Subject: [Tweeters] Re: Washington milestone... almost
Date: Sep 8 18:42:08 2010
From: Jon Leland - jon_leland at yahoo.com


What about the recent Pacific/Winter Wren split???Are there any?data/records on
Winter Wren in WA??

Jon Leland
Seattle, WA

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Message: 1
Date: Mon, 6 Sep 2010 12:08:43 -0700
From: Hal Opperman <hal at catharus.net>
Subject: [Tweeters] Washington milestone... almost
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Message-ID: <66CC3F94-80FE-4325-A9C3-3C7C15BE4F03 at catharus.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Hi Tweeters,

The last page of the Introduction of the ABA Birder's Guide to Washington,
published in 2003, confidently set forth a prediction "that the state list will
break the 500 barrier before the current decade is up in 2010."

At the time of publication the list stood at 478 species. Since then one species
has been lost to a lump (Black-backed Wagtail into White Wagtail), but gained
back by a split (Cackling Goose from Canada Goose). So the prediction --
unchanged -- was that 22 or more new species would be found in the state by the
end of 2010.

The underpinning for the prediction was the assumption that the rate of
discovery of new species would remain the same as it had been over the preceding
three decades, averaging 10 species every three years. However, as the months
crept by in this final year 2010 it began to seem that the rate had slowed, and
the prediction was foolhardy.

Until the last couple of weeks. The Lesser Sand-Plover found by Bob Sundstrom at
Ocean Shores, and the Canada Warbler discovered at Burbank yesterday by the
Dennys, were the 498th and 499th species for Washington (if these records are
accepted by the WBRC, and if I have counted correctly).

For those who may care, here are the 21 WBRC-endorsed species added since the
ABA Guide came out: Whooper Swan, Baikal Teal, Common Eider, Ashy Storm-Petrel,
Glossy Ibis, Crested Caracara (retrospectively), Lesser Sand-Plover, Common
Ringed-Plover, Red-necked Stint, Little Stint, Temminck's Stint, Black-tailed
Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, Variegated Flycatcher,
Bell's Vireo, Northern Wheatear, Redwing, Canada Warbler, Smith's Longspur,
Scarlet Tanager.

Congratulations to all the birders searching out there who brought the list to
within spitting distance of the 500 milestone. Not quite four months remain to
scare up just one more new species, thereby demonstrating that statistics don't
lie, after all, and that the prediction was not totally overconfident.

Hal Opperman
Medina, WA
hal at catharus.net