[TN-Bird] County listing, big years

I have enjoyed reading Charlie Muise's reports on his Blount County Big Year 
in 2005, and now the comparisons with what he is finding this year. I think 
doing this type of activity is good for birding, and can be very good for 
learning about distribution across a region.
I had intended to try this in Knox County this year, but with a 2.5 month old 
baby I have found it harder to get out for birding, and have not birded at all 
in Knox County yet this year!
I do hope others will try to do this sort of thing. Why?
It's not a point of competition. Even if you are 'competing' with others in 
your county, it should not be because there's some big prize at the end of the 
year. Seeing more birds in a certain time does not make you a better birder - 
though lots of birding does - it just means you have the time to get out there 
a lot.
What do we learn from something like this? While you could estimate the number 
of birds possible in a given area for a year, it's nice to have some real 
numbers to go along with that guess. Maybe there's little scientific data from 
it, but it can give some idea, over the years, of how bird populations and 
migrations are doing in your county.

Another goal is to try to see a certain number of birds in every county in a 
state. Has any birder seen 100 birds in every Tennessee county? In some states 
this is promoted by bird clubs, and they have lists on web sites showing how 
many birds have been seen by individual birders.
One bonus from something like this is that you might go out to a county that 
you otherwise would not, and you might find something really unusual. I 
remember a story of a Georgia birder who picked a county he may have never 
been to, but wanted to get some brids there. And he found a Black-headed 
Grosbeak. It probably would never have been known to have occurred there then 
if he didn't have that goal.

I wish I could get out and work on Knox County this year, but that will have 
to wait a bit (though I certainly will do plenty of birding around here 
still!), and I hope to hear of others around the state that try things like 
this.
By the way, I've only seen 206 bird species ever in Knox County.

Even if you are the type of birder who is completely turned off by the idea of 
'listing', you can probably see that there is some benefit to an activity like 
this.

David Trently,
Knoxville, TN

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