life list: 507

Happy end of 2022. This wasn’t a great year for me but it got so bad towards the end that now I am starting a birding blog. It’s like really at rock bottom over here. I’m hoping this can be a ~fun and girly space~ where I will write a bit about bird watching, travel, and maybe even a third thing to complete the rule of threes, like film photography.

2022 was a good birding year for me— I saw an Elegant Trogon in Madera Canyon, saw 127 birdigans in Costa Rica, dragged some new and old friends into bird hell, got the Wingspan Asia expansion for Christmas, and self-published an AZ bird zine.

This year, I saw 294 birds, including many New To Me Birds (N2MBs), bringing my life list to a fat 360. Mercifully, for everyone around me during the holidays, I didn’t have to ruin everyone’s New Year’s Eve by seeing like 2 new birds to get to my goal number like last year. Instead this year I opted to ruin everyone’s holidays in different ways, mostly by crying.

Here are some other birding stats from my eBird and memories:

The first eBird of the year: American Widgeon at Reid Park in Tucson, AZ

I love these little wheezy guys! In the winter, they are very easy to spot in large flocks both in Arizona and the Bay Area, my two primary Birding Zones. They spend a lot of time on land and make the cutest wheezing sound.

The last eBird of the year: Lewis’s Woodpecker at Reid Park in Tucson, AZ

Hot bird tip for all you bird sluts out there: Reid Park is some top tier birding. Extremely easy access, large number of species, and guaranteed bird seeing. Reid Park also plays host to several rare or uncommon species, including the Lewis’s Woodpecker, which I saw today. This guy is pretty goth for a woodpecker! We love him. Tucson is about as far south as you’ll see these guys.

My personal favorite eBird of the year: Elegant Trogon at Madera Canyon, AZ

After several fruitful Nogon Quests in 2021, I successfully completed a Trogon Quest in April 2022 at Madera Canyon. My crew (family and Patrick) arrived at the Carrie Nation Trail around 6:30 am and heard the beautiful bark of the ET around 7:15. After an hour on the trail, a group of climbers pointed him out to us! We were lucky to enjoy about 30 minutes of Trogon Time as he perched posed and slayed. If you’re trying to go on a Trogon Quest of your own, I would recommend creeping on eBird to see exactly where and when he was last spotted. Don’t be afraid to ask any person with a camera, binocs, or white hair if they have seen a trogon that day. Much like a video game, these NPCs you come across will give you small kernels of information sandwiched between ignorable small talk that you can turn into an Elegant Trogon sighting, if you play your cards right.

My top eBird location: Costa Rica

Hopefully I’ll write a little post about our Costa Rica trip in the near future, but for now, all anyone needs to know is that Costa Rica is god-tier birding. The birds here go so off. We had several amazing guided tours which I think is the way to go. This way, you’ll see like 10x the wildlife. Some of my favorite birds we saw in CR were the Emerald Toucanet, the Red-Capped Manakin, the Barred Forest Falcon, the Turquoise-Crowned Motmot, and the Red-Legged Honeycreeper.

For 2023, I have some birding goals:

• See enough birds to bring my life list to 400 (40 new birds)
• Submit an eBird checklist every day (this shouldn’t be hard since I don’t have anything important going on)
• See a Ridgway’s Rail (#getrailed)
• Maintain a bird/travel blog (trying to reinsert meaning via a personal project into my sad little life)
• Get back into film bird photography and finish my Birds of the Bay Area zine ( )