Whoa, nice bird Anne! What plimage was it in?

Adult plumage- looked near breeding, very little streaking on the head. I'm lucky I'm on someone's call list and there were people with scopes!!

Yeah, first off, that is great! Secondly, with adding totals to the months to the right...do we prefer the number of new species added to each month or the total number of species by the end of that month. February for me would either be 3 or 62...thoughts?

I think the total number of new spp. seen for each month is better. Thats how I'm doing it on my own spreadsheet. I don't mind either way though.

Well, I finally got my first lifer of 2009...

Nice! This has been quite the winter for crossbills and Siskins.

This is the Glaucous Gull I saw last weekend http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAr0KOYH8IA

Congrats Chad!! That's a fantastic bird (and one on my nemesis list- quite jealous right now).

And nice looking gull Rich! And congrats to you on the trifecta! It's been forever since I've seen anything other than a surf scoter.

Thanks a lot for the congrats on the crossbill. I tried several times for this species this winter but it was rather hard to pin down...they just aren't in the numbers in my area/the Albany area, as they are in the Ithaca region. The first time I went to a cemetery where they were being observed and I couldn't find the reported section. This time they were found exactly in that section, but, I wouldn't have noticed them if I didn't get out of the car. What made me detect them was the sound of crunching on a spruce cone! It took a while to find the bird, but I did. My life Red Crossbill was rather interesting too. In Yellowstone with Ryan I had a dream one night of a Red Crossbill. The next morning we awoke in the tent and I walked outside to hear a bird singing atop the conifer tree above our tent. What was it...a Red Crossbill. Cool stuff....

Hey Chad, I had a very similar experience with my life Red Crossbill. I was camping at Dolomite Campground in the Mt. Charleston area of southern Nevada in the spring of '06. I awoke to an unfamiliar call outside my tent, stepped outside, waited for my bins to defog and there it was, right at the top of a big pine.

Rich,

Did you relocate a previously reported WEGR or did you find it yourself? That's a pretty sweet state bird

No, I found about it on the internets.

How is everybody doing? I had my meeting to work at the Westover Air Reserve Base for the New Jersey Audubon Society this past Friday...just seeing what's up as the field season gets under way....

Chad, When do you start? Sounds cool. I'm leaving for a job in Ohio working w/ Ceruleans, I'm psyched! Starts on 4/13. I was thinking it'd be cool if we could meet up and do some NYC birding before then. Jamaica Bay should be decent.

Rich, my job starts April 16, so in a few weeks. I'm actually going to be based in MA, not NJ which may seem funny. Actually, NYC is fairly "in the middle". I'm going to have to see how my schedule plays out, but I'll keep a meet up in mind. Hell, even if you wanted to do some birding in the Hudson Valley, we could always stay at my house. We'll be in touch as I said. BTW, congrats on the job! Ceruleans are cool warblers for sure.

Good luck to both of you! They both sound like really fun jobs. I've still got a month before mine starts and I'm having a really hard time focusing on school! A friend and I are going down for a whirlwind desert trip next week, wish us luck! New birding territory awaits...

Anne, those aren't Davis birds! Did you get down to the desert? If so where? and if so, is that all you managed? I have to admit my desert visit wasn't anything spectacular, but Salton Sea produced phalaropes, Abert's Towhee, Black-tailed Gnatcatcher, Gambel's Quail, Mountain Plover, Verdin, and a few others. I hope you can beat my state list before you go! Otherwise that would just be a shame.

Rich, you got quite the NY total going on. I'm hoping that a lot of your total are just birds hugging the coastline that I'll snag later on. I realize you got LIGU, LEOW, WEGR, and things like that, but I'm still hoping! Good luck to the both of you with the incoming migration.

No they aren't and yes I did. I went down with Mary to Joshua Tree/ Salton Sea/ Anza-Borrego for a blitz 4 day trip (including the driving). Crazy awesome down there- I ended up with 15 lifers (the ones above are my faves) and saw a ton of flowers and some really cool lizards and mammals. The "sea" was totally crammed full of eared, clark's and western grebes- huge rafts of them and the eared's were in breeding plumage!! Awesome sight. Fantastic memories. And I may be catching up to your list. I was over 300 before the trip and I'll be going down next week with my mom (only a little birding, though). Hope you both are doing well!

Hey Chad, living on the coast helps out a lot! I saw the LIGU before Jan 1, but I'll get one for this year's list! Having lots of free time also has its advantages. LOL. I could get you LEOW no problem if you're in the neighborhood this winter.

Hey you two. How are the jobs going?

227...are we serious right now? I did add Upland Sandpiper today to my low number. The job is going good...lots to talk about. I'll tell you about it soon...

Yay! I wanted to ask about the sandpiper, but didn't know if it would actually be within your study area- or if they were just hoping to find it. The 227 is a little surprising to me right now- especially when you consider that was my year total 2 or 3 years ago. But then, I've birded the coast, the mountains, the valley, and the desert- so I guess the diversity adds up. Still can't find the top two on my nemesis list, though- mountain quail and no. pygmy owl. Guess they're going to stay heard only.

Greetings from OH! How y'all doing? Things are going really great here albeit a bit stressful with the amount of work to do. CERW's are so tough, but fun at the same time!

Hey Rich! 31 warbler spp!? What were the highlights? Do you guys have lots of CERWs? Life is good here- there's lots of WIFLs and work is picking up. We're planning our banding attempts for the next couple days. There's an avid AZ birder living in my house who's giving me lots of tips on places to go.

Chad- how are you doing? Anything cool in Mass? Did you get the answer you needed on your banding question?

