400 in Ontario - part deux

I forget how I stumbled upon this, but over TWO years ago I wrote a blog post about my predictions on when I could hit 400 species in Ontario.

http://www.blog.peregrineprints.com/2011/01/400-in-ontario.html

Well here's an update:


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At the end of 2010 my Ontario list was sitting at 352 species (says the above post)… And I had picked 48 species that I expected to see in my attempts to hit 400 in Ontario!

I broke the 48 down into two categories. Category 1 was birds I “expected” or “knew” I would see prior to hitting 400 in the province (30 total)..

I then picked 18 “guesses” that would round off the list to 400 for category 2…

My list is now 365 species two years later… So what did I add? In order of occurrence:



Neotropic Cormorant

Fish Crow

Western Tanager

Common Eider

Black-throated Gray Warbler

Smew

Mountian Bluebird

Magnificent Frigatebird

Thick-billed Kingbird

Leach’s Storm-Petrel

Wilson’s Storm Petrel



Notice a problem here? How did I go from 352 to 365 only adding 11 species? Well at the time of my last post, I had forgotten to add American White Pelican and Brown Pelican to my ebird list, so that was just an error… Anyways…

Of those species, I had the following as “for sure – code 1” birds: Fish Crow, Western Tanager, Common Eider, Black-throated Gray Warbler and Mountain Bluebird. 5 of 11 ain’t bad! Right?

Signed and sealed

A further two species were on my “code 2 guesses” – Neotropic Cormorant and Magnificent Frigatebird. So you can pretty much say I’ve guessed 7 of my 11 last Ontario birds with some sort of accuracy..



Leaving the unpredictable birds like Smew, Thick-billed Kingbird, Leach’s and Wilson’s Storm Petrels left (Thanks Sandy)…



35 species from 400! Here’s an updated list of “code 1” birds (just a copy of the 2010 predictions, minus the additions)



Cinnamon Teal
Gray Partridge
Willow Ptarmagin
Northern Bobwhite
Northern Fulmar
Great Cormorant
Snowy Egret
Little Blue Heron
Swallow-tailed Kite
Yellow Rail
Purple Gallinule
Snowy Plover
Ivory Gull
Slaty-backed Gull
Eurasian-collared Dove
White-winged Dove
Say's Phoebe
Ash-throated Flycatcher
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
Northern Wheatear
Townsend's Warbler
Golden-crowned Sparrow
Gray-crowned Rosy-finch
Glaucous-winged Gull
Clark's Grebe



You’ll note just how many I could probably add if I spent some time twitching (G. Partridge, N. Bobwhite, WW Dove and SB Gull would have already been get-able in 2013 if I had tried). I’m starting to worry about my Clark’s prediction too..

Nemisis bird. Right up there with Slaty-backed Gull

Remaining code two “guesses” -

Barnacle Goose
Prairie Falcon
Sharp-tailed Sandpiper
Least Tern
Ancient Murrelet
Lewis's Woodpecker
Vermillion Flycatcher
Fork-tailed Flycatcher
Bell's Vireo
Bewick's Wren
Hermit Warbler
Swainson's Warbler
Green-tailed Towhee
Cassin's Sparrow
Bullock's Oriole
Red-necked Stint



Mind you I should really delete two of these, given that getting all of them would get me to 402 species… I’d like to delete Clark’s Grebe, but I feel like that’s cheating. So I’ll remove Prairie Falcon and Least Tern for future reference.

At the same time, I was a bit bored and decided to look in reverse at my “new Ontario birds” prior to the first post in 2010. For 2010 and 2009 They were (in reverse order);



Sooty/Short-tailed Shearwater*

Dovekie*

Black Guillemot

Arctic Tern

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck*

Gyrfalcon

“Kamchatka” Mew Gull – counted as Mew Gull

Tufted Duck

Phainopepla*

Black-tailed Gull*

Western Kingbird

Black-throated Sparrow*

Black Swift*

Western Meadowlark

Lark Sparrow

Blue Grosbeak

7 of those 16 species would not have been on my hindsight prediction list – marked with a *(I’m guessing) or 44%... As mentioned above, I’ve sorta-predicted 7 of 11 in the last two years, which is 5 of 11 - or 45% - unpredictable.


Which leads me to believe that on the 35 species I need to hit 400, 15 of them will not be on my list..


I’ve added unpredictable species at an average of 2.75 birds per year, over the past four years. If I can keep that pace up, I should hit 400 in 5.5 years (or when I’m 31).

I’m also adding species to my Ontario list at the rate of 6.75 birds/year over the past four years, meaning I’ll hit 400 when I’m 30. But I think that is skewed a bit high by easy species 3-4 years ago, so 31 still seems like a safer bet… Note that I predicted my mid 30's in the first post, but that was an uneducated guess. This one is better ;)



Why did I spend time calculating this? I have no idea…

Here's looking forward to those surprise birds