Hi Tweeters & Inland-NW Birders-
I just wanted to pass along word that I've updated the Washington
County-by-county checklist/abundance excel file, based on the Fall
2004 issue of Washington Birder.

If you are looking for a quick reference for how common a given
species is in any county, this excel file can be handy. Further, if
you are interested in keeping track of your county lists, this file
might be helpful.

Changes: Based on the Summer & Fall 2004 issues of Washington
Birder, I've included the new 'county firsts' and revised the
Klickitat & Jefferson County lists. Furthermore, the recent flurry
of additions to the Washington State list, from the split of the
Canada Goose, to the Common Eider, Black-tailed Gull & Little Stint
are now included in this version. In addition, I've revised the
various names to reflect the AOU's 45th supplement to the checklist.
Finally, the AOU has slightly revised the taxonomic order and one of
the list's sorting options reflects the new reordering.

The excel file can be found at:
<http://www.wos.org/CountyList.htm>www.wos.org/CountyList.htm (thanks
WOS & Michael Hobbs for hosting).

Finally, for anyone already using the old file who wants instructions
on how to transfer your information from that one to this new one,
read on (for everyone else, I'd suggest skipping the rest of this
message or risking extreme-glazed-eye syndrome):

Short version: Use the "Old AOU order" to sort your old file. Add
blank lines where new species will be inserted. Copy color-coded
cells portion of old file, and paste "values" only into the new file
[using paste-special].

Longer Step-by-step Explanation:

1. Download newest file from webpage [save under a different name
than your own file]

2. Open both the new file and your old one.

3. Make sure old and new files are sorted according to column C
"older AOU ordering." To do this, select the entire file and click
'sort' from the 'Data' menu. Check the box for Header Row, then
select 'older AOU order' in the top box, with the default setting of
Ascending selected.

4. On your[old] file, insert a blank row where the 4 new state
species have been added. For example, to make space for Cackling
Goose, insert a row beneath Ross's Goose; for Common Eider, insert a
row beneath King Eider; for Little Stint, insert a row beneath
Western Sandpiper, and for Black-tailed Gull, insert a row beneath
Heerman's Gull.

5. On your [old] file, highlight all of the cells that have the color
coding in them and press control-C to copy this section. In the
present file (once you've added the blank rows for the new state
species) this would be all the cells from E4 to AR487.

6. Click on the E4 box of the new file, and then choose 'paste
special' from the edit menu. In the dialogue box that opens, select
'values' under the paste section [instead of 'all']. It is important
to paste only the values -- otherwise you will bring over all the old
color codes too!

7. All your data should be pasted into the new file. Do some double
checking to ensure the formulas are adding up to the same numbers
they did in the old file. Also check to be sure you haven't brought
over the old color codes [check a county first like the Jefferson Co.
Laughing Gull].

That should do it. Thanks again to the Knittle's for making this data
available in Washington Birder, and thanks to those who have sent
questions, comments or suggestions.


Matt Bartels
Seattle, WA
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