[ovenbird43]

When I first started birding all I kept was a life list, but the enthusiasm of other listers rubbed off on me and now I find myself keeping an ABA life list, state lists, and year lists. I haven't gone so far as to keep county lists and am still not interested in them, but since eBird calculates them for me I may someday start to keep track. I've kept backyard lists in the past, usually when I'm off somewhere for a field job or field work. I don't really keep a list for my current apartment.

I keep a Bigby list- all the birds I find by walking/running/biking from home for the year, and I suppose starting next year I'll start a cumulative Bigby life list. I know at least a few others around here keep this list as well.

I've recently started keeping a list of all the birds I see/hear while running in a marathon- starting with the Mississippi Coast Marathon last weekend, with 32 species including Brown-headed Nuthatch. I once kept a list of all the bird species I heard a Northern Mockingbird imitate: that was when I worked down in Florida, I heard the mockingbird in our front yard imitate interesting birds like King Rail and Burrowing Owl, so I started keeping track.

So... what lists besides life and year lists do you all keep? Anybody have any unique or unusual lists?

[Tero]

I have state lists for Minnesota and Nebraska.

My life list says the state the lifers were found in, so I do not keep a list for my home state. I could calculate it any time.

[chris butterworth]

Must admit to being an inveterate list keeper myself. Garden ( Yard ), local patch, Wirral, UK, year and life lists, plus national one's as well. My shortest list is my Afghani one with three Eurasian Griffons, seen from a plane over Afghanistan! Does this make me a really sad bastard ( I don't keep a TV list though!)
Chris

[ovenbird43]

Originally Posted by chris butterworth

My shortest list is my Afghani one with three Eurasian Griffons, seen from a plane over Afghanistan! Does this make me a really sad bastard ( I don't keep a TV list though!)
Chris

Haha, that's great! I have some pretty short state lists, for states that I've only driven through (since beginning listing, anyway) and recorded what I saw from the highway or at rest stops. Some of which I probably haven't actually transferred from my notebook to my list spreadsheets in Excel.

[Thing]

A bathroom list. All the birds I have seen while sitting on the throne, looking out of the window. I was inspired to do so after a Green Woodpecker nearly flew in the window.

It is not a big list.

[Dave B Smith]

Nice thing about a data base, one entry and all lists are updated! My shortest country lists are Oman with just the Hoopoe and Russia with Smew, Red-throated Loon, and Common Greenshank, all Russian birds seen from Norway (where the Loon and Greenshank were first seen and then watched as they flew off across the river - Russia).

[canadagurl123]

I keep bc list, Vancouver Island list, Victoria list, garden list, life lists and year lists. Also I keep my lists from bird watcing particular days just for records of when I see them.

[kevinguest]

I use the wildlife recorder database which compiles all my lists for me. I have life, county, country, site lists and I even monitor a month list for my local patch.

This causes endless amusement for the other keyholders who watch on as I march off to see a wren because I have not seen one before in December.

Mind you it has paid off when I have found an uncommon bird on the way.

[Nightjar61]

I'm too obsessed with this listing thing. Not sure if I've covered them all here, as I'm at work and don't have access to my lists, but here goes. My lists include World (multiple taxonomic authorities), World (Clements), ABA Area, Indiana, North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Eurasia, Holarctic Region, Neotropical Region, Palearctic Region, Afrotropical Region, Oriental Region, Middle East, Colorado, Illinois, World Year, ABA Area Year, and Indiana Year.

Dave

[jrwilton]

I found a birding blog with an article about the Texas Century Club. 100 birds in 100 Texas counties. Maybe not as easy as it sounds even though there are 254 counties to choose from. Here is a link to the blog:

http://djringer.com/birding/2008/11/...sycho-listers/

jwilton

[Quercus]

A list of when you catch sight of a bird, immediately think.... "Ooh look, there's a ... whatever"... and it's actually a woodpigeon

[Farnboro John]

World List, British Isles list, Scilly list, year lists, day lists, garden list, 10-mile list (radius from home), month lists (all over 200 and October is about 350), Mammal World and British Isles lists, British Isles Reptiles, Amphibians, Butterflies, Dragonflies and latterly, macro-moths lists, desultory British Isles fish list.....

I suppose some might talk of OCD but I don't often find myself with nothing to do!

John

[Sean F]

I will admit that I am a bit list mad. So I do have most of the lists you can possibly have including life, year, county, and site lists from almost all the sites I have ever birded at (currently around 80). I have never had a proper local patch for any length of time, so its interesting to compare the sites. At the moment Pagham Harbour (visit about 5 times a year) takes the honours of the site where I have seen the most species with 132.

I also have month lists where my most productive month is September with 163, and my least is July with 120.

Not to mention all my 'other wildlife' (plants, butterflies etc.) lists!

I told you I was list mad!

[Steve Lister]

With a name like mine I just have to keep plenty of lists.

Ongoing lists include
Patch lists (currently Swithland Reservoir and Rutland Water but I still have eight on the go from my Yorkshire days)
County lists for every county in England (but three stand at 0)
Country lists for all European countries visited
ABA Regional lists such as WP, Africa, Eurasia
Non-ABA regional lists such as Europe, Middle-East, Indian sub-continent
Waders, gulls.

And then year-lists - always Leics/Rutland, usually Norfolk, Lincs and Yorkshire; Europe, WP, World. And anything else that fits in - this year I have a Eurasia year-list of 800.

For me it all adds interest to the hobby and helps to keep me going after 40 years of birding.

Steve

[skink1978]

Uk Birds, Yorkshire Birds, UK Reptile and Amphibians, UK Mammals, World Mammals, also a bird, mammal, reptile and amphibian list for every overseas holiday.

I also keep lists for my parent's garden which contain two species of owl, Woodcock, Roe Deer and loads of other good creatures. In my own garden I'm lucky if I see a Blackbird so don't bother.

Once my UK bird list gets bigger, I'll probably pay more attention to year listing.

[Gillian_M]

I have a life list, and two year lists: one for all birds seen during the year, and one for birds only seen in the Ottawa field naturalists' club (OFNC) study area, which is a circle with a 50-km radius from the Peace Tower at Parliament Hill (and thus a large portion of the circle is in Quebec). What I like about the OFNC list is that I can check online to see how rare a bird is for the area, and how likely it is to be found in the area on the date I see it based on numerical rankings (category 1 birds include pigeons, chickadees, and house sparrows, whereas category 6 birds are vagrants not seen every year, such as the Townsend's Solitaire last winter).

I also do month lists and trip lists, and I started a Nova Scotia list after my visit last summer since I anticipate going back (my fiance is from there).

The only non-bird list I have right now is a dragonfly list, and I started that because I found a rare dragonfly for the Ottawa area that the field naturalists' club was thrilled to find out about (I only realized it was a rare species when I submitted it to a friend for ID confirmation, and she submitted it to one of the people who maintains dragonfly records for the Ottawa area!!)