First of the Year Birding Challenge: One Town. Three Hours. Fifty-two Species.

Birding may be described as one part science, one part art, and one part sport.  And on the first of the year, one of the many games of birding begins: the honor system-based competition among birders to see the most number of species in x region during y timeframe.  On this day, many birders begin their quest to find as many species as they can during the course of the year, month or day, whether that be within one's own backyard, county, state, country or even across the whole world!  

The combination of "games" birders can devise for themselves is nearly endless, and each year is different.  Some may do a "green" Big Year, counting only species they see while on foot or by bicycle.  Some may only count birds within their home patch, or birds they were also able to photograph.  Birders may do a Big Day of birding, a Big Year, or just challenge themselves to what they can find in an hour!  

Many birders are diligent list-keepers, carefully tallying up birds they've seen in various regions, keeping yard lists, county lists, world lists, and even couch lists (yes, that is the number of birds a birder has seen from his own couch!)  Perhaps the most commonly kept lists are those of birds identified within a birder's home county and state, and, for North American birders, within the American Birding Association's designated "area," which includes all of North America north of Mexico, and, amusingly, Hawaii.  And each year, it's fun to follow those intrepid and driven birders who are striving to break Big Year records!     

But on the first of the year, many sporting birders wipe the slate clean and begin afresh, starting over again on their annual "year list."  And what better way to start the new year than by a little friendly birding competition to see how many birds one can find on the first of January?  

Snowy Egret


And so, dawn on January first found me eagerly peering out the kitchen window through the dim, gray half-light in anticipation of my first bird of 2025.  Predictable candidates in our yard are American Crows, House Finches, Northern Mockingbirds, Mourning Doves, California Scrub-jays and White-crowned Sparrows.  But to my delight, the first discernable bird that popped out of the bushes was a beautiful Lincoln's Sparrow!  An excellent start to the new year!

Lincoln's Sparrow (photo taken later in the morning)


After breakfast, Eric and I headed out for our First of the Year Birding Challenge with a goal of finding fifty species.  In Central California in January, a good birder can easily get twice that number in a productive full-day of birding in good, varied habitats.  

But the catch for us was two-fold: We wanted to find fifty species in our own hometown (which has essentially no natural habitat left) and we only had about three hours in which to bird.

And so, in the words of one Sherlock Holmes, "The game is afoot!"

Hermit Thrush


After an exciting Red-breasted Nuthatch find during a few minutes of backyard birding (while taking the dog out), we headed to my favorite spot for nearby, in-town birding: our local CSU campus.  The small-ish university campus is landscaped with a mix of native and ornamental trees, lawns and patches of shrubbery that offer decent habitat.  A swath of California native plants planted along one edge of the campus is a good spot to look for more interesting species (i.e. those not found in the typical landscaped yard), like Hermit Thrush and Fox Sparrow.  We missed Fox Sparrows on January first, but did find an unexpected Spotted Towhee along with an abundance of White-crowned and Golden-crowned Sparrows, and quite a few Anna's Hummingbirds - all classic birds of California and the West!  Other regional specialties of the day included California Scrub-jays and endemic Yellow-billed Magpies. 

Male Anna's Hummingbird

Female Anna's Hummingbird (clearly not impressed by him...)

Familiar to birders across North America are ubiquitous Northern Mockingbirds, House Finches and American Goldfinches.  The university campus is an excellent place to find all of these common backyard birds and more, including Black Phoebes, American Robins, Dark-eyed Juncos and Yellow-rumped Warblers.  Along with highly vocal White-crowned Sparrows, the songs and calls of all of these birds contribute to the lovely winter soundscape of our town.

Northern Mockingbird

What makes the university campus especially attractive to birds is the diversity of ponds and water features dotted across the campus.  Snowy Egrets are fixtures along pond edges, along with the occasional stealthy Black-crowned Night-heron and Great Egret.  But as the campus is situated in the middle of a town, surrounded by agricultural fields and orchards with nary a river or natural waterway in sight, another common bird of North American ponds and streams, the Belted Kingfisher, is not at all common here.  Imagine my surprise and delight at hearing the distinct loud rattle call of a kingfisher, moments before this female bird flew in and perched across the pond from us!  This was undoubtedly our best bird of the day, and one that I had not planned on seeing here!

