On the afternoon of September 25, I spotted a Philadelphia vireo in the Towar Woods Preserve in Meridian Township, Michigan. The sighting was a big one in that it marked the 200th bird species I've recorded since I began keeping track in April of 1993.
Except it didn't.
After combing through the notes in my field guides one more time this morning, my life list suddenly jumped to 203. It seems some ancient recordkeeping inconsistencies had come back to haunt me as I realized I had been neglecting to count the black-tailed gnatcatcher and pair of goldfinches, Lawrence's and lesser, I had seen in Texas in 1994. That means my 200th life bird was not the Philadelphia but the red-eyed vireo I saw and photographed in the back yard on September 5. Behold, in all its blurry glory:
My apologies to BOTH vireos vying for that coveted slot. Philadelphia, La La Land of birds, I know you're crestfallen today, but if you ask me 203 is a pretty neat number too. Your heroic yet failed attempt to be 200 will not be forgotten, and I do hope you gleaned some satisfaction from 12 days of not-so-everlasting triumph. Red-eyed, this is a big day for you. Enjoy it, but remember to stay humble. This is 2020 after all, when nothing is certain and things are apt to change in a hurry. Just ask your cousin from Philly.
What will certainly not change is that a yellow-bellied sapsucker I saw out back on September 29 was the 56th species I've seen at our East Lansing home, surpassing the 55 sighted at our previous home in West Lafayette, Indiana, where we resided from 2008-13. I feel lucky to have captured a fair-to-middling photo of the young pecker as it made its way up the old pear tree:
Congratulations, young sapsucker, a worthy representative of #56. May you suck the sap for years to come!
No comments:
Post a Comment