Nature Note: A Naturalist's Travels Through Nature

For the past few days, I haven't added a new species to my list and feel like I've hit a wall. In some respects I have, with many of the early migrants that I haven't seen before as well as, those commoner birds that I'm more used to seeing around my house and in neighboring areas. As September has slipped away and allowed the fall to begin, I feel the time slipping away as well. It's nearly October and with 282 species on the list, I feel like I'm wasting time. In the same moment however, I also know that I'm way ahead of the curve and would only need a few sightings here and there to finish this task. I don't know why I'm so worried. Could it be because I'm actually interested in completing a long-term goal or is it an added challenge that I've brought to my birding that has pushed me from familiar haunts and hideaways into the wider birding world around me? I personally think it's the latter. By having such a goal, I have been able t...

In my struggle to get to 300 species before the end of the year, the start of the fall migration should be a point of joy for me. Instead, I'm feeling anxious that I won't meet my goal, despite having 277 species on my life list with the recent additions of Northern Fulmar ( Fulmarus glacialis ), American Pipit ( Anthus rubescens ), Steller's Jay ( Cyanocitta stelleri ), and Purple Gallinule ( Porphyrio martinica ) and the quickly closing gap that would mean I only need 23 more species in order to reach my goal. (For clarifications sake, I didn't go on a whirlwind tour to see those birds, but instead happened to remember seeing them in the past and put them on my own list. This benefits me more than simply using eBird as I mentioned in On the Wing post #7, due to the flexibility I have with the entries in that I know I saw them within a given time period without having a particular date or time of seeing them.) My reaction to meeting this daunting challenge has been...