Hi Tweets -
I wanted to pass along word of a birding resource recently put on-line.
I've put together an excel file that compiles all the
county-by-county abundance levels for the birds of Washington.
If you are interested in knowing how likely a species is in any
county, you can look it up on this chart. Every county is represented
by a column, with West and East Washington counties grouped together.
By using the color-code key in the upper left corner, you can find
out if a given species expected to be anything from abundant to rare
or even extirpated. The chart doesn't give seasonal information,
though, so you'll have to check with other sources for that info.

For those interested in a way to track county lists, the file was
created primarely to function as a check-list that will automatically
sum up your county totals, state totals, and East/West Washington
totals. It also keeps track of how many counties [statewide, east and
west] you've seen each species in.

All the birds recorded in Washington are included, and you can opt to
have the list sorted by either the 'old' or the 'new' AOU taxonomic
order.

The data is all taken [with gracious permission] from the work done
in Washington Birder -- I'd highly recommend this quarterly
newsletter to any one interested in learning about new destinations
and other Washington-related birding topics. Subscriptions cost $11
for 4 issues and information is available by emailing
washingtonbirder at hotmail.com. [Usual disclaimers apply: Other than an
article about this excel file, I'm just a happy subscriber]

The excel file should work for both PC and Mac's, and can be
downloaded at the following web-site:
<http://www.wos.org/CountyList.htm>www.wos.org/CountyList.htm [Thanks
Michael Hobbs & WOS for hosting this].

I'd appreciate any questions, corrections &/or suggestions for
improvements if you do check it out. As updated county lists are
published in Washington Birder, I plan to update the excel file to
reflect changes.

Best,

Matt Bartels
Seattle, WA

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