As I enter my age-33 naturalism season,* I find myself seeking new challenges to keep me on my toes. One of those is to continue the improvement and expansion of my butterfly garden. Another is to keep the momentum going on this blog. Most of the rest are general, like “continue to learn about nature” and “ride my bike more.” So far there is only one challenge for the coming year that I’ve put a number on, and that is birding.

I was at my in-laws’ home to celebrate the New Year, and I couldn’t help but sit and watch their feeders for big chunks of each day. The common feeder birds there aren’t all that different from those here, but they had this chair in the window and I didn’t have any pressing tasks to accomplish, so I indulged. I was also able to work in some nature walks and talk the family into joining me for some of them. I suppose in winter on Cape Cod it is all about the birds. In addition to the backyard birds I saw an abundance of interesting waterfowl at the Cape Cod Canal. The abundance and diversity inspired me to formulate a personal challenge; in 2017 I want to document more species of birds than I have confirmed in my life prior to 2017.

An enormous flock of common eiders at one end of the Cape Cod Canal. This was the largest of four or five flocks we saw.

That probably sounds like a lofty goal, but it’s no Big Year. I am still learning to distinguish many types of birds, so it’s certain that I don’t have confirmed sightings of many of the birds I have actually seen. As of 12/31/16 my lifetime list stood at 160 species, setting my challenge bar at 161. By contrast, North American birders’ Big Years go well over 500 species (and the top ten are all over 700). So my goal is a Modest Year by expert standards which just happens to be a big one for me.

I think the target is attainable. I reached 33 species over the first five days of the year, and I really only had free daylight hours in which to look on two of those days. More significantly, three of those species were new to my lifetime list. The real challenge is going to be finding enough new-to-me species to make up for those I’ve recorded before but have virtually no chance of finding this year. There are another 30-50 no-doubters which I will see just by virtue of spending time outside in Eastern North America, and frankly the vast majority of the 160 pre-2017 species are relatively common birds. After logging only duplicates yesterday, this morning before even leaving my home I saw 18 total species, checking off 5 more for the year. A short walk in late afternoon added 4 more for the day, two of which were new for the year. That puts me at 25% of my goal with 2% of time expended. The redhead I saw in Wheaton Regional Park’s Pine Lake was another addition to my lifetime list.

Me from a few years ago would find it odd that birding is such a focus for me in 2017; as recently as 2011 or so I’d say that birds (especially the everyday birds of suburbia) were of little interest to me in comparison to other wildlife. That’s not to say I didn’t like birds, but they were a lower priority to me for some reason. I think it was partly a surrender after struggling to ID them in the field. Then I got the Sibley Guide to Birds, discovered the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s “All About Birds” website (and later, their app) and got a good pair of binoculars. Trips to the Everglades and Costa Rica didn’t hurt, either.

Now that I’ve spent a few years studying the birds I see with a careful eye (and ear) some things which seemed hopelessly murky are much clearer to me. Small, drab birds used to all look alike to me, but now it only takes a couple of seconds to pick out a house sparrow, white-throated sparrow, song sparrow, dark-eyed junco, house finch, or winter-plumage American goldfinch. Birdsong also once sounded to me like a complicated mishmash of high-pitched squeals, but I can reliably identify many common species by ear these days.

left bird: American goldfinch showing winter plumage right bird: male house sparrow

female house sparrow

dark-eyed junco

Note the head stripes and white throats on the leftmost and rightmost birds (white-throated sparrows)

I’ll wrap this up with my 2017 list so far (in order of first sighting).First-time sightings in bold.

1. white-breasted nuthatch
2. black-capped chickadee
3. northern cardinal
4. house sparrow
5. dark-eyed junco
6. tufted titmouse
7. American goldfinch
8. downy woodpecker
9. white-throated sparrow
10. song sparrow
11. red-bellied woodpecker
12. Carolina wren
13. American crow
14. mallard
15. Canada goose
16. hooded merganser
17. hairy woodpecker
18. common eider
19. ring-billed gull
20. bufflehead
21. red-breasted merganser
22. lesser black-backed gull
23. American black duck
24. great black-backed gull
25. common loon
26. surf scoter
27. white-winged scoter
28. mute swan
29. American wigeon
30. Carolina chickadee
31. European starling
32. rock dove
33. American robin
34. mourning dove
35. Eastern towhee
36. northern flicker
37. blue jay
38. northern mockingbird
39. redhead
40. house finch

*shout-out to all my sports nerd readers who get that joke, by which I am pretty sure I mean one dude.