Female Belted Kingfisher

Canada Geese and Mallards are residents around the ponds, along with a few American Coots and Double-crested Cormorants, but during the winter, more interesting species often show up.  On this visit, we were happy to find three Cackling Geese, which look very similar to Canada Geese... but ever so small!

Cackling Geese

The ponds in town are also home to a motley crew of domestic waterfowl that have either escaped or been released here, and it can be fun to sort through the various white ducks and runner ducks and Muscovy ducks (all of which are usually quite friendly).  Very occasionally, something really remarkable turns up, like a dazzling male Mandarin Duck.  I am extremely embarrassed to admit that when I saw a flashy little male duck at the water's edge on January first, I actually passed by it, in my haste to get to the Cackling Geese, assuming it was another escaped or released [non-countable] Mandarin Duck.  Fortunately, I snapped a few photos of the duck as I passed, and when I looked at them later, was absolutely floored to realize that the flashy little bird I had seen was in fact a male Wood Duck - a truly staggering find in town!!  (Really, to get this good of a look at a Wood Duck, from this close, is pretty incredible no matter where you are!)

Male Wood Duck


The bare branches of winter make spotting birds in the treetops easier, and high in the ginkgos, we spotted Western Bluebirds, American Pipits, Cedar Waxwings, Lesser Goldfinches and Northern Flickers. 

Female Western Bluebird (wondering what we're up to)


While Western Bluebirds are residents in our area and will breed here come spring, American Pipits are winter visitors that spend the summer breeding season at high elevations in the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains, as well as high latitudes in the Arctic, where they nest on alpine and arctic tundra.  It's amazing to think that this little brown, often-overlooked bird, visiting my hometown, hatched and fledged from a nest perhaps hundreds or thousands of miles away, on some unknown wild and remote alpine fell field or boulder-strewn tundra.  Just amazing.

American Pipit

After tallying 44 species on the university campus, we made quick stops at three parks in town to pick up a few species I knew were likely to be found there.  One park, with its expanses of soggy lawn, is a favorite wintering site for a flock of Western Cattle Egrets, which we found roosting on the roof of the same house they have graced with their presence for the last five winters (at least).  Another park, with its large pond, is the best place in town for gulls, and during the last few winters, it has also become a popular hang out for a squadron of American White Pelicans.  This park is rubbish in terms of wildlife habitat (all scruffy lawn and ornamental trees, with no understory or regionally appropriate native plants to speak of), but interesting birds still turn up on the big pond regularly, especially in the winter.  And a Red-shouldered Hawk was calling from a perch above the gopher hole-pocked lawn, so I guess it's not too bad in terms of wildlife habitat after all.  

At the end of three hours, we had tallied up an impressive list of 52 species of birds, right in our own hometown.  And while many of those species were expected, a few were decidedly unexpected, exciting finds!  Our morning of town-birding really does prove that you just never know what might turn up!

Ring-billed Gulls (under-appreciated for their beauty, in my opinion)


Beside the fun of a few hours spent birding with my husband in our own hometown, what is the point of all this? 

Simply this: Nature is out there.  Birds are out there.  Not just drab, brown, boring birds, but beautiful, amazing, wonderful birds, with lovely songs and dazzling colors and interesting life histories.  And you don't have to travel great distances to find them!  I encourage you, wherever you are, to grab a pair of binoculars and take a look outside!  Even in the heart of the city or deep in the suburbs, you may be amazed at what you can find, right in your own backyard, at a nearby park, or in a scrap of overlooked habitat.

You'll never know until you look! 

Comments

Post a Comment

You Might Also Like:

Birds of the Desert: Residents & Spring Migrants

Image
Nearly everyone knows the desert as a barren, desolate land of extremes: high heat, low precipitation; little available food and water; prickly, spiny, unfriendly plants growing in a sea of rocks and sand as far as the eye can see.  But for those who stop and look closer, the desert reveals itself as the beautiful, incredible, mesmerizing place it truly is, teeming with unexpected life. Juvenile male Costa's Hummingbird visiting chuparosa blooms next to our campsite in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. I particularly love the desert in the spring, when the annual wildflowers, cacti, flowering trees and shrubs are all in bloom.  (I've experienced the desert in the searing 120 degree heat of summer, and the rainy, even snowy cold of winter... and spring wins every time!)  Eric and I just returned from a week in the Colorado desert, exploring the imperiled, accidental Salton Sea (more on that coming soon), the vital wetlands of the Sonny Bono Salton ...
Read more

All The Ducks!

