[Tweeters] County Year List Project at the half-way point for 2024

[Matt Bartels via Tweeters]

Hi Tweeters and Inland NW Birders -

An updated version of the 2024 County Year List Project is up and available at Washington Birder. Almost all of the 39 counties sent in updates of the year list at the mid-way point. Thanks compilers for all your work, and thanks everyone who has contributed.

The mid-year check-in as a relatively stable time of year to compare across years — The end of June finds us mostly done with spring migration, and still ahead of fall migration (except for some shorebirds.

Overall, it looks like this year is shaping up to be a bit better than usual when it comes to county year lists. Here’s how things look compared with recent years:

We’ve tallied 369 species statewide as of the mid-way point in 2024. That’s a bit above the mid-year average total at this point [364], 4 higher than our total at this point last year.

In Western WA, our 336 total is 1 higher than last year’s at this point. The is our highest for this point since 2012, and we are above average [326] by a full 10 species.

In Eastern WA, our 308 species tallied is tied with 2013 for our highest ever mid-year total and well above our usual EWA average [301].

28 counties are higher than they were at this  point last year, 9 are lower, and 2 [Skamania & Thurston] were at exactly the same total as last year’s check-in. 28 Counties have a total within 10 species of the check-in at this point last year,  a sign of the continued consistency of this effort.

Clallam [254] and King [252] are in the lead with the highest county totals. That said, if we compare counties based on the percentage of their overall life list that has been found so far this year, the top five counties are all in Eastern WA: Okanogan [74%, 242], Yakima [73%, 240], Chelan [72%, 228], Klickitat [72%, 226] and Kittitas [70%, 324]

68 species have been seen in all 39 counties (last year that number was 60). and 159 species have been found in 30 or more counties — that’s our core of wide-spread regulars.

If you'd like to take a look at where things stand, the list and many other interesting files are at the Washington Birder website: 

http://www.wabirder.com/index.html	

A direct link to the 2024 county yearlist & the list of county compilers contact info:
http://www.wabirder.com/county_yearlist.html



Thanks to all the compilers and all those pitching in to sketch a picture of another year's birds in WA.  

Good birding,



Matt Bartels 
Seattle, WA 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20240723/08ccbdef/attachment.html>