: 3/1 at Palmyra Cove Nature Park, NJ
  • American Woodcock: 3/13 at Rancocas Nature Center, Westampton, NJ
  • Yellow-throated Warbler: 4/26 at Flag Ponds Nature Park, Lusby, MD
  • Red-headed Woodpecker: 4/27 at Calvert Cliffs SP, Lusby, MD
  • Prothonotary Warbler: 4/27 at Battle Creek Cypress Swamp, Prince Frederick, MD
Prothonotary Warbler (Image by David Horowitz)
  • Scarlet Tanager: 5/8 at Maria B. Greenwald Park, Cherry Hill, NJ
  • Eastern Meadowlark: 6/19 at Chincoteague NWR, VA
Eastern Meadowlark (Image by David Horowitz)
  • Bobolink: 7/28 at Parker River NWR, Newbury, MA
  • Common Nighthawk: 8/30 at Moores Crossing Railroad Bridge, Manchester, NH
  • Nashville Warbler: 9/1 at Miller SP-Pack Monadnock, Peterborough, NH
  • Black Guillemot: 11/10 at Odiorne SP, Rye, NH
  • American Tree Sparrow: 12/15 at Concord, NH (Dave wasn’t there for this one either, I saw this in the Concord Christmas Bird Count)
  • Virginia Rail: 12/26 at Edwin B. Forsythe NWR

My current life list total is 227.

Year List 2019

This is the 2nd year I kept a Year List. 2019’s total was 189, 14 more birds than 2018 (175). The Year List will continue into 2020.

Bird Counts

We participated in many bird counts this year:

  • Great Backyard Bird Count: We counted at Amico Island , Haddon Lake Park, Palmyra Cove, Barnegat Lighthouse SP, Cloverdale Farm, and then Haddon Lake again (lol) to find 52 different species and over 1,500 individual birds
  • Global Big Day (May 4): 55 species (11 of them warblers) between Rancocas Nature Center and Palmyra Cove
  • 2019 Great American Arctic Birding Challenge (March 15-June 1): It was Team BirdNation’s 2nd year participating and we saw 56 species
  • October Big Day (October 19): 20 species in Cape Cod, MA
  • Concord Christmas Bird Count (December 15): I participated in the Concord CBC. Last year I did the Moorestown, NJ count with my friends from Rancocas, but I wanted to start getting involved in the New Hampshire birding community. I had a blast being on the team and we totaled 51 species at the time (not including a count we were waiting on from 1 person and count week birds).

Birding States

We went birding in 2 new states in 2019: New Hampshire (where we moved to) and Maine, bringing our total to 11 birding states. Other states we visited this year were Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

Onward to 2020…

I’m so excited to start our birding adventures in 2020! There are some pretty cool opportunities coming up, so I will keep you posted on all our new expeditions (and I will catch you up on some of the events of the past few months.) Happy New Year! See you in 2020!