Quest for 200

With the recent addition of the Hairy Woodpecker to my property list, I have gotten excited about the possibility of having 200 species on my property list. The Hairy Woodpecker was #195. So, five more is all I need. Should be easy, right? Well, not really. I sat down and made a list of birds that would be possible here, but not probable. It's going to take some work (and a little luck!) to add those five! Here are the possibilities and where I might see them:

Gadwall - pond
American Wigeon - pond
Northern Shoveler - pond
Northern Pintail - pond
Ring-necked Duck - pond
Greater Scaup - pond
Lesser Scaup - pond
Northern Bobwhite - pasture
Pied-billed Grebe - pond
Wood Stork - pond, wet pasture
American Bittern - pond
Least Bittern - pond
Bonaparte's Gull - pond
Common Ground-Dove - feeders in the woods
Vermilion Flycatcher - pond
Red-breasted Nuthatch - feeders in the woods
Brown-headed Nuthatch - feeders in the woods
Winter Wren - woods, overgrown areas of the pasture
Marsh Wren - pond
Sprague's Pipit - pasture
Palm Warbler - pond, creek
Mourning Warbler - woods
Wilson's Warbler - woods
Grasshopper Sparrow - pasture, overgrown areas of the pasture
Le Conte's Sparrow - pasture, overgrown areas of the pasture
White-crowned Sparrow - pasture, overgrown areas of the pasture, feeders
Purple Finch - woods, feeders in the woods

If I had to predict which would be the first five I see, I would pick:
1. Wood Stork (more likely flying over)
2. White-crowned Sparrow (I have excellent habitat for them)
3. Gadwall
4. Bonaparte's Gull (flyover in the winter)
5. Mourning Warbler

The ducks, gulls and Wood Stork are all possible with birds flying over. Sometimes the ducks are pretty hard to identify when they are backlit by a bright sky.

The number of new birds on the property declines dramatically from year to year, which is to be expected. Here are the numbers of new species I've seen by year since 2003:
2003: 91
2004: 55
2005: 17
2006: 7
2007: 10
2008: 10
2009: 3
2010: 2

It could take a couple of years to get to the 200 mark. Some of the positives are that the new pond has a healthy growth of cattails all around it and has several trees growing around it. It looks like it will be more attractive to ducks and other birds that like water. There are lots of minnows in it now. I need to get some plants to put in the water that would be attractive to dabbling ducks. Having the feeders in the woods can make it a little easier to find some of the species down there, especially having the BirdCam set up to record what visits. So, I'm on a quest to get five more species to get to the 200 species mark.

With our four-wheeler having a flat tire, I've had to resort to walking to the feeders in the woods. It's a tough life, I know! But, it's given me the opportunity to listen for some of our summer residents that are still singing. Yellow-billed Cuckoos are everywhere and still calling. A Northern Parula was singing along the gully. An Indigo Bunting sang from the top of a tall weed and let me get a good look at him before he dropped and disappeared. I've also heard Red-eyed Vireos, Great Crested Flycatchers and all the resident birds (cardinals, Blue Jays, chickadees, titmice, woodpeckers).

On a non-bird note, I did add another mammal to my property list - nine-banded armadillo. He was foraging in the woods near the feeders yesterday when I went down to fill them. I don't know if they're getting more rare, but I am surprised this is the first one I've seen in the nearly seven years we've lived here. I don't see as many of them dead alongside the road as I used to, either.