[va-bird] A different kind of big year...(long).

FAIR WARNING: this entire note consists of a discussion of county listing. 
Delete now if you have no stomach for such.

Yesterday afternoon I finished a task that I'd set for myself several months 
ago. During 2002 I birded in every county and independent city in Virginia - 
all 134 of them. Since returning to Virginia in 1995 after grad school, I've 
been keeping bird lists for several counties in the state. I've worked mostly 
on the counties around Farmville (Prince Edward, where I lived for several 
years, Buckingham, where I live now, and adjacent counties), but have 
occasionally started a new list for another county when I did some significant 
birding there. 

Although county listing is fairly popular in several states (e.g. Maryland), it 
hasn't caught on in Virginia. While many Virginia birders keep lists for their 
home counties, and a few hardy souls, the most dedicated of whom for many years 
has been Fenton Day, systematically work on lists for counties across the 
state, county listing simply isn't popular here. While there are no doubt lots 
of reasons for this, one nuisance unique to Virginia is the existence of a 
number of independent cities that in some ways (but not all) have a status 
equivalent to counties and are not considered to be a part of any county. In 
other words, Virginia has independent cities such as Richmond, Lynchburg, and 
37 others that are in some sense not "in" any county. While some are surrounded 
by a single county (e.g. Staunton, Franklin and others), many are not. 

Earlier this year I made two decisions (some might suggest I write "mistakes" 
here). One was deciding that I would keep bird lists for any independent city 
(IC hereinafter) separate from county lists even if the IC was surrounded by a 
single county. I won't go into the reasons I decided to do this, but I have 
them, and I've been trying to decide what to do about this for six or seven 
years. The second decision was innocent enough. I wanted to know what my 
Virginia "total ticks" list would be, so I put together a spreadsheet listing 
every VA county and IC along with my list total for each area. And then I 
started looking at all those blank spots..

Before long I got the idea that during 2002 I should try to go birding in all 
the areas I hadn't visited yet and start a list for those areas - no more 
zeroes. But not long after deciding to do that, as I looked at a VA map I 
realized that by the time I visited all those areas I hadn't yet birded in I 
would have to travel through nearly all the other counties and ICs in the state 
as well. So why not make a sweep, I thought - I'd go birding in every one of 
them. 

This was about mid-May, so I was proceeding in the grand tradition of big years 
that don't start until the calendar year is well underway. And I mulled over it 
a while longer; I didn't really commit to the project wholeheartedly until 
after an early July trip during which I visited several counties and cities in 
far southwestern Virginia. Once Lee, Wise, Dickenson, and Buchanan counties and 
Norton (IC) were in the bag, the rest should be easy, I thought. After coming 
home from that trip, I compiled a list of what was left and decided that it 
wouldn't be a problem. After all, it was more a matter of driving than anything 
else. To give the task some definition I decided to try to see a new species in 
every county or IC I'd already birded in as well as at least 10 species in 
every area I'd never visited before, but that still wouldn't be very hard, I 
thought. You can get 10 species in a single spot, of course, but for what it's 
worth, I never birded in just one spot in a county and then left. And I always 
keep careful notes about locations of birds seen.

I visited a few more areas during the summer and early fall, but also traveled 
out of the state quite a bit. During the year I spent several days each in New 
York, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Washington, but I still thought I'd have 
plenty of time for my in-state trips. I planned to hit most of the areas in 
October and finish this project in November with plenty of time to spare. What 
did I know?

In early October I fell, broke both my arms and a rib, and couldn't drive for a 
few weeks. For a while all the birding I could do was peeking outside to see 
what was at my feeders. Once I was off the pain meds and could drive again 
(although not write), I was left with 28 areas to visit, as well as a backlog 
of work and the normal holiday bustle. The areas I hadn't yet visited were 
spread from Galax to Arlington County to Northumberland County. I didn't know 
if I'd make it, but to summarize, thanks to several short jaunts in November 
and three long day trips on each of the past three Mondays, I visited the last 
of these areas yesterday. 

