[obol] Re: Goal met -- 200 species in every Oregon county
- From: Stefan Schlick <greenfant@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "paultsullivan@xxxxxxxxxxxx" <paultsullivan@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, OBOL <obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 23:38:45 -0400
Paul, congratulations on this great achievement! Nobody is even close in OR.
Has anyone else even reached 150 yet? Btw, the OR listing results are here:
http://www.orbirds.org/listing.html.
Just for reference, Tom Mansfield is about to crack the 200 barrier in WA any
day now (last I heard he was 1 short in Wahkiacum). A few folks in WA have
reached 175. The WA listing results can be found here:
http://www.wabirder.com/online.html
If you think you are nuts, Paul, look at CA. The county birder page with those
neat maps is here: http://www.sterlingbirds.com/county_birders.htm. John Luther
was at 232 by beginning of the year ...
County birding seems to be particular popular on the West Coast, largely since
there is a "manageable" number of counties. Look at TX for example, where there
are 254 counties. County birding from hell, I would say. Even for Paul ... :-)
Other states like AZ only have 15 counties. There it is probably less
interesting to take the 100-a-county challenge.
A few other states like MN (http://moumn.org/cgi-bin/countylist.pl?op=county)
and FL (http://www.flcountylisting.com/) also do it. There are likely many more
that I'm not aware. Maybe this is an appeal for Paul to do a write-up for
Oregon Birds. :-]
Stefan SchlickHillsboro, OR
From: paultsullivan@xxxxxxxxxxxx
To: obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; cobol@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx;
birding-neoregon-group@xxxxxxx
CC: carolk@xxxxxxxxxxx; tetongrant@xxxxxxxxx; anderson1948@xxxxxxx
Subject: [obol] Goal met -- 200 species in every Oregon county
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 18:56:41 -0700
In 1977, I noted Chestnut-backed Chickadees south of Florence on my first visit
to Oregon, hitchhiking down the coast. In 1979 I settled in Wallowa County
and, under the guidance of kindly Frank Conley, began birding. I found 100 new
species that year. I was encouraged to keep notes, and in 1980 I began
recording my daily sightings on 4” X 6” spiral notebooks. In 1985 I became
friends with Martha Sawyer in Douglas County and Barb & Jerry Bellin in Marion
County. I began to keep track of species by county. In 1988 I went back
through my old notebooks and extracted lists for all the Oregon Counties I’d
visited. In 1992 I reached the goal of seeing 200 species in each of Oregon’s 6
coastal counties. In 1994 Donna Lusthoff and I became the sixth and seventh
birders to tally 100 species in all 36 of Oregon’s counties. (There are now 16
people who have reached that goal. Carol Karlen did it in 2008.) In 1996 I
surpassed 125 species in all 36 counties; in 1997 I bumped that up to 150
species. In 2005 I reached 175 species in all 36 counties. No one else is
this crazy. ;-) In 2004 I went on a tear and tallied 100 species in all 36
counties in one year. In recent years I’ve nibbled away at the “under 200”
counties until it came down to Josephine County in 2014. I began the year at
188 species. As of last week I’d seen 198 species in the county. Two to go.
Then on Sept 25 Dennis Vroman found a Clay-colored Sparrow and Russ Namitz
found Pectoral Sandpiper and Blue-winged Teal in Josephine County. Carol & I
drove down Saturday. On Sunday we spent 4 hours (morning & evening) at the
location of the Clay-colored Sparrow with no luck. We visited Lake Selmac in
the middle of the day and scoured the mudflats. We found two BLUE-WINGED TEAL
(species #199). Back at our motel we got news the Russ had found a Pectoral
Sandpiper and a Lapland Longspur at Lake Selmac late in the afternoon. So early
on Monday morning we met Russ Namitz and Dennis Vroman at the SW corner of the
lake. After a little searching we found the PECTORAL SANDPIPER (species #200
in Josephine, species 7200 in the 36 counties). Phew!! GRINS ALL AROUND.
Thanks, Russ & Dennis. Thanks too, to Romain Cooper and Christie Dunn.
THANKS, Carol. Thanks to all the people along the way on this journey. We
didn’t add anything more in Josephine County on this trip, but we figured
Agency Lake was on the way home from Grants Pass, so we went that way and saw
the LITTLE GULL. (Klamath County bird #252) ;- ) Good birding, everyone, Paul
Sullivan P.S. Future plans? No, I’m not going for 225 in all the counties…
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