The Daily Kos Backyard Science Yardbird Race is a birding competition where, over the course of one year, participants strive to identify the most bird species — by sight and/or by sound — from the confines of their yards.
Everyone is welcome - new birders, experienced birders, and anyone in between. We're a very supportive group and will help as much as we can. If you're not sure about an ID, just do your best to give us a good written description. Images, even mediocre ones, can be a great help, too. There are a number of categories, so that people who live in urban centers don't have to compete against others who have a lot of open space or waterfront views. For more information, check the “Details and Fine Print” section located way down at the bottom.Here’s where the race stood after the third tally in March
Welcome, everyone who joined the race last month! Let us know if you aren’t yet a member of the Backyard Bird Racers and we’ll send out an invite.
Please let me know if I’ve missed anyone or if anything needs correcting. We’ve been a little behind on updating the spreadsheet and I’ve tried to reflect the data I found in the March tally. This involved moving some participants between categories. If I’ve made an error, please let me know.
SMALL TOWN
1. besame … Sierra foothills CA … 32
2. alamancedem… Piedmont region of NC … 16 (new)
URBAN ATTACHED
I think our previous participants in this group actually belong to Urban Detached, so I moved them. Let me know if that’s wrong.
URBAN DETACHED
1. bwren … Seattle WA … 33
2. billybush … Omaha NE … 19
3. mahdalgal … Dallas TX … 14
4. youfraitta … PA … 2
5. joanNJTN ...Tennesee … 1
SUBURBAN
1. enhydra lutris … Castro Valley CA … 33
2. rajintrajan … MO … 29
3. MEL in PGH … PA … 18
4. LI Center … NY … 14
5. Redwoodman (6412093) … Portland OR … 9
RURAL <5ACRES
1. (tie) wordwraith … Central NC … 26
1. (tie) Old Cootess … Central PA … 26
2. PHScott … Tallahassee FL … 22
3. mithrandir … Windsor Co VT … 7
RURAL >5ACRES
1. BonnieBlueSky … Humboldt Co CA ...7
2. OptimizerDad … Nashua NH … 6
3. North County NY … NY … 5
RURAL RV RESORT
1. pollysyllabic … Hope AZ … 34 (Do you want to join Rural <5 acres?)
WATERFRONT
1. matching mole … Tallahassee FL … 46
2. Milly Watt … Olympic Peninsula WA … 36
3. Dr Arcadia … Thumb of MI … 35
4. Ocean Diver … Salish Sea Island … 31
5. jazr … Lower Mid State NY … 20
6. Sharistuff … Central AL … 16
7. APPY … Flint Hills KA … 14 (moved because of pond)
8. Political Mutt … Sandhills NC … 9
Tally Updates. Here's what you need to report - Your location, as close as you are comfortable revealing. Your yard category. Number of species seen so far, including your other tallies if you have any. List of birds seen, with new birds at the top. Any comments you have about your sightings.
A Couple of Notes About Submitting Your Data
This group couldn’t function without our Official Tally Keepers (and we could always use more volunteers). They do the hard work around here, taking turns every month to go through everone’s updated lists, noting all of the new sightings and making certain that everyone’s counts are transferred correctly onto the official tally spreadsheet.
We can make their job a bit easier. You’ll note that our lists tend to get longer as the year progresses, so one thought is for everyone to note new birds at the top of your list each month, maybe even in bold.
A second thought is to start noting your new birds in taxonomic order, since the spreadsheet is set up in that manner. There are several websites that will give you a list of North American birds in taxonomic order. As this is basically the same order as a field guide so you should pick it up quickly. The American Birding Association has downloadable excel checklists and Cornell has an online checklist. Formerly we used the USGS checklist which has a handy code (see below) but the checklist seems to have disappeared. If someone finds it see next paragraph.
If you have the USGS Birds of America checklist, it happens to be in taxonomic order. You might also note the number given to each species in the very first column of the list, which is very helpful for the tally keepers. As examples, 004.2 is the number for Common Loon, and 449.3 is the number for American Crow, so you’d order them them as new birds at the top of your list as:
004.2 Common Loon449.3 American CrowOceanDiver put the order we use in this comment in the third tally. Thank you, OceanDiver!
Ask if you have questions, and let any of the tally keepers know if you’d like a copy of the official tally sheet. Thank you, and good birding to everyone!
Details and fine print.
You'll be listing the number of bird species that you see from the confines of your yard between January 1 and December 31, 2018. You can list a bird if you see or hear it while you are somewhere in your yard. Your "yard" includes the property on which your domicile is located, and includes your living quarters, so you can list the Great Horned Owl that wakes you at 2am, but you can't list the Harpy Eagle you think you see in your neighbor's side yard while driving home if you cannot see it from any place in your yard after you get out of your car. You can, however, walk around to your neighbor's yard to visually ID a bird that you have initially glimpsed or heard from the confines of your own yard. Pet birds and birds kept for hunting don't count, but domestic chickens, ducks, peafowl, guinea hens, geese etc are fair game. With the exception of utilizing recorded bird calls, which is strongly discouraged, there are no rules about making your yard more bird-attractive than the competition's. There are also no rules about ladders, fences, binoculars or spotting scopes.
Here are the yard categories:
~Small Town ~College Campus ~Urban apartment or condo ~Urban attached (townhouse, rowhouse) ~Urban detached ~Suburban ~Rural <5 acres ~Rural >5 acres ~Waterfront (trumps any of the above...) ~Classroom Project ~Mobile ~Rural RV ParkPlease let us know if your yard doesn't seem to fit in any of these categories. We'll work out a new one for you.
The fourth tally of the 2018 Race is now open! Newcomers and returnees are always welcome. Have fun!