Combined Beats’ List – 2016 – The Total

As the title suggests, we asked the beats to share their sightings into a joint account to see how many birds we might be able to find as a combined force during 2016.

12 beats contributed over the year and I would like to thank them for sharing. I have enjoyed collecting them.

eBird provided the platform that allowed us to collate our sightings and a big thank you must go to them.

The first bird recorded was Duncan’s Pink-footed Goose from Burton Mere and the final entry was a Chiriqui Quail-Dove by Patrick in Costa Rica.

The beats shared 1207 checklists from 32 countries (including territories, principalities, oceans and Special Administrative Regions), and amassed 2647 species.

Costa Rica was most productive by a country mile, with USA in second place and Uganda third. Yet the Western Hemisphere was out-birded by the Eastern Hemisphere by 1499 to 1230. Adding the two hemispheres gives a total of 2729 meaning that only 82 birds on the list (less than 3%) were duplicated between east and west. 

Africa was the top continent with 600 species, but only because I can’t decide whether to allocate Central America to the north or the south. Patrick scored 631 all by himself in Costa Rica.

A few of the beats scored a higher personal total than that for 2016, but ticks on the list are decided by who submits the earliest sighting. It is unlikely that time will ever be available to allocate scores to each individual beat. But credit will be equally shared.

January elicited the most lists and the most individuals at 171 and 97,000 respectively, but March produced the most species at 908.

The most individuals of one species on one checklist was Corey’s 10,000 Sooty Shearwaters. What a shame that the list will be complete, just as Corey is getting the hang of it.

An interactive profile of the yearlist can be seen here

It is a dream, nay, a mission statement of 10,000 Birds to see as many of the World’s birds as possible. A Strickerian task for an individual, but the combined eyes and optics of beat writers around the globe might be able to make a fair fist of it.

Thus, a combined list of current beat writers will be compiled to see how many birds, weird and wonderful, common or unusual we can find between us. All birds are equal on this list; parking lot birds or pelagic species, breeders or fly-overs, all will be accorded the same status and each shall be worth 1 credit on the list. There may be a bit of backroom competition by the beats as only the first of the species will be noted on the list, but with a little delving, there is more information here than we first realised.

Unexpectedly, every entry can be highlighted as a link. So if you wish to check how many Mallards have been seen by the beats you can. Should the fancy take you, you could call up a 10,000 Birds life list (from 2016 onwards. Backdating has not been ruled out, but logistics make it unlikely) for a particular location or simply study the rest of the checklist from which the link was chosen.

This is not an exhaustive list as a few of the beats do not use compatible listing software, or have reservations about revealing sightings of sensitive birds. Others, by their own admission, are Luddites and believe that the pinnacle of human technological achievement was reached on the day that man first bound a notebook in moleskin. Still, the list will be as complete as we can keep it and will be updated on the first Saturday of every month.