Your Bird Lists...

I was talking to a couple of people on here about placing your bird lists on this thread, it may help others along the way, plus it'd just be kind of interesting (I think) to see what others have in their area, and what birds they have saved to their list.

If this sounds like something that you'd like to do, start one, and if you already have a list and want to post it here, PLEASE make sure to have your town/city and state listed too so we'll know where you are.

This is MY personal Life List, meaning that there is only the birds that I have seen, and I only put in the ones that I have a decent shot of. You can do it any ol' way you want, that is just how I like to do it. (I may have one listed twice, so correct me, and, I may have left some out too... maybe)
This is not to brag at all, but to let others know what we have. I am more than sure that others have a LOT more to offer than I do anyway, I don't get out as much as some.

Randy

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My Life List in no real particular order in the
Dallas, Texas Area (I do have a few, like the Vermillion Flycatcher that I took at Big Bend, but 99.9% of these are within 30 minutes drive, or closer)

American Bittern
Great Blue Heron
Little Blue Heron
Green Heron
Tri-colored Heron
Black-crowned-Night Heron
Yellow-crowned-Night Heron
Snowy Egret
Great Egret
White Ibis
White-faced Ibis
Rosette Spoonbill
Anhinga
American Wood Stork
White Pelican
Purple Gallinule
Common Gallinule
Neo-tropic Cormorant
Double-crested Cormorant

Ringed-Bill Gull
Bonaparte's Gull
Forster's Tern
Black Tern
Black-Headed Gull

Belted-Kingfisher

Red-headed Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Ladder-back Woodpecker
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Red-shafted Northern Flicker
Golden-fronted Woodpecker

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Bell's Vireo
Blue Grosbeak (Male)
Painted Bunting (Male)
Indigo Bunting
Blue Jay
Northern Cardinal
American Robin
Swainson's Thrush
American Crow
Carolina Chickadee
Cactus Wren
House Wren
Winter Wren
Bewick's Wren
Carolina Wren
White-Breasted Nuthatch
Slate-Colored Dark-Eyed Junco
Cedar Waxwing
Eastern Towhee
Eastern Bluebird
Red House Finch
American Gold Finch
Lesser Gold Finch
Dickcissel

Common Yellow-throat Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Pine Warbler
Orange Crowned Warbler
Yellow-throated Warbler
Yellow Warbler
Summer Tanager
Eastern Kingbird
Western Kingbird
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Orange-crowned Kinglet
Curved Bill Thrasher
Brown Thrasher
Northern Mockingbird
Mourning Dove
Inca Dove
White-winged Dove
European Dove/ Collared Dove
Eastern Wood Pewee
Eastern Phoebe
Vermilion Flycatcher
Meadowlark
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
Purple Martin
European Starling
Common Grackle
Boat-tailed Grackle
Great-tailed Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
Yellow-headed Blackbird
Brewer's Blackbird
Red-Winged Blackbird
Rusty Blackbird
Swamp Sparrow
European Sparrow
Harris' Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Rufous-crowned Sparrow
Lincoln's Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
Fox Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Northern Bobwhite

American Crow
Common Raven

Killdeer
Black-Necked Stilt
American Pipit
Pectoral Sandpiper
Greater Yellowlegs
Lesser Yellowlegs
Stilt Sandpiper
Long-billed Curlew
Wilson's Snipe
Wilson's Phalarope
Sprague's
Wild Turkey

Mallard
(Mallard Ducklings)
Long-tailed Duck
Hooded Merganser
Red-Breasted Merganser
Common Merganser
Bufflehead
Lesser Scaup
Northern Shoveler
Green-Winged Teal
Blue-Winged Teal
Ring-Neck
Canada Goose
Northern Pintail
Gadwall
Wood Duck
Redhead (Male)
Canvasback
Ruddy Duck
Black-bellied Whistling Duck
Fulvous Whistling Duck
Pied-billed Grebe
Common Goldeneye

Mississippi Kite
American Bald Eagle
Loggerhead Shrike
American Kestrel
Crested Caracara
Turkey Vulture
Black Vulture
Red-tailed Hawk
Red-shouldered Hawk
Broad-winged Hawk (Juvenile)
Osprey
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Coopers Hawk
Northern Harrier
Great Horned Owl
Barred Owl
Burrowing Owl
Monk Parakeets (Quaker Parrot)
Budgies (Parakeets) Many of them in the Summer...
Cockatiel (I saw 3 different ones in my area in 1 week, two were in my backyard!)

