Birding

My Birding Goals for 2018

January 2, 2018 by Corey 8 Comments

I had an amazing birding year in 2017 with tons of travel, lots of amazing birds, and some truly memorable experiences. But 2018 is a whole new year and calls for all new goals. My year list hasn’t even been started but when it does it will be as unattractive as the fledgling Yellow Warbler up above. I have similar goals to last year’s but with some new twists. I have no travel at all planned so most of my goals will be local. Will I be able to meet all of my goals for 2018? Tune in all year to find out!

  1. I will add at least three new species to my Queens list. This will be very difficult as I have added a total of three species to the list in the last two years. It gets tougher and tougher to add new birds as a list builds, especially when you limit yourself by geographic area. But there are lots of potential birds to see so I’ll just have to flog my local patches as hard as I can until something shows up!
  2. I will get to 300 species photographed in Queens in eBird. Currently, I have 281 species documented with photographs in eBird in Queens which means that I have thirty-four species I have seen in the borough without a photograph. If I can get nineteen of them photographed and into eBird this year I’ll be very happy.
  3. I will see at least sixty species from my balcony this year. My total list for the nearly eight years that I’ve lived in my current apartment is exactly 100 species. Can I see sixty percent of them in one calendar year? I think I can do it!
  4. I will enter eBird checklists for at least five of the ten counties in New York State that I have never birded. This will take some dedication but it is really annoying that I have these gaps on my state map. Orleans, Chautauqua, Cattaraugus, Allegany, Yates, Tompkins, Schuyler, Oneida, Madison, and Otsego Counties all need to be birded by me someday. Hopefully, I’ll be able to knock at least five of them off this year.
  5. I will blog at least weekly for the year. I’ve really slacked off in my bird-blogging in the last year-and-a-half and I want to get back to blogging at least once a week. Fifty-two posts or bust! (I don’t know if this is a promise or a threat.)

Do you have birding goals for 2018? What are they? Let me know in the comments!

Written by Corey
Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy and Desmond Shearwater. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.