Image
On a recent birding trip to Merced National Wildlife Refuge, I tallied up a list of sixteen different species of ducks.  Only a few more species, around twenty in total, are expected in the Central Valley of California's freshwater marshes during the winter, so I consider that to be an excellent day for ducks! North American ducks are broadly separated into two categories, largely based on their methods of foraging for food.   Dabbling ducks , also known as "puddle ducks," tend to frequent shallow water, where they are commonly seen tipping bottoms-up to feed on plant matter and invertebrates in the water and on the muddy bottom.  They are most at home in water, but walk easily on land as well, as their legs are positioned near the center of their bodies.  The wings of dabbling ducks are relatively large, which allows them to take off from the surface of the water, straight up into their air.  Dabbling ducks almost all nest on the ground, near water....
Read more

A Shorebird Primer: Godwits, Curlews, Willets and Whimbrels

Image
For those of us living in the Great Central Valley, autumn is the time to head to the coast.  Of course, there is no bad time to visit California's magnificent coastline.  But as the heat and haze of summer drag on in the Valley, the sea becomes increasingly tantalizing: September and the onset of autumn bring sunny weather and an abundance of migratory seabirds and shorebirds to our coast. A new birder visiting California's Central Coast will undoubtedly be met with a splendid array of very confusing birds.  Among these are small shorebirds like  "peeps" (sandpipers), Sanderlings and various  plovers .  But the larger birds can be just as confusing, until you learn a few distinguishing features.  Four large shorebirds that are commonly seen (and commonly confused) along California's Central Coast are Godwits, Curlews, Willets and Whimbrels. Marbled Godwit (upper left), Whimbrel (upper right), Long-billed Cu...
Read more

Joshua Tree Woodlands: A Tale of Sloths, Moths and the Trees that Need Them

Image
In 1844, early California explorer John C. Fremont gave a somewhat scathing review of Joshua trees when he wrote, "...their stiff and ungraceful form makes them to the traveler the most repulsive tree in the vegetable kingdom."  Rather unkind, don't you think?  But when Joshua trees were formally described by scientist William Trelease in the 1890's, he noted that Joshua Trees are "the most attractive of all the Yuccas."  I am inclined to agree with this sentiment, and must disagree most heartily with Lieutenant Fremont! I, for one, adore Joshua Trees, with their whimsical shapes and great ecological significance!  If you struggle with plant identification, the iconic Joshua tree, hallmark of the Mojave Desert, is a good place to start.  With densely spiked tufts protruding from the ends of gangly arms stretched towards the heavens, this looks like a plant straight from a Dr. Seuss book....
Read more

Birding in Adverse Weather Conditions: Wind and Rain

Image
Though I often extol the virtues and merits of winter in the Central Valley , especially when it comes to birding, the whole truth is that we experience "bad" weather also, just like anywhere else.  But even when the winter weather rolls in, the birds are still out there!  And sometimes, despite our best planning efforts, a birding day happens to coincide with crummy weather.   In that case, what's a birder to do?  Usually, we go birding anyway!   Birders far more intrepid than I regularly brave the ice and snow of northern winters to see their favorite birds, so perhaps you should look to them for real tips on winter birding!  For those of us in the valleys of California, the worst weather we see - wind and rain - is really comparatively mild.  Birding on an extremely windy day! I don't know of anyone who actually likes birding in the rain.  But I would argue that birding in the wind is just as aggravating as trying to bird in the rai...
Read more

Winter Gulls: The Great I.D. Challenge

Image
Gulls are a fun challenge for birders, from beginners to experts.  A few things make gulls an interesting study: they are large and conspicuous in their open habitats, so they are easy to see, easy to put a scope on, and easy to watch and study for long periods of time.  Furthermore, gulls are almost always identifiable as gulls; none of this confusing warbler/vireo/kinglet nonsense! And yet, gulls are almost impossibly difficult!  (Though perhaps not nearly as difficult as Empidonax flycatchers!) An intimidating scene to many a birder: a mixed flock of gulls.  I see five different species of gull here. Oh, and one American Coot in the background. One of the reasons they are so complicated is most gull species take two or three years to achieve adult plumage, and go through multiple molts in a year.  So, you may be looking at three or four gulls together that look like four completely different species, when they are actually just different ages (...
Read more