Hi Tweeters & Inland-NW-Birders -

An updated version of the 2012 county year list project is up at Washington Birder. We've received updates from almost all the counties with details through the end of February. County compilers, especially for the underbirded counties, would appreciate receiving reports of any birds seen in their counties.

The posted version of the list only covers results through the beginning of March -- at this point, many counties are over 100 species with many/most of the winter species found. Now comes the big spring influx that will keep things interesting.

As of the end of February 256 species had been reported across the state, 228 species in western WA and 188 in eastern WA. I did a quick comparison of the list at this point with the same list from last year -- Surprisingly, because of the randomness of the cut-off date, we've got exactly the same total species count for both Washington as a whole and for Western WA as we had last year at this point. Eastern WA is behind it's 2011 pace by 4 species, but overall things are remarkably similar to last year at this stage.

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/


A direct link to the 2012 county yearlist & the list of county compilers, including a growing number of direct links to individual county year lists with more details and more frequent updates:


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