Happy New Birds!

It is 9:25am on January 1, 2014.  More than 9 hours have passed since the year began and I have seen zero birds.  Of course, I've only been up for an hour and its cold outside, so I've only looked out the window so far.  But no birds at the feeders, no birds on the wires, no birds in the trees.   Off to a slow start this year.

Regardless, I have been a birder for two years now.  I finished 2013, my second year of birding, having seen a respectable 355 species,(including 5 non-ABA Florida Exotics), and finishing off with an Eastern Screech-owl and Northern Goshawk on the final day of the year.  Of course, I wasn't jetting and driving around North America like a madman, like in 2012,(Neil Hayward will understand), but I did at least make one trip to Arizona in 2013, and that resulted in adding one of the rarest birds in North American to my Life List, the Sinaola Wren.  Coincidentally, the same day I saw the Sinaola Wren I was reading a new novel by Michael Connelly that referenced the Sinaola Drug Cartel, which I had never heard of.  So this rare bird is named after a vicious gang of drug lords and assassins.  How nice.  The bird I saw did not seem so scary.

So, what's new for 2014:

Last year I added 20 species to the ABA list, and that will be hard to top in 2014.  However, birding for me in 2014 isn't just about the ABA list.  In three weeks we will be heading to Costa Rica.  I hear from my doctor, who went there last year, that the birds are amazing.  She's not even a birder, but had to make a special trip while in Costa Rica, just to see the Resplendent Quetzal.  For me, the Quetzal, along with seeing over 300 species of bird I've never seen before, will be the focus of this trip.  Building up the World Life List, which includes non-ABA species, and is presently at 630.  I've met a couple of birders who have seen more than 5000 species world wide, so I've got a long way to go.

Along with Costa Rica, I will be in Florida in February and March, Whitefish Point in Michigan and Point Pelee in Ontario during spring migration, Cape May, New Jersey in September, and Michigan again for the Sandhill Crane Festival in October.  Throw in a working trip to British Columbia, a few rarity chases, perhaps a pelagic and a trip to the Dry Tortugas, and I have the makings of a big...  strike that... fun, but not obsessive, year of birding.

The time is now 10:03 and I have yet to see anything out my window but a squirrel.  2014 year list still sits at zero.  But, see, I am not as obsessive as I was in 2012, so I am fine with that.  Really...

The penultimate bird of 2013, the Eastern Screech-owl.  The final bird I saw, the Northern Goshawk,(#355 for 2013),was a drive-by birding on my way home from this seeing this guy in Woodlawn Cemetery, near the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton.