#2021 Big Year in Review

 Happy New Year!!! 2022, can you believe it? Wow has the time gone by fast.  This post is a recap of the year that was #BigYear2021🐦🐦, all the fun stuff, places visited, good times and future plans. Below are some of the highlights.

                                                            

Walden pond, Colorado sunset

Coalmont, CO for Sage Grouse dawn

• 3 lifers--Wow!! I my lowest year for life birds since starting this thing;  2020--5,              2019--10, 2018--7, 2017--18, 2016--12, 2015--13 new and in 2014 I had 29 lifers. I traveled to Colorado +2 in April,  and Ohio produced +1 new lifer!! I am still thankful of the trips taken, birds seen, and friends I've been with making memories and good blog posts! Thank you all and God Bless. That puts me at #629 Life Birds.                                                                                                                    

My ABA Bird of the Year is . . . .the code 2 Greater Sage Grouse 

                                                                

Lifer #628

                        

   Back to Colorado!!! The last guy trip there was 2014 and was my first time, thus I got 12 lifers!!  Since we saw the harder to get Gunnison Sage-Grouse, I wanted to go northern Colorado for the Greater.  So with that the main target, I planned a late April weekend flying into Denver, and staying in Walden, CO for the night, 145 miles north.

                                

Moonlight on Walden

Lifer Moose?? Saw two running

• My Ohio Bird of the Year is . . . .the code 2 Smith's Longspur 

                                                                    

Last life bird of 2021 . . #629 

 I only saw 1 life birds in Ohio in 2021. Fresh back from Colorado, that Sunday night in April. Then working that week at 11am, I had a plan.  These Longspurs are now migratory in Ohio in April. Due to all the old corn fields, the birds love to make stops in Madison county, about 45 southwest for me. So I woke up early and follow previous reports to this road, that's between to corn fields, and  sure enough . . Boom Smiths Longspurs. Cant' wait to see them in 2022.  

Some more great Ohio birds I saw.  Code 3 Little Gull at Hoover & , Dickcissel, and a Black-legged Kittiwake at Alum Creek, Sanderlings at Buck Creek Lake. During our North Carolina beach trip, saw/heard, Pine & Prairie Warbler, American Oyster Catcher, Semi Palm Plover, Common Eider duck, Brown headed Nuthatch, Least Terns

 

 

BLKW

Dickcissel near Battelle 

Long eared Owl, Walnut Woods

Black Turn, OBX NC

Bodie Island light house, NC

Shearwater house, 1985 til 2001, South Nags Head

• 3 states visited--Ohio(+229 foys) Colorado(+ 33 birds), North Carolina (+17 foys)

• 279 total species--Wow, the least amount of species I have seen in a year. No Texas trip, no other state trips, and 50 hour workweeks really hampered my birding in 2021.  I did keep track of my "Ohio only" birds this year and got 229!   This puts me at a 338.7 species per year average over 9 years.  

                                     

• STATS  In 2013--338; 2014--359; 2015--322; 2016--360; 2017--377; 2018--353; 2019--321; 2020--340; 2021--279

            

Long Tailed Duck, male 

Evening Grosebeaks, rare migrants

Below is a list of some of the new first of year birds(FOYs) I saw in Ohio, during the last 45 days of birding in 2021.

#270 Purple Finch                                             

#271 Cattle Egret 
#272 Eurasian Collared Dove--Ohio lifer
#273 Fish Crow--Ohio lifer
#274 Black-legged Kittiwake
#275 Snow Goose
#276 Little Gull
#277 LBBG
#278 Eared Grebe
#279 Allens Hummingbird--Ohio Lifer, second ever Ohio record, in Cinncy, its a far west AZ bird

Allens, banded female

Allens, still there Jan.22'

**heard only 2021**
 Ringed Neck Pheasant, Sora rail, Eastern Screech Owl(2), Hooded Warbler

Rarities seen in 2021--only saw one Code 3 or higher birds this year, only 1
          

             Code 3  Little Gull--Hoover Reservoir, Ohio 
             

• Misses--not many of them, especially Ohio species. I  birded OHIO strong in January, getting 93 species in the first month!! So in 2022, my goal will be to get them early and keep trying. All the rain Ohio gets now. The shorebird habitat was almost non existent in 2021.  Hoover never really drained, Teal Trail never lowered, Pick Ponds was high. It was very bad.  Misses included: 

       Cackling Goose, Least Bittern, White-winged & Black Scoter, King Rail, VA Rail, Red-throated Loon, Black bellied & American Golden & Semi-Palm Plovers, Spotted Sandpiper, Black-billed Cuckoo,  Yellow-bellied & Olive-sided empidx.,  Barn & Northern Sawwhet Owl, Philly Vireo, Gray-cheeked Thrush, Blue-winged, Orange-crowned, Pine, Prairie, Blackpoll. N. Watherthrush, Kentucky, Mourning, UConn, Kirtland & Golden-winged warblers, Black & Foresters Terns, Vespar, Grasshopper, Henslow sparrows, Rusty BB, Pine Sisken, Common Raven.

• 2022 trips--So far no planned trips, but likely to change. 

          
           1. Ohio--Biggest week in American Birding--skipped/closed last 2 years due to COVID, straight line winds in August 2021 tore down a lot of trees, habit has changed.
         
           2. Chase a rarity. Can this be the year of a Code 4 or 5 chase?? Steller Sea Eagle, Northern Lapwing, all LRGV rarities, Bat Falco, Social Flycatcher, Golden-Crown Warbler. 

           3. Pacific NW in Spring 2022?? Arizona later in summer fall??

            4.  Marco Island, Florida May 2022   vacation, but birding, could get new ABAs Tri-colored Munia and Miltred Parakeet introduced now countables.