Several months ago I decided that I would save Mathews County for last. Not 
only had I never birded there, I had also noticed in the DeLorme Virginia atlas 
a location in the county named "Fort Nonsense." Surely an aptly named place to 
finish such a task, I thought. (Todd Day suggested that I title this summary 
"Nonsense at Fort Nonsense.") Yesterday afternoon at about 3:10 p.m. when I 
crossed the VA 3 bridge from Middlesex County into Mathews County and saw two 
Turkey Vultures (followed shortly by Mourning Doves, Bufflehead, a Common Loon, 
and several other species), I reached my goal with little more than a day to 
spare. And shortly afterwards I did reach Fort Nonsense - literally and perhaps 
metaphorically as well. (I saw no signs there with that place name - is it 
real?). For the record, the birds at Fort Nonsense, Mathews County, Virginia on 
the afternoon of 30 December 2002 included a female Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, a 
Red-bellied Woodpecker, and a Carolina Chickadee.

Obviously this was not a big year in the normal sense. I wasn't trying to reach 
a certain number of species in the state this year, and setting a real big year 
record (for the total number of species seen in the state during a year) is 
much harder than what I was doing. What I was doing required tolerance for 
driving, the ability to identify birds, and the ability to read a map and be 
sure where one county or city stops and another starts, but not the presence of 
rare birds. But one of the things that made this year fun for me was visiting 
several areas along with Todd Day as he worked on his true big year - less than 
24 hours from completion as I write this, and already a success. For example, 
my visit to Radford and Pulaski County was also the occasion of Todd reaching 
300 species for the year, with a Henslow's Sparrow (also witnessed by Ned B., 
and I still can't believe we got him that far inland). We saw several other 
good birds together during the year, including Anhingas (which I saw in five VA 
counties this year), a Swallow-tailed Kite, Golden Eagles, and several pelagic 
species. And then there was the Eared Grebe trip..

What were the highlights? Though I didn't even reach 300 species in Virginia 
for the year, I saw lots of good birds and met several VA birders for the first 
time. I also got to visit many spots in my home state for the first time and 
was impressed again with its beauty. Gaining a mental image of a place to go 
with a name on a map is something I've always enjoyed, and this year I got to 
do that with Red Oak, Orange, Yellow Branch, Greenway, Bluefield, White Post, 
White Marsh, White Stone, Blackstone, Big Stone Gap, Dixie (Fluvanna), Dixie 
(Mathews), Dixie Caverns, and Darwin, which as a biologist I couldn't pass up. 
After visiting those spots and many more I still enjoy birding in the Blue 
Ridge and on the ocean and still don't enjoy birding in the crowds of northern 
Virginia any more than I ever did (though the Black Rail helped). 

As it turned out, I did miss seeing 10 species in a few areas, usually due to 
arriving late in the day (Covington and Buena Vista, to name two spots), so my 
totals in some areas are thin to say the least. But I did see a new species 
even in those counties where I already had a fairly robust list. I lived in 
Bedford and Amherst counties when growing up, and I was particularly worried 
about adding a new species in Bedford County, but as it turned out I got two 
(Brown-headed Nuthatch and Common Tern during a late September visit to Smith 
Mountain Lake State Park). A Glossy Ibis in early May was new for Prince 
Edward, where I've seen almost 200 species. And the rarest bird I found this 
year, the Great White Heron at Briery Creek Lake in September, doesn't count as 
a new county species and wasn't found on a "county birding" trip. I was just on 
my way to work when I saw it.

One motivation for writing this is to try to generate a little more interest in 
Virginia county listing, and a little better communication among those (crazy 
few) of us who already do it. To that end, I'd enjoy hearing from anyone who 
does keep county lists in the state. Several things I'm curious about: what 
counties are you working on, and how do you keep your records? Do you have a 
particular goal in terms of numbers of species that you'd like to see in each 
county? How do you keep your records? And finally, does anyone else out there 
have a bird list for every county (and IC) in the state, or am I the only one 
that crazy? 

I have lots more to say about all of this, but will save it for offline 
responses. Please send me any general comments you have offline unless you 
think they'd really be of interest to everyone on the list.

Happy New Year to everyone, with best wishes for lots of good birds in 2003.

Mike Stinson

Curdsville, VA

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