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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

ABA Big Year 2016 (1 Viewer)

Paul Chapman said:
That seems an extraordinary achievement:-

http://ebird.org/ebird/country/IN?yr=all

Of course, the relative test of difficulty is the proportion of species recorded of those that were available.

All the best
Click to expand...

Shashank is the top Indian contributor on Ebird with 1145 species total - I would guess in his big year there were relatively few (any?) real twitches but "just" a case of mopping up all of the regular species. Still impressive whatever.

cheers, alan
 
I have had too much time stuck in airports over the last week. So here for comparison are Neil Hayward's and John Vanderpoel's cumulative time series.

It shows how well Olaf did in his first few months and how he will find it slows for the rest of the year, as he has to pick species off.

I also expected an acceleration in the autumn from pelagics and Alaska, the sequel, but that is not seen. It seems to be a steady run in to the end of the year.

You would not believe how many date formats UK/US/errors are in each individual list!

I will update when John posts, he must be through 700 by now - Edit now with the 713 on the 17th of June
 

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I would hope Olaf (and John) are doing a socal pelagic later in the year. Honestly I can't begrudge him not going out at this time of year...my understanding is that craveri's and co are more late summer birds. The big question is: was John on that boat?

Pelagics are just really hard to plan for. IIRC, John Vanderpoel ended up having not that great of luck on his pelagics, and in one case while he was on one pelagic a different Pelagic nailed one of the first White-chinned Petrel records for the ABA.

I think nabbing Bicknell's Thrush while in the NE for Garganey was probably a wise decision.
 
I too was wondering if he was on the boat, but no, it appears not -

http://www.birdingfordevils.com/p/this-is-listing-of-species-so-far.html

John is racing through the commoner birds (as I thought he would) - now up to 713 with Cerulean Warbler, with a few potentially tricky ones such as Henslow's Sparrow and Great Gray Owl out of the way (24 additions in 6 days). Almost all in Minnesota, even passing through Duluth, my favourite US city name ... ;)


(Pelagics - yes the 'season' is meant to be from late summer on - however, on the website I linked to earlier it does mention Scripps as only regular until June (rare after from San Diego at least) ... I do think the more pelagics the better myself, be interesting to see how that side of things pans out by years end, especially considering it may be getting cooler (la nina) out there ... and what's Olaf going to be doing in a week or so's time apart from twiddling his thumbs or hoping for a rarity to chase? - there aren't many pelagics heading out there at this time of year, unless there's some special charters we're unaware of ... It is luck I guess, but it's also about making your luck (hindsight notwithstanding!)).



Edit - ah see Nigel posted up already above ;)
 
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I updated the post figure above to save space - now with the 713 on the 17th of June

Well done to both John and Olaf on breaking the 700 before mid summer!!
 
It's perhaps an appropriate typo, so I'll leave it in ... ;) (they were in a bog ... )

Some good luck/some bad ... was going to post up a required species list, but looks like he's done so anyway (+ Mr Chapman will be back soonish I guess ;) )
 
dantheman said:
It's perhaps an appropriate typo, so I'll leave it in ... ;) (they were in a bog ... )

Some good luck/some bad ... was going to post up a required species list, but looks like he's done so anyway (+ Mr Chapman will be back soonish I guess ;) )
Click to expand...

On the flight. Looking forward to updating the spreadsheet. 3:)

When I get back, I'll see if I can find Mysticete's post on him prefering Neil Hayward because he was more cheerful. Did I remember that right? Just reading his book on the plane. :eek!:

All the best
 
I can't say how Hayward's book reads, but his blog didn't have the self pity and bashing of things that Olaf has. I mean if Neil's book is not cheerful because it has plenty of anectodotes on how the environment is going to hell in a handbasket, that is a different sort of depressing and one I am more comfortable reading about :)
 
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