Nice list!

I really can't go there myself, but a thought:

you mentioned "Blue Jay"...well we see a variety of jays, common ones would be the Scrub Jay and the Stellar Jay -- might want to check them out, they aren't "Blue Jays"...!

tonylong wrote in post #17704267
Nice list!

I really can't go there myself, but a thought:

you mentioned "Blue Jay"...well we see a variety of jays, common ones would be the Scrub Jay and the Stellar Jay -- might want to check them out, they aren't "Blue Jays"...!

I would love to check them out, I am never in a place where they are though, all we have here is the "Blue" variety. I was at Big Bend last year and tried my best for a Mexican Jay, but they eluded me all of the time I was there. Rare is it that I am up North far enough to see the ones you mention though, but maybe soon.

Thanks, Tony!

Randy

Hey, I've heard from a friend in Texas that Cedar Waxwings have shown up there!

Yeah, they are really plentiful here, I see a LOT when I am out shooting. Usually in one outing I will see hundreds in flocks, maybe more, it's hard to count them when they fly everywhere. Usually they hang with American Robins, and most times they can be approached within a few feet while they eat.

Here's some close-up shots if you care to look, not the kind of shot I was hoping for, but I'll take what I can get.
https://www.flickr.com …16494713@N07/12​326839304/
https://www.flickr.com …16494713@N07/14​726742571/

Randy

recrisp wrote in post #17702507
I was talking to a couple of people on here about placing your bird lists on this thread, it may help others along the way, plus it'd just be kind of interesting (I think) to see what others have in their area, and what birds they have saved to their list.
Randy

Hey, this is a great idea, Randy!
Your list looks quite impressive.

I have never kept an organized list of my bird sightings. But I thought I would make a sort of a "mini-list" here for those who may be interested. I'll list my city/state - Omak, WA - but honestly a huge amount of my photography is done in other areas, so my location info may not be pertinent.

Game birds (gallinaceous birds):
Greater Prairie Chicken
Sharptail Grouse
. . . - straight species and Columbia variety
Spruce Grouse
. . . - Franklin's variety
Ruffed Grouse
Wild Turkey
. . . - Merriam's
. . . - Eastern
. . . - Rio Grande
Greater Sage-grouse
Blue Grouse
. . . - Sooty variety
. . . - Dusky variety
White-tailed Ptarmigan
California Quail
Gambel's Quail
Hungarian Partridge, a.k.a. Grey Partridge
Chukar Partridge
Ring-necked Pheasant

The game birds that I've never photographed, but that are very, very high on my "bucket list" are:
Spruce Grouse, Taiga phase
Gunnison's Sage-grouse
Mountain Quail

If anyone here can help me with one of my "bucket list" gamebirds, I would be glad to help you with any of those on my mini-list.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #17704857
Hey, this is a great idea, Randy!
Your list looks quite impressive.

I have never kept an organized list of my bird sightings. But I thought I would make a sort of a "mini-list" here for those who may be interested. I'll list my city/state - Omak, WA - but honestly a huge amount of my photography is done in other areas, so my location info may not be pertinent.

If anyone here can help me with one of my "bucket list" gamebirds, I would be glad to help you with any of those on my mini-list.

I don't know about "impressive", but I see that most everyone, including you, have the better birds, so I always want what I can't have, I guess... heheh

Really, thinking about what you said, I think that maybe it'd be a good idea that if anyone wanted to out 'any kind of list' here, that would be fine. That way, we could all add to it if we wanted, and people could still learn from it, or start a conversation about a bird seen.
Since you shoot a lot of birds not from your area, maybe you can add to this as you go, and add other lists if you wanted later, and that goes for us all. I'm not really OCD (well, that much) but I like to keep track of what I have seen, and as I shoot a new bird, I add it, sometimes I get lazy and don't add it, then I forget what it was until later, I usually remember in the middle of the night...

