2020 Yardbirding review

 It hit me that while I did do a Facebook post about my 2020 yardbirding, I never did a review post up for the blog. So here goes nothing.

Since my last yardbirding post on November 10th, I added a grand total of 0 birds. It’s not like I stopped trying either, I was out most days watching the sky.. it was just quiet. This is fairly typical for Bruce in late fall/early winter though, birds in general are few and far between, especially in the forests. 

What was the highlight of the year you may ask? Honestly, just birding the yard was the highlight, over any of my cool sightings. It was fun being in one spot and experiencing the day-to-day changes in avian diversity, getting an intimate view of bird migration over the course of a year. I’m very fortunate to live in place where it was possible to do that, to "press pause" during the pandemic, while continuing to experience epic bird migration.  In the past I was all over the place in May, so I had brief glimpses of the birds that occur in my yard, but I was missing the whole picture. In the past morning flight seemed random at my place, decent some days with good numbers, but other days completely absent of birds. Over the year I learned a lot about which conditions were conducive to flights in my area (morning flight and hawkwatching), which I’ll likely write about in a separate post sometime soon. Yes, I definitely found less birds than I would have if I’d been birding elsewhere, but it was an enjoyable experience and a nice change of pace. 

Since my dad also had more free time during the spring/summer, we decided to tackle a project that we had talked about for years.. an observation tower. We started in July, cutting trees from our  property and buying some supplies. It took a lot of work, but 5 weeks later it was complete. Standing 16ft (so over 20ft if I was standing on top) above the ground, this gave me an eye level view of songbirds foraging in the forest canopy and gave me a better view of birds flying overhead. 

My observation tower. I spent countless hours up there in 2020.

Another big highlight was witnessing the massive finch flight during the fall. I had multiple days with counts in the hundreds for Purple Finch, Pine Siskin, Evening Grosbeak and Common Redpoll. Smaller groups of the less common finches passed over too, but it was the overwhelming numbers that made it spectacular.

- Pine Siskins

- Evening Grosbeaks

So.. what was my final number? On eBird it shows up as 179, which, for all intents and purposes was my final tally. 

The one thing that could change that is a bird that I saw back in August.. a dreaded "peep sp". I was out in the yard one warm August day doing some chores and was without my binoculars (the horror), when I spotted a small shorebird flying overhead. It was fairly close, so I was able to see that it was a Calidris sandpiper, but it was silent and I couldn’t make out any useful details. It felt like one of the larger Calidris to me and my best guess is pectoral, which would have been an awesome yardbird. Anyway, I digress. According to ABA listing rules, if you see an unidentified jaeger during the year, but don’t see any of the three jaeger species again that year, you can count "Jaeger sp" on your yearlist and add a bird. 

Sooo, since that was my only "peep" of the year, it seems fair that I count it on my yearlist for a grand total of 180 species.. 

Some of you may recall the goal I made last spring, but I’ll paste it below anyway.

" I am participating in a few challenges for yard/patch birding already, so I decided I\"m going to attempt a yard/5MR big year. For now anyway, this will be much easier to accomplish than my seemingly annual Bruce Big Year. My goal is to tie or pass my current all time yard/5MR lists, which sit at 171 and 210 respectively.. before next year (2021)."

When I wrote that I wasn’t honestly expecting to beat my goal, predicting I would end up around 160 species. I’m thrilled with my 180, I feel like that number could have been much higher. With the right year and a bit of luck 200 seems attainable. I missed some surprising stuff in 2020, including;

Cackling Goose

Blue-winged teal

The whole diving duck group (scaup, scoters.. LTDU)

Green Heron (my yard nemesis)

Literally any non Tringa shorebird

Willow Flycatcher

Alder Flycatcher

Grey-cheecked Thrush

Blue-winged Warbler

Clay-colored Sparrow

The are a few more unlikely possibilities that come to mind, but those were the worst misses.

Now for the highlights (by date):

Gyrfalcon (Jan 22) - 2nd yard record and one of my favorite birds of the year

Boreal Owl (Feb 18) - A full out lifer for me, found roosting beside my driveway

Northern Goshawk (Mar 6) - Always a highlight, I had a total of 11 Goshawks in 2020

Great Black-backed Gull (Mar 29) - Yard lifer

American Wigeon (Apr 6) - 2nd yard record

Gadwall (Apr 6) - Yard lifer 

Northern Pintail (Apr 28) - 4th yard record

Eastern Meadowlark (Apr 30) - 4th yard record. I ended up seeing them on 3 days.. all morning flight

Caspian Tern (May 2) - 2nd yard record

Northern Rough-winged Swallow (May 5) - Yard lifer

Orchard Oriole (May 13) - Yard lifer

Red-headed Woodpecker (May 14) - 2nd yard record

Savannah Sparrow (May 14) - 2nd yard record

Vesper Sparrow (May 16) - 2nd yard record

Cliff Swallow (May 16) - Yard lifer

Yellow-throated Vireo (May 17) - Yard lifer

Virginia Rail (May 19) - Yard lifer.. One of the biggest surprises of the year.

Golden-winged Warbler (May 20) - yard lifer. Singing bird in morning flight

Chimney Swift (May 21) - Yard lifer

Mississippi Kite (May 21) - My rarest bird of the year and a lifer. Seen on my yard Big Sit.

Northern Waterthrush (May 21) - Yard lifer. bird picked out in Morning flight

Field Sparrow (May 23) - 2nd yard record

Purple Martin (May 28) - Yard lifer

Black-crowned Night-heron (Jun 28) - 3rd yard record

Solitary Sandpiper (Aug 13) - 2nd yard lifer

Yellow-billed Cuckoo (Aug 14) - Yard lifer

Snow Goose (Sep 23) - 2nd yard lifer

Northern Shrike (Oct 20) - 8th yard record.. Just a cool bird

Northern Saw-whet Owl (Oct 20) - 4th yard record

Ross’s Goose (Oct 24) - Yard lifer

Bohemian Waxwing (Oct 27) - 3rd yard lifer

Golden Eagle (Oct 30) - 12th yard record.. Just a cool bird

House Finch (Nov 10) - yard lifer

Hoary Redpoll (Nov 10) - 4th yard record

And those were my best yardbirds of 2020! I wanted to include more, but I had to draw the line somewhere. Some photos of my highlight birds below.. in no real order..

I love watching weather, so I’ll include some cool shots from 2020.

A nice November sunset from the yard to end the post