Michael Hobbs refers to putting his "thought into engineering a quality
bird" as FOY and suspects it's true for others. Indeed, me too. Since I'm
usually at home New Year's Day, I make sure I get up and out on the back
porch at very first light, before any of the otherwise usual local yard
passerines wake up, just to quickly nab the Anna's Hummingbird before the first
Song Sparrow 'chirps' or American Crow 'caws'. For maybe ten years
consecutively now, FOY every January 1 has been Anna's Hummingbird. Every single
day throughout the year, Anna's Hummingbird is always without fail the very
first bird to arrive in the morning and the very last bird to leave in the
evening, so #1 FOY is always easy to predict.

Also, night before (New Year's Eve), I actually write down my predicted
first ten 2012 FOYs, then next morning, see how it plays out. Most years I'm
pretty close but never quite perfect ten for ten. 2012 was no different
and as usual, done quite casually, no great drive or urgency. Here's my
2012 predicted first ten / what actually showed up.

01 - Anna's Hummingbird / Anna's Hummingbird
02 - Song Sparrow / Song Sparrow
03 - American Crow / American Crow
04 - Spotted Towhee / Dark-eyed Junco
05 - Varied Thrush / Varied Thrush
06 - Dark-eyed Junco / Spotted Towhee
07 - Red-breasted Nuthatch / Black-capped Chickadee
08 - Black-capped Chickadee / Chestnut-backed Chickadee
09 - Chestnut-backed Chickadee / Red-breasted Nuthatch
10 - Steller's Jay / Bewick's Wren

After the first hour of daylight and ten birds later, the rest of the year
is all down hill, blessedly minus any further urge to go chasing about
other than the occasional birding jaunt as seems appropriate to mood and
inclination. No big years or anything like that. I've learned decades ago to
nip that baby in the bud right off the bat, otherwise, once it starts, you
let things slip, lose any sense of self control, and there's no stopping it.
And then, a year later, there's that nice list I guess, bragging rights
(a weird concept to me), but as experience has taught me, mucho $$$ and
carbon footprints later, the bigger guilt ridden questions, "Why?" and "What
exactly did I just accomplish?"

Richard Rowlett
Bellevue (Eastgate), WA