Hi Tweeters & Inland NW Birders
An updated version of the 2020 County Yearlist Project is up and available at Washington Birder. We've updated all 39 counties as of the mid-way point in the year. Thanks to everyone who has contributed by sending county compilers their sightings &/or posting on eBird.
At the mid-year point, as summer gets into full swing, this is a decent time to compare totals with previous years. It is always fun to pull together the data and see how the year looks in the aggregate - Overall, given the big disruptions to all our patterns in this covid era, I'm pretty surprised at how 'normal' the results are looking in this aggregation…..
22 counties have reported higher species counts this year compared with last year. 16 have lower totals this year, and 1 county (Stevens) has exactly the same mid-year total as last year.
23 counties have totals within ten of last year's total, as with previous years. That's fewer than has been usual in most years. I take this measure as a sign of whether there is stability in figuring out what the first half of the year looks like. It appears we've got more outliers than usual this year.
Statewide, the total of 358 is two lower than this time last year, and tied for the lowest mid-way total we've seen in 9 years. Western Washington is running 1 above last year and Eastern Washington is 3 higher than this time in 2019.
Here's a side-by-side comparison with mid-way totals for the past 8 years:
Year 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012
Washington State 358 360 367 362 364 369 358 369 370
Western Washington 328 327 330 320 323 334 320 325 334
Eastern Washington 301 298 304 299 302 301 299 308 29
Over half of the species seen last year by this point but missing on this year's list can be tied directly to the lack of pelagic trips until very recently - There just aren't multiple options to pick up those species as is the case with so many others. What's interesting is that this doesn't seem to be reflected in the Western WA total - Maybe we made up for the lack of pelagic species with a lot more birding close to home in western WA, where the bulk of the birders live?
56 species have been seen in all 39 counties by this point;. This was very similar to last year's tally of 55 '39ers' by this point -
152 species have been seen in 30 or more counties -; those would be our most widespread Washington regulars, and even in a covid era, they are being found widely -;
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 2020 county yearlist & the list of county compilers contact info:
http://www.wabirder.com/county_yearlist.html <
http://www.wabirder.com/county_yearlist.html>
Thanks to all the compilers and all those pitching in to sketch a picture of another year's birds in WA. Stay safe everyone,
Matt Bartels
Seattle, WA
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