2024 The Year in Birds
Overall 2024 was a slow year. I didn’t travel anywhere I hadn’t been before, and I lost a month of prime rarity season in New York to a bout with pneumonia that put me in the hospital for over a week. But there were still some interesting birds to be found the rest of the year.
I finished the year with 364 species total (surprisingly 19 more than 2023, perhaps because I traveled to the West Coast a couple of times for the first time since quarantine) but no life birds. (Harris’s Sparrow was new on my ebird life list, but I did see one on Long Island years ago before eBird was a thing.) I did pick up some species for my state and county lists though.
Closest to home in Brooklyn, I added Rufous Hummingbird and Brown Pelican to my county list, both big rarities for the borough. My Kings County list now stands at a tantalizing 299, not counting escapees and hybrids. I’m still missing Purple Martin and several shorebirds and pelagic species so maybe this year I get to 300. I missed the Pacific Loon at Floyd Bennett in January and the Greater White-fronted Goose in Prospect Park in December. The loon I tried for once, but it was just too cold and too far away to keep returning until I found it. The goose I went for several times without luck. More effort would have likely paid off, but I was (and am) still weak from the pneumonia. Update: actually the Brown Pelican was #300. Turns out a Thick-billed Murre I saw at Dead Horse Bay in 2005 was not included on my list.
No new birds for New York State last year. I did add a Purple Gallinule to my Louisiana list, Harris’s Sparrow to my California list, 3 species to my Washington state list, and 9 species to my Arizona list:
- Nashville Warbler – Mt. Lemmon–Rose Canyon and Lake
- Common Nighthawk – Road to Kentucky Camp
- Franklin’s Gull – Willcox–Lake Cochise and Twin Lakes Golf Course
- Stilt Sandpiper – Willcox–Lake Cochise and Twin Lakes Golf Course
- Peregrine Falcon – Sweetwater Wetlands
- Sanderling – Willcox–Lake Cochise and Twin Lakes Golf Course
- Band-tailed Pigeon – Rustler Park
- Great Egret – Benson – Sewage Treatment Plant
- Grasshopper Sparrow – San Rafael Grasslands
So overall a slow year. In 2025 I plan to travel more, and do at least one major trip to the Neotropics, and one to Europe, so the numbers should start going up again.
