Well. That is the question. I certainly will not be upset to fail and fully expect my enthusiasm for the task to wane rapidly. I may never post to this blog at all after February, but I do at least intend to start.
The Baltimore Bird Club official list has 339 species seen in the Baltimore area, so that's a start. I could probably see 150 of these.
Some intensive walking and birdspotting when we go home should yield about 100 of the 250 species regularly recorded in the UK (another 300 occur rarely). There seems to be relatively little overlap with Baltimore - more on this another day perhaps.
Working from the other direction, there are 9660 or so species of bird in the world, so I am only aiming to see 1/26th of them. I will not restrict myself to all the birds beginning with A. I doubt the names are evenly distributed.
So - to get to 365 I will have to look for birds elsewhere - I suspect it is easier to fly somewhere new and see 30 new species than to see 30 more species in Baltimore. The artless sledgehammer approach to ornithology, but there you have it. The number is paramount.
There are over 10,000 species of birds in the world. About 925 have been seen in the U.S. and Canada. About 1,000 have been seen in Europe. By far the largest concentration of bird species are found in South America. Over 3,200 species have been seen there. In Colombia, Bolivia and Peru the species count for each country tops 1,700. Here are some very general figures for the species count for each continent:
ReplyDelete3,200 South America
2,900 Asia
2,300 Africa
2,000 North America (from Panama north + Caribbean)
1,700 Australia + surrounding islands
1,000 Europe
65 Antarctica
I guess I should be going to South America then.
Update: the first 100
ReplyDelete15 UK; 1 MA; 3 NJ; 81 Baltimore.