Thursday 22 November 2007

10 - or more - birds to see before you die...

This subject came up on an email listserv recently: which are the 100 birds every birder should see before they die? This was refined to choosing 10 each, and the top 100 nominated would then create this list. Being a North American-based group, there is a bit of a bias towards Neotropical species, which is fair enough... I put in my nominations a couple of days back - for the record, here they are:

#1: Wallcreeper
#2: Black Grouse
#3: Regent Bowerbird
#4: Great Bustard
#5: Sword-billed Hummingbird
#6: Long-tailed Duck
#7: Dotterel
#8: Shoebill
#9: Cuban Tody
#10: Standard-winged Nightjar

Now, there's obviously a bias here too - I'm approaching this through my own birding (I've seen nos 1, 2, 4, 6 & 7) and browsing, and if you asked me today, I'd have to say: what about kiwis? Light-mantled Albatross? Grass-green Tanager? Sabine's or Ross' Gulls?? Tricky one - the list is long and it's hellish hard to get yourself down to just 10 bird species.

Any takers? Suggestions?!

Revisiting the post: what about Horned Parakeet? Kagu? Crested Ibis? Blue Vanga?! The list goes on! It will be fascinating to see the final choices...

2 comments:

Mark said...

Hmmmm....thats a tough one...let me think.

ok....birds to see before you die:

Ross's gull
pygmy falcon
pheasant tailed jacana
spectacled eider
fork-tailed flycatcher
snow petrel
blue bellied roller
black throated diver
long whiskered owlet
lammergeier

wow...that was hard! I think I might write something about that on my blog, if thats OK.

jeremy barker said...

Why on earth not?! Interesting to see how many nominations there were for Harpy Eagle - perhaps the N American bias kicking in there: I reckon Steller's or Philippine are equally, if not more, superb. Hoping to have a crack at seeing Philippine next year... wish me luck!