2012 was an interesting year for me. Some ups. Some downs. Perhaps a bit too much of some stuff (work) and not enough of others (camping, writing on this blog!). But in the end, it really was another great year and I'm happy to have had time to get out and enjoy our amazing state. I spend a lot of time outside of Utah visiting family and friends in Chicago and even more so, heading to other states for work. But one of my favorite views in the world, is when my plane banks in over the Wasatch to begin its descent into Salt Lake. This is such an incredible state with so much opportunity to explore. And finding what birds are in those places - that's the icing on the cake.

It is now time for the Jeff Bilsky Reflective Music Highlight Video that Tim, Carl, Colby and Kenny have been waiting for. ENJOY!

Have a good 2013 everyone. Someone go break Tim Avery's big year record already....

Okay, so I've been curious about what we can and can't accomplish with our blog, so I've decided to do an experiment.

I noticed that for the first two months of the year, we've been in the top 25 in checklists submitted to eBird. I want to see if we can't bump us up to the top ten in the month of February.

Here's my challenge (there seem to be a lot of challenges going around this year). I want everyone to submit as many eBird checklists as they possibly can. Submit a daily checklist from your home, work, or even along a stretch of freeway you're driving. It doesn't really matter if the checklist has a bunch of rare birds, or only has a couple house sparrows on it; data is data. Inner city data could be just as important as Farmington Bay's data, depending on the person you ask. So submit 3 checklists a day, submit 4 checklists a day! Submit as many as you can, from wherever you want.

Everyone that pledges to enter at least one checklist per day (average) for the entire month of February will be eligible to win a really cool bird book or prize. Whoever enters the most ebird checklists this month wins! If you don't want to compete for the prize, I still encourage entering as many checklists as possible :).

Good luck to all!

Carl

PS: We're currently #25. Let's crack the top 10.

I’m a little late at getting this up, but what can I say it’s been a busy first week and a half of 2012.  Every year I usually have a handful of birding goals or “resolutions” for the coming 12 months.  Some years I have had as many as 10 or 12, other years just 1 or 2.  This year will fall into the latter category.  Every year one of my goals is to see a few new species of birds in Utah--typically I try to get to a benchmark, a 0 or a 5.  I started 2011 with 389 species on my Utah Life List and had hoped to reach 395 species by years end.  I added 4 species falling a few short of my goal.  But what can you do?  So this year I set the lofty goal of reaching 400 species on my Utah Life List--needing to add 7 new species of bird for me.  Okay, make that 6--on January 2nd I finally twitched to southern Utah and added WHITE-TAILED KITE to my list.  My North American nemesis bird and an admirable Utah foe was finally seen--and enjoyed.

My North American and Utah Lifer White-tailed Kite

My second goal, is to enter an average of at least 2 eBird checklists every day.  That would be 724 checklists this year. I’m already off to a good start with 27 checklists in 11 days and think that 2 a day shouldn’t be all that difficult.  It really is just a matter of taking the time to do it.  I think this is a goal that almost everyone can take a stab at.  The easy way for me to do this would be one yard list and one list form my office each day of the week.  Trying to put together 4 lists every weekend shouldn’t be bad either.  The data that is gathered through these checklists is not only invaluable for the data pool, but it is interesting to be able to look and say, thus far in 2012 I have entered 6 HARLAN’S HAWKS (like the one below) into eBird in Utah:

A stunning Harlan's Hawk in Lehi, Utah

Those really are my only two goals for this year.  I would love to go birding out of country somewhere again, and hopefully I will end up doing that.  And of course I always want to take better and better photos.  But the real goals are the two I set above.

I’d like to challenge every one to make the use of eBird one of their personal goals for 2012.  Entering at least 1 checklist a day would be something that is not only reasonable for everyone but not all that difficult.  If you haven’t started yet, you only have to make up a few days worth of checklists--if you are already doing so then right on--and good luck!

Besides that, what are some of your personal birding goals for this year--I’d love to hear what others have planned?