Anne, Congratulations on the Gray-collared Becard! That is friggin awesome! Yes, we have lots of Ceruleans here! Several of our nests have fledged while other pairs are on like their 4th renesting attempt. So hard to stay on top of those renests, but we do our best. Yesterday, my boss discovered that one of our males is polygynous! Pretty cool. Glad to hear things are going well there. I have a feeling the only reason I'm in first is because you haven't updated your list yet! Have you seen Rose-throated Becard yet? Hey Chad, how's it going in MA? How are the grassland birds? Lots of nests? I really want to do some more grassland birding this summer. Any Bobolinks? That and Dickcissel are my two most wanted birds right now. Take care guys.

Hey Rich! Thanks!! It was an awesome bird and a fantastic weekend. We birded mostly in the Chiricahuas, but also a little in Madera Canyon and some places in the Sonoran Desert. And no on the Rose-throated Becard. Maybe in July. Oh, I was looking over your suggestions of places to bird in NV that you sent in February was it? One of the ones was Overton WMA, which has me laughing because that's one of our field sites. Hey, and glad to hear the ceruleans are doing well! Sounds like you're having a good field seaon!

Chad- seriously, how is it going? Do you feel better? I'm glad you got the subpermit- that will look really good on the resume. Anyways- have a great rest of your respective field seasons! Maybe we can all meet up this fall/winter. And Rudy too if he leaves BC.

Hey Rich, thanks for reminding me about this. Kinda forgot. Those are awesome birds! Are the shearwaters the ones from the pelagic you posted last month? Or did you do another one? How are you doing and where are you? How was Ohio this summer? Chad, how about you? Hope you're both doing well!

Hey guys, wow, it looks like we've all been away from updating this page for some time. No excuses on my end really, I just haven't had birds on the brain like I used to (although in a way I do as I'm usually looking for work with them). If I can swing the time in the coming weeks I hope to at least put a final total up for the year (minus monthly details). It is looking like the next 6-7+ months I'll be doing bird work so I expect to be getting some sightings in. Whose in for doing 2010 here? Happy Holidays ya'll.

Hey Chad! Congrats on the job! What and where is it? Are you looking forward to it? I am absolutely down for doing 2010. I'm headed back to AZ next summer and have a whole list of birds I want to *try* to see. Mt Quail *cough*-- No. Pygmy owl *cough*-- stupid birds.... And I'll also try to update my list.

Rich- how's it going with you?? Did you do some amazingly fantastic southern hemisphere birding with Rudy? And are you getting ready to head to Maui again? Or is there another job lined up? Hope all is well! Happy holidays to you both!!

Congratualtions on the job, Chad, sounds great! Congratulations on your enagement too, I just saw that on your FB! Hey Anne, how have you been? What are you doing in MS? Things are going okay for me. I'm dealing with some family issues that are distracting me. Nah, no birding odysseys w/ Rudy for me; I was'nt really in a position to go. Yup, I'll be heading to Maui again in early February! I really cant wait to get out of NY; being home for too long drives me crazy. I'm studying to take the GRE in April and there is a possibility I may start a grad project at UT Knoxville in August. Yikes, I'm nervous! After I take the GRE, I'll have a better idea if that will happen or not. There is a slight chance I'll volunteer in Colombia for the month of Jan, but that is still up in the air mainly because of financial bullshit.

Hey Rich! Good luck on the GRE! I'm sure you'll do fine. And good luck on grad school! I hope you get in. If there's any application documents you want someone to proofread, feel free to send them my way. Maui sounds fantastic. I'm rather jealous and what would Colombia be? A volunteer bird job? Something amazingly fun?

My MS experience is a rusty blackbird job. It's primarily a telemetry position- that is once we catch them. We have 3 sites picked out and we're baiting them in. Hopefully by January there will be some transmitters flying around the delta. It's pretty neat, the study is looking at habitat association, general movement, food availability, and a whole suite of stuff in the blood.

Merry Christmas to you both! Chad, I hope it's a good one. Thanks for setting up next year's list. And seriously, what are you up to??? Hope all is well...Anne

Hey guys, so yeah, Anne, I'm working doing winter raptor research in Greene Co, NY, then in the spring I'll be the field crew leader at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Dutchess Co. That will last through summer. Always looking for more local work, but man where ist he full time.

Glad to see that you are updating your lists still Anne. No way can I do monthly totals now, but, I can do an end of year once I update it which I want to by week's end. I take it you will be back for this in 2010. Rich, you can too, and please please do....but unfortunately Hawaii isn't ABA. Maybe we can make an extra tab for you? I'm trying to get Ryan onto this list for 2010. He will be in FL actually for a job! That would give us great coverage of the corners of the US. I'm hoping we can try and do a combined list...see if we can get like 500/600 species in the ABA? I got to figure out how to get that list going though....what do you think?

Also, I'm working on a facebook page for Chat Happens and Ryan and I are getting into a better mode for our website. We'd like as much community as we can for these, so if there are ways we can use your help to form a cohesive birding community, please let's do it (friends, friends of friends, of friends, etc.). I'll let everybody know when the facebook page is set.

and Rich, thanks for the congrats on the engagement...
and Anne....Red-cockaded? Man oh man....

Hey Chad, those jobs sound great! Are you excited? And I'm definitely keeping my lists, it's too much fun! I can't wait for New Years to start all over again, although there isn't as much diversity around here, so my January list isn't going to be quite as big as '09. As for the cumulative list, if y'all wanted, I'd be happy to keep a copy of the list updated this year if people wanted to chime in with comments to the effect of: Blue Jay, check! Or, is there a way to put the list onto this wiki? I don't know how easy/difficult that would be since I know nothing about how to build stuff on this site...

And for the facebook page, let me know how I can contribute. And lastly the RCW was totally sweet. Had a refuge volunteer show me some roosting trees on a public trail and we waited until they came in for the night. Happy New Year to you both!