Many Mainers enjoy birding at some level. Most people are mildly to keenly interested, and a few are borderline crazy. There is no specific scale to measure bird-craziness, but there are clear signals.
How far does someone go to bird? How often? How much are they willing to spend on optics? How many field guides do they own? Do they keep a life list?
A life list is simply a list of birds seen in one’s lifetime. People may keep multiple lists. For instance, I keep lists of birds I’ve seen at home, in Maine, in North America and in the world. Four lists. That puts me somewhere near the crazy category, but probably not over the top.
For some, a life list is merely a passive catalog of memorable encounters. For others, it’s an active scorecard. The number itself gains importance, and it’s fun to watch it go up. I’ve seen 614 species in North America in my lifetime.
Whoops. Make that 613. I just lost a species. This contest has an umpire.
Most species are easy to distinguish. They look and sound different. But nature isn’t always helpful. Some species are nearly identical to other species. When that happens, scientists do their best to figure out which is which. After much debate, the American Ornithological Society makes the decision. This professional association of ornithologists examines biological evidence and draws the official line, and they’ve been doing that since 1886.
Sometimes they split a species in two. Sometimes they lump two species into one.
In 1989, the western flycatcher was split into two distinct species. At the time, it appeared there were two separate populations of flycatcher that did not overlap or interbreed much. Thus, the western flycatcher was split into the Pacific-slope flycatcher and the Cordilleran flycatcher.
Whoops! It turns out there was a large overlap zone in the northern Rockies that was previously unknown. Furthermore, nobody could tell the two birds apart in the field, and barely even in the lab. So this year the ornithological society lumped them back together, shrinking my life list and lowering my score by one.
It happens in Maine, too.
In 1975, Traill’s flycatcher was split into the willow flycatcher and the alder flycatcher. The alder breeds farther north, and both species overlap in the Bangor region. They are impossible to tell apart in the field visually, but their songs are unmistakably different. Both can be heard singing around the Bangor Mall in the spring.
In 1995, the sharp-tailed sparrow was split into the Nelson’s and saltmarsh sparrows. They are nearly identical, but not quite. The overlap zone is small, mostly around Scarborough Marsh near Portland. Otherwise, nearly the entire population of Nelson’s sparrow nests farther north than the saltmarsh sparrow.
That same year, Maine gained another species. Our high-altitude breeding population of gray-cheeked thrushes got split off from the Canadian-breeding population and renamed Bicknell’s thrush.
In 1997, Maine’s abundant solitary vireo was split into three species. The eastern species became the blue-headed vireo. Western populations were split into Cassin’s and plumbeous vireos. Since I’d seen all three, I instantly went up two notches on my life list. The ornithological society giveth, and it taketh away.
Winter wrens span the entire northern portion of our continent.
Or at least they did.
In 2010, the ornithological society decided the wrens out west were sufficiently different from our wrens to merit becoming their own species — the Pacific wren. Since I had already seen them out west, I got a life list boost without even leaving the couch.
If I had been on Saturday’s puffin trip out of Boothbay Harbor last weekend, my life list would have gone up one. A boatload of birders stumbled upon a yellow-nosed albatross, just floating offshore. That’s a bird that nests on islands near South Africa.
If I had been on that same boat one day later, my Maine list would have gained another new species. Alaska has more than 2 million tufted puffins. Maine has only one, a confused and totally lost individual that has taken up temporary residence on Eastern Egg Rock.
Instead, I enjoyed a puffin trip to Petit Manan with Bar Harbor Whale Watch and the Friends of Maine Coastal Islands NWR on Sunday. Then I puffin-cruised to Seal Island with the Stonington-based Isle au Haut Ferry Company on Wednesday. I’ll keep going on puffin trips until my North American life list is back up to 614.
Or maybe that’s just borderline crazy.
