No one is going to care about this post but me, so here we go! My American Birding Association (ABA) Life List, that is, all the birds I've seen in Canada & the mainland U.S.A., which was at 609 a month ago. I keep my list in Birder's Life List & Diary, a Cornell University publication. It's now out of print. Anywhoo, I've happily pencil listed bird after bird in the Diary for ages. I gave the list a good look a month ago, and realized I double entered a couple of birds. I put the list on an Excel file and happily there are no other double dipped birdies. Whew! End result: my ABA life list is actually 606, not 609. Is that math right? Uh... give me a sec...While I was list cleaning, I decided to honor the fussy Virgo in me; I removed two 'heard only' birds from my list. Mind, while it's perfectly acceptable to put 'hear only' birds on a life list, I've not been comfortable with the concept. So, despite the fact those are a pair of perfectly countable birds, I'm holding off on counting them until I have the joy of seeing and hopefully photographing the little buggers. So, gone from my life list is a Black-billed Cuckoo (MI) and a Mexican Whippoorwill (CA).
My new ABA Life List total count is *heavy, despondent sigh*, 606. I get an extra tic because the Sage Sparrow was recently split into two species - the Bell's and Sagebrush Sparrows- and I've seen both. Might have to look at the math again, I'm kind of slow.Pardon me. I have to go hug my binoculars and weep onto my Sibleys for a bit.
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