Ken's Bird Life List

 

Ken recently (on our trip to Europe last spring) reached 1,000 different species of birds on his life list.  I thought this would be a good time to publish his Life List.  But he has kept it on his computer in an excel file.  He converted it to a pdf for me, but I can't get it to copy and paste.  Long story short, I can't seem to publish the list.  Darn!  But it is pretty impressive to look at. The list includes the name of each species  he has seen, as well as the date and place he first saw that species.  He has been keeping the list for at least 25 years.  His thousandth bird was a Bridled Guillemot.  He saw it on Orkney Island, Scotland on May 16th.

Bridled Guillemot (the white eye stripe is was distinguishes it from a Common Guillemot)

He got two more new birds to add to the list on our New England trip. 

The 1,001th bird was a Great Shearwater.  He saw it and his 1,002nd bird, a Manx Shearwater, on October 15th from our cruise ship balcony in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Maine.

Great Shearwater

Manx Shearwater

Then, he just got a new bird this week- his third since our Europe trip and his 1,003rd on his life list- a Bohemian Waxwing. 

 He found it near his hometown of Hurricane.  A fellow birder posted an e-bird notice that he had seen it, so Ken set out to find it.  He found it in Toquerville, Utah amidst a flock of Cedar Wax wings.  This species usually is not this far south.  It was such a thrill for him to see it.

Congratulations to Ken on this impressive achievement!