2015 Backyard Big Year--End of August Update

After a month of travel in Mexico and out to Utah, it was hard to get back in the Backyard Big Year saddle.  Hard to get excited about hardcore birding in 2.7 acres when there is the whole rest of the world to explore (and Noah Strycker is off doing that right now--thou shalt not covet, thou shalt not covet!).  Hard when your species count is behind where you had hoped to be at this point.  Hard when it's still over 80 degrees outside.

But jumping back in the last two weeks, the migrants are starting to come through and new birds are showing up regularly.  So it's getting fun again.

I'm currently at 143 yard birds for the year.  eBird has me at 133 species--that's missing the 10 species so far recorded only by my OldBird21c microphone.  That's several dozen birds down from where I had hoped to be at this point in the game, but I've still to review most of my night recordings from the spring, so hard to know where I'm really at.  Time to spend more time reviewing recordings!

North American eBird yard standings at the end of August

New birds for August include Yellow-bellied Flycatcher (Code 3), Warbling Vireo, Blackburnian Warbler, and Bobolink.  Lots of bird activity in the yard these last few mornings, with Scarlet Tanagers and Baltimore Orioles feasting on my wild grapes.

My photo big year seems to be off the rails at this point.  It's just super hard to get photos of flitting warblers with my Nikon Coolpix P500.  I need to go through my photos to see how many I actually have now and update the list, but my original goal of 150 seems...well, difficult!

Now that kids are back in school I can get some time to review recordings.  By the end of September I should have a much better handle on where I'm at with that--plus another month of migration recording done to hopefully boost the list.

So stay tuned.  I'm coming from behind, but plan to have a great fall!

More on what birds I'm still missing at my Backyard Big Year blog.