Combined Beats’ List – September

Duncan has been in Africa, sweeping all before him like a brush fire. Through Botswana during the first week of September, then into Ethiopia with a late flourish, he has carried the list to 2191 as at September 30th.

Redgannet missed an opportunity to contribute when he was completely washed out at Lekki Conservation Centre in Nigeria. Electric storms closed the new walkway there and he amassed a total list of just 3 birds!

Contributions this month have come from; Costa Rica, USA, Australia, Mexico, Serbia, South Africa, UK, Botswana, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

It is a dream, nay, a mission statement of 10,000 Birds to see as many of the World’s birds as possible. A Strickerian task for an individual, but the combined eyes and optics of beat writers around the globe might be able to make a fair fist of it.

Thus, a combined list of current beat writers will be compiled to see how many birds, weird and wonderful, common or unusual we can find between us. All birds are equal on this list; parking lot birds or pelagic species, breeders or fly-overs, all will be accorded the same status and each shall be worth 1 credit on the list. There may be a bit of backroom competition by the beats as only the first of the species will be noted on the list, but with a little delving, there is more information here than we first realised.

Unexpectedly, every entry can be highlighted as a link. So if you wish to check how many Mallards have been seen by the beats you can. Should the fancy take you, you could call up a 10,000 Birds life list (from 2016 onwards. Backdating has not been ruled out, but logistics make it unlikely) for a particular location or simply study the rest of the checklist from which the link was chosen.

This is not an exhaustive list as a few of the beats do not use compatible listing software, or have reservations about revealing sightings of sensitive birds. Others, by their own admission, are Luddites and believe that the pinnacle of human technological achievement was reached on the day that man first bound a notebook in moleskin. Still, the list will be as complete as we can keep it and will be updated on the first Saturday of every month.

The Management and beats at 10,000 Birds send a big hat tip and a collective thank you to eBird for their facility which allows us to easily register the beat sightings into a joint account.