The Big Five-Oh

Even though I stopped chasing numbers in respect to birding a few months ago I couldn't help but notice a little milestone yesterday. We braved some chilly wind and gray skies to see what was going on around Picnic Point. Along with lots of Tundra Swans, Common Loons, Gulls and an immature Bald Eagle, I saw my first Common Goldeneye. That species brought my total to fifty new ones in 2008. Just for the heck of it, here they are:

• American Dipper
  
• American Pipit
  
• Baird's Sandpiper
  
• Black-crowned Night-Heron
  
• Black-throated Blue Warbler
  
• Black-throated Green Warbler
  
• Canada Warbler
  
• Canvasback
  
• Chestnut-sided Warbler
  
• Common Goldeneye
  
• Common Moorhen
  
• Dickcissel
  
• Dunlin
  
• Eastern Phoebe
  
• Golden-winged Warbler
  
• Grasshopper Sparrow
  
• Great Horned Owl
  
• Greater Yellowlegs
  
• Heermann's Gull
  
• Least Sandpiper
  
• Lesser Scaup
  
• Lesser Yellowlegs
  
• Lincoln's Sparrow
  
• Magnolia Warbler
  
• Nashville Warbler
  
• Northern Shrike
  
• Northern Waterthrush
  
• Olive-sided Flycatcher
  
• Ovenbird
  
• Palm Warbler
  
• Philadelphia Vireo
  
• Pine Siskin
  
• Red Crossbill
  
• Ruby-crowned Kinglet
  
• Savannah Sparrow
  
• Sedge Wren
  
• Semipalmated Plover
  
• Sharp-shinned Hawk
  
• Short-billed Dowitcher
  
• Solitary Sandpiper
  
• Stilt Sandpiper
  
• Swamp Sparrow
  
• Tennessee Warbler
  
• Tundra Swan
  
• Vaux's Swift
  
• Veery
  
• Warbling Vireo
  
• Western Grebe
  
• Western Gull
  
• Wrentit