Posted by Bob Lefebvre
We have reached the halfway point in the eBird Calgary 2015 competition. May and June is the busiest time of the year for birding, and offers the best chance to add new species to your list. Some of the species totals that competition participants have recorded are very impressive. The Calgary area also continues to stand out for the number of eBird checklists submitted and the the number of different species reported.
The overall leader of the competition is Brian Elder, with 252 species within the competition circle so far in 2015. This is a really good total for July 1, and I think Brian has a good chance to beat the 2005 winning total of 265. Here is a link to Brian’s complete list as of June 24. He has since added Brewer’s Sparrow and Sedge Wren.
Here are the current standings (as of July 1) in the competition categories (top five shown).
Experienced:
Brian Elder 252
Ray Woods 230
Blake Weis 223
John Thompson 213
George Best 205
(Daniel Arndt-236 and Andrew Hart-211 are not eligible for prizes.)
Beginner:
Nicole Pellerin 206
Graeme Mudd 187
Aphtin Perratt 185
Christopher Naugler 183
Darlene Shymkiw 181
Youth:
Birdboy Canada (Ethan Denton) 174
Simone Pellerin-Wood 172
Aidan Vidal 148
Robin Naugler 48
Lucianna Lybbert 30
Yard List:
Phil Ulmann 68
John Anderson 43
Laurie Anderson 43
John Bargman 39
Judy Swan 34
(Bob Lefebvre-41 not eligible for prizes.)
The increase in eBird usage in the Calgary area is very impressive. So far in 2015, 18,984 checklists have been submitted to eBird in Alberta. Calgary county, which makes up the bulk of our competition circle (but is a very small part of the entire province) accounts for 8,372 of those, or 44%. A total of 314 species have been reported in Alberta on eBird this year, and the total for Calgary county is 281.
You’ll notice that even Brian’s impressive total of 252 is well short of the total number of species reported here so far, so there are always new birds to be found!
If you are not among the competition leaders, remember that there is plenty of time to catch up. It will be more difficult for the top birders to add new species as the year goes on, but if you missed a lot of species on spring migration, you can get them on the fall migration. If you haven’t been out birding much in the first half of the year, you can start start now to get out and build your list. The fall shorebird migration is already under way, and the warblers will start moving south through the area on about August 10th.
Dan Arndt, Rose Painter and I have led quite a few field trips for Nature Calgary in the last couple of months and found lots of great birds. We will continue to lead trips so please join us, or go on any of the other Nature Calgary birding outings. You can also join the Friends of Fish Creek Fall birding course, which begins August 31.
Even if you don’t have designs on finishing in the prizes, you can still set some personal goals for birding in 2015. At the start of the year I had two goals. From the time I started using eBird on January 1, 2012 until the end of 2014, I had recorded 230 species in the Calgary count circle, and my first goal was to reach that total just for 2015. (I’m at 202 so I have a chance!)
Secondly, I decided to submit at least one eBird checklist each day, as long as I was here in the count circle. So far so good on that one, as I have only missed three days in April when I was in Montana (I did several lists from there though!), and I have submitted a total of 363 eBird checklists in 2015. Does anyone else want to take up the challenge of submitting a checklist every day for the rest of the year?
I also hoped to add several life birds to my list and I have six so far.
So set some birding goals for the second half of the year and get out and see some birds!
Mountain Bluebird, Glenbow Ranch, May 17, 2015