I’ve updated my lifelist to reflect the sightings of the past month or so. I still need to find usable photos (e.g. those in the public domain or licensed for non-commercial use) and enter a bunch of latin names, but the list of birds itself is now complete.

Through doing this update I’ve realized that I’ve crossed the 200 bird mark! This number includes all birds sighted everywhere, i.e. the 27 birds I saw in Ireland (the Ring-Necked Pheasant is the only bird that appears in both places). It’s my goal to reach 200 birds in North America by the end of the year. I would say ‘no problem, I’ve been going gang-busters since the beginning of the year!’ except…. Except I’m trying to be realistic: it’s been the spring migration and that’s no way to gauge how the rest of the year will go. Nonetheless there are still whole categories of birds I’m completely weak on — owls spring readily to mind — and more that are common in the right habitat. I’ll be traveling north again toward the end of the summer, and with a little luck I’ll be able to pick up some more locals in other places.

Twenty-four (more) new birds before the end of the year seems daunting, but I remind myself that I’ve already seen fifty-two new birds this year. Fifty-two! I had no idea it was that many until I tallied them up just now. I’m kind of impressed with myself. So there you go.