Soaring to New Heights

My 139th and final species for 2018,
the golden-crowned sparrow.

From an Anna's hummingbird on January 1 to a golden-crowned sparrow on December 27, 2018 took flight and became a record-shattering year of bird-watching for me.

Starting with the Anna's hummingbird bright and early on the first day, the year wasted no time earning its wings. By the end of the first day, I had 18 species sighted, and before February began, I had 37.

I flew past my previous best of 120, set in 2017, on August 7 and kept going. A final trip to the Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge on December 27 gave me 12 new species to end the year, putting me at a total of 139. The last of these birds, the golden-crowned sparrow, presented itself at the end of the day just before I reached the refuge parking lot. It seemed like a good punctuation mark for a great year.

The year featured 14 species I had never previously seen. These included the lesser scaup, the blue-winged teal, the field sparrow, the Lincoln's sparrow, the white-throated sparrow, the lark sparrow, the Harris's sparrow, the wood thrush, the hooded merganser, the ring-necked duck, the northern shoveler, the northern pintail, and the greater yellowlegs. One particularly spectacular life-list addition was the sandhill crane, which I blogged about seeing here.

Besides the new personal best and the life-list additions, I had another major highlight. During 11 days (May 4-14), I saw 43 species. That's almost four species per day and nearly one-third of my total for the whole year. It was such an exciting time. I just kept racking up the identifications, and when the run was over, I knew it would be a special year. At that point, I already had 107 species on my list, that new record close at hand.

Last year, my bird-watching reached new heights, and it's up, up, and away for 2019.