Jordan 200, species 1-21

No, I have not revived the "Wolf Brothers 200 lbs." challenge from a few years ago. David and I just couldn't consume enough calories to overcome our metabolisms, so the idea is dead. Jordan 200 is a far more manageable endeavor, based not on food, but on birds. Last year, I started an account on ebird.org to submit my birding observations for scientific use. A nifty feature of the website is that it keeps track of what, where, when, and how many birds I've seen. In 2009, minus the 13 or so species I saw in Paris, I saw 123 species of birds in the United States. This includes mostly observations in New York, with short trips to Massachusetts, Vermont, New Jersey, and Virginia. The list began with observations in April, and ran through the Christmas Bird Count in Smithtown on 27 December. September was the only month with no observations, largely owing to the fact I was recovering from shoulder-reconstruction surgery.

My goal in 2010 is to observe 200 unique species of birds. This can include species I have seen before, so this is not a goal to increase my life list by 100% or so. I've never really kept track of my annual sightings, so I figured this was a good start. To me, it is a manageable goal that will hopefully get me out of the house more often and looking through the lenses of my spotting scope and binoculars. My goal is to keep the record of what I see in ebird, and export it here for observation by whoever might want to read about it. Since ebird has no easy link-in feature, I'm probably going to experiment with a couple of methods of posting. First, I'm just going to try cutting and pasting the exported table that I've formatted in Excel.

Today I inaugurated the drive by knocking out about 10% of the goal at a very quiet Jamaica Bay. Fittingly, I spent part of the time birding with two Irishmen I ran into who were layed-over in New York on their way back home from a month-long, 550 species birding trip to Columbia. While my goal for the year pales in comparison, its fitting I should encounter that kind of dedication to the hobby on the first day out. None of what I saw today were new to me though.

The list:

Row #	Species	Count	Location
1	American Black Duck	10	Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge--West Pond
2	American Crow	1	Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge--East Pond
3	American Robin	12	Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge--West Pond
4	American Tree Sparrow	2	Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge--West Pond
5	American Wigeon	10	Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge--East Pond
6	Barn Owl	1	Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge--East Pond
7	Brant	200	Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge--West Pond
8	Bufflehead	40	Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge--West Pond
9	Canada Goose	10	Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge--West Pond
10	Carolina Wren	2	Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge--West Pond
11	European Starling	150	Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge--West Pond
12	Gadwall	2	Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge--East Pond
13	Great Black-backed Gull	2	Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge--West Pond
14	Herring Gull	50	Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge--West Pond
15	Hooded Merganser	12	Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge--East Pond
16	Mallard	5	Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge--West Pond
17	Mute Swan	1	Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge--East Pond
18	Northern Pintail	2	Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge--East Pond
19	Northern Shoveler	40	Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge--East Pond
20	Ring-billed Gull	30	Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge--West Pond
21	Snow Goose	1	Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge--East Pond

Keep coming back to see how I'm doing!