2BY8: April List

To say I had a good April is an understatement. I mean, I didn’t have a 100- (or even 84-) species day, like some people. I’ll never come close to the 294-species-in-24-hours that the Cornell team just racked up in Texas on the Big Day. But I did add 81 species to my list—8 of those in Vermont, the rest in Arizona. This brought my 2013 total to 134, which is 80 species ahead of where I was by April’s end in 2012 and 19 species more than I saw in all of last year.

Some of the birds I saw in Arizona I will eventually see in Vermont—I just saw them there first. Many of the birds I saw in Arizona I will never see here.

A couple of birds I will need to research to see if I can count them as a separate species: the Fuertes red-tailed hawk, for example, or the Audubon yellow-rumped warbler. I suspect I technically can’t, but (full disclosure) for now I am, because it’s cool to see a subspecies.

Here’s the April list: common grackle, brown-headed cowbird, eastern phoebe, purple finch, white-throated sparrow, great-tailed grackle, white-winged dove, black-chinned hummingbird, broad-billed hummingbird, rufous hummingbird, brown-crested flycatcher, Wilson’s warbler, yellow warbler, vermilion flycatcher, lark sparrow, common yellowthroat, gila woodpecker, Abert’s towhee, gray hawk, Cassin’s kingbird, barn swallow, black-headed grosbeak, dusky-capped flycatcher, Lucy’s warbler, zone-tailed hawk, Bullock’s oriole, red-tailed hawk (Fuertes), Botteri’s sparrow, ladderback woodpecker, osprey, hooded oriole, Cassin’s vireo, plumbeous vireo, summer tanager, bridled titmouse, ruby-crowned kinglet, northern beardless tyrannulet, Bell’s vireo, yellow-breasted chat, green-tailed towhee, American coot, Mexican jay, canyon wren, yellow-rumped warbler (Audubon), Eurasian collared dove, pie-billed grebe, sora, Bewick’s wren, Cassin’s sparrow, lazuli bunting, Gambel’s quail, acorn woodpecker, cedar waxwing, violet-crowned hummingbird, curve-billed thrasher, white-crowned sparrow, lesser goldfinch, pyrrhuloxia, pine siskin, indigo bunting, chipping sparrow, greater roadrunner, common poor-will, ash-throated flycatcher, black-necked stilt, northern shoveler, cinnamon teal, American avocet, white-faced ibis, American widgeon, blue-winged teal, ruddy duck, cactus wren, black-throated sparrow, lesser nighthawk, black-tailed gnatcatcher, verdin, Western kingbird, rufous-sided towhee, rose-breasted grosbeak, chimney swift.

It was a good April.