Combined Beats’ list

April was a good month for the list with a couple of our big–hitters weighing in to boost the numbers and The Management engaged in a beat recruitment drive in a cynical attempt to swell the catalogue.

During last month, beat lists have been shared from Mexico, Australia, Nigeria, Costa Rica, Serbia, UK, Canada and USA (but none from Russia, do we not know anyone in Russia?). As at May 7th, the total stands at 1661 with the main thrust of the migration still to come.  Many of the warblers have already found a place on the list, but there are still plenty to pick up on.

A few of the lists included photographs, watch out for the coloured links. And here is a new trick brought to you courtesy of Dragan. Use the “add picture” facility to post a photo of the site where you have been birding. Click and drag your picture into the comments section. Why did no-one else think of that? I have not yet found a way to highlight this innovative facility.

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 fistof 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. Some of the checklists have photos and featured birds are highlighted purple in the date column, Click for the pic.

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. As at Saturday April 2nd we stand at 880.

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 accont.