That's another good idea too, to have people say, "I know where you can get that bird!", and then tell you how to get it by meeting them, or they tell you how in a PM or e-mail. Some birds are best left to some secrecy due to strange people that may not care that are reading this without joining. That may sound strange of me to say that, but once I found a Great Horned Owl nest, I didn't want to post it on the Audubon forum, but I did let any of the members know if they wanted by e-mail or PM's. Some people that may run across that information may shoot it, you never know, it's never happened that I am aware of, but I am aware of many instances of where teenagers have been either arrested or got a ticket due to shooting herons and other protected birds. Since the internet is 'wide open', so to speak, I wouldn't want to take a chance. Also, I know of a guy that has pictures of multiple instances of adults with rifles, drinking beer, driving four-wheelers, with kids along, shooting Night Herons, Spoonbills, and all sorts of protected birds and the police don't do a thing about it, or the City, or the Texas Parks and Wildlife. He has tried his best for a few years to stop this, but to no avail, and I'm not exaggerating either.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand, a "bucket list", or whatever kind of bird list is still a bird list, so it's open as far as I am concerned.
I just hope that people that do want to try this that they will make sure to let us know where they are, that is very important.

Your list, by the way is really impressive to me, not only have I never seen ANY of the birds listed, I have not shot any either, well, with the exception of the turkey... heheh

Thanks, Tom!

Randy

tonylong wrote in post #17704694
Hey, I've heard from a friend in Texas that Cedar Waxwings have shown up there!

recrisp wrote in post #17704760
Yeah, they are really plentiful here, I see a LOT when I am out shooting. Usually in one outing I will see hundreds in flocks, maybe more, it's hard to count them when they fly everywhere. Usually they hang with American Robins, and most times they can be approached within a few feet while they eat.

Here's some close-up shots if you care to look, not the kind of shot I was hoping for, but I'll take what I can get.
https://www.flickr.com …16494713@N07/12​326839304/
https://www.flickr.com …16494713@N07/14​726742571/

Randy

Yeah, they can be fun if you encounter them with a camera (and a long lens)! The one time I was able to get shots of them, I had to stay a ways back and just sit, point, shoot, and even then I had to do a considerable amount of cropping, but ended up with some nic shots! They are worth being on a "list"!

tonylong wrote in post #17704972
Yeah, they can be fun if you encounter them with a camera (and a long lens)! The one time I was able to get shots of them, I had to stay a ways back and just sit, point, shoot, and even then I had to do a considerable amount of cropping, but ended up with some nic shots! They are worth being on a "list"!

I know what you mean, the first time I actually ran into them I had a 450D and a 100-400 v1 Canon lens, I had to back up I was so close. What the deal was I was walking across an old abandoned bridge that went over a creek that nobody ever goes to and I saw a LOT of Robins, then I started seeing a LOT of Waxwings, I watched them for a couple of minutes, then I saw they were eating berries directly over a creek that was down below me. They were so intent on getting the berries, then drinking that they all were flitting all around me, then soon got used to me, I guess. I only had so much room on that small concrete bridge, and I was also underneath the canopy of some berry laden trees, so I had to use my on-board flash. Not very professional, but I got so really pretty shots (for then), I was happy! I look back on those and cringe now, but I still have that memory of them being as close as 4 feet, eating away, it was really cool for me to witness that.

The next time I encountered them I was surrounded by the same kind of berries (I think) and I saw at least a thousand of them flying everywhere, I walked closer really slow, but it didn't make a difference, they were so intent on eating they just didn't care about me. This time was kind of special as the first, but in a different way, I watched some pas the berry along to others, I have heard of that, but never witnessed that. I have to say that was really cool. You'd think I would have gotten some good shots of that, but none of them turned out very well of them doing that. I also noticed that every one of my 'good' shots didn't have both the red and yellow wingtips I had waited to get a shot of. I somehow managed to not get one out of all of the shots that I took of them that day. heheh I got some good shots, really nice poses too, but none that had the both colors...
Now, I see them all over the place, I now have learned how to spot them in the air flying by, before, I just assumed the y were little birds, heheh, now I watch the flight patterns, the way they beat their wings, etc. (I know most other photographers do also) So while it's easier to spot them, I still need that special shot, if I ever get it.

They are very much list-worthy to me. heheh I always look forward to seeing them each year, I still to this day do not have THE shot I envisioned in my noggin, but maybe this year...

Randy