Subject: [Tweeters] Updated cumulative county year list file available online
Date: May 20 14:42:58 2010
From: mattxyz at earthlink.net - mattxyz at earthlink.net


Hi Tweeters & Inland-NW-Birders -

An updated version of the 2010 county year list project is up at
Washington Birder. We've received updates from all 39 counties with
details through the end of April. Moving forward, county compilers,
especially for the underbirded counties, would appreciate receiving
reports of any birds seen in their counties. If you have the time,
compare your trip list from a county w/ the list to see if you can
offer any new year birds to the compiler. We all appreciate receiving
these reports.


As of the end of April, the state year list had just made it over 300
species, with 303 species seen. 19 counties have recorded over 150
species, 2 are over 200 species. The April 30 cut-off is a bit 'in
the middle' of the spring arrivals, so exact #s are a little
arbitrary -- by the end-of-June report, we should have pretty much
all the migrants accounted for.

By way of comparison w/ 2009:

17 counties doing better than they were at this point last year, 21
counties doing worse.
Western WA is 17 birds shy of where it was last year at this point!
Eastern WA is 3 birds shy of last year at this point.
Statewide, we are 21 birds lower than last year at this point.

At first, this struck me as a big gap - more than should be seen by
the normal variance of a few early/late spring arrivals. Then I
looked at what was different and realized that last year by this time
we'd already had more than one pelagic trip report -- that accounts
for most of the difference in species totals.


If you'd like to take a look at where things stand, the list and many
other interesting files are at the Washington Birder website:

<http://www.wabirder.com/>http://www.wabirder.com/


A direct link to the 2010 county yearlist & the list of county compilers is:


http://wabirder.com/bartel.html

Thanks to all the compilers and all those pitching in to sketch a
picture of another year's birds in WA.


Matt Bartels
Seattle, WA