Does 200 Matter?

Sad Milestones, Numbers Round and Not, and the Low-down, No-good American P*$#t

Following last week’s discussion of my favorite bird, the magnificent Northern Cardinal, I promised the next post would contain another Big Reveal. At the risk of being cancelled (or worse, unsubscribed), allow me to present—my least favorite bird.

On September 24th, while scouring the trail above our creek for warblers, I spotted a rather plain, grayish, standard-sized songbird that pinged my radar as being very much not a warbler. Too big. Too chunky. Too lacking in…something. Let’s call it charm. The Song Sparrows, not tolerating the interloper, chased it from the bank of the creek to a limb. I got the bird in my lenses briefly, but the streaky bastard soon conceded the turf and booked it downstream with an annoyed tee-tee-tee-tee-tee-etc-etc. After sighing heavily, I turned and continued my hike, realizing what I’d seen.

American Pipit.

Unexpected, but it sorta made sense. The water was low. Months of dry weather meant much of the creek bed was exposed, which in turn meant lots of muck available for birds who like muck. Shorebirds were around. I’d spotted a Solitary Sandpiper just minutes earlier, and a second one would be found later in the day. A Spotted Sandpiper had visited the week before. A Pipit showing up was not out of the question.

This was not our first encounter. I’d chased and dipped on Pipits around central Michigan for a couple of years before finally beholding, and being utterly underwhelmed by, a drab blur that popped out of a muddy field, flitted noisily over my head, crossed the road, and landed far off in the opposite field. That’s it? I remember thinking, unimpressed by its excuse for a tail bob (Palm Warblers do it better) and a touch bitter about the gas money I’d spent on a bird that makes a female House Finch look spectacular by comparison. That half-assed eye stripe. That mindless expression. If there was a sadsack to be found among birds, surely this was it. Yes, what an unworthy nemesis the American Pipit turned out to be.

And last month’s Pipit, my second, was similarly drab, similarly underwhelming, but far more significant because it marked my 200th species for Allegheny County, PA.

We moved to our Pittsburgh suburb early in September of 2022, so it took a little over two years of daily birding to hit 200. These days, new county birds are increasingly fewer and farther between, and considering the all-time eBird leader for Allegheny notched 285 in a span of many decades, I know I’ll never reach 300.

Thus 200 was going to be something to savor, perhaps reflect on later with a little glass of brown liquor. I had a particular bird in mind too. Keenly aware my county count stood at 199, I had been desperately seeking and chasing Connecticut Warblers, the secretive skulkers that have eluded me forever. Yes, a Connecticut would mean both a lifer and the downfall of a nemesis, a real nemesis. And wouldn’t you know it—as soon as they started appearing around the greater Pittsburgh area, along comes this American Pipit, uncannily bland and seemingly intent on making a mockery of my milestone. Alas, I saw it, and as much as would have liked to, I couldn’t unsee it.

Grudgingly, I began the eBird entry, hoping against hope that it would be flagged a rarity (it wasn’t), that I was wrong (I wasn’t), that a sudden minor cognitive event would rob me of the memory (no such luck). I was stuck with my Pipit, who of course didn’t linger for the subsequent suckers who chased it, which likely eroded local confidence in my abilities and created fissures in otherwise solid friendships. American Pipit won the day, and my disdain for them grew. The only consolation was ridding the bird from my county needs list once and for all.

That’s a lot of bile to get to my larger point. A question, actually. Is 200 really all that important? Does reaching a nice, clean, round number matter, outside delivering an obvious emotional punch? What is it about such numbers that make us strive to reach them and rejoice in their reaching? I turned 49 this month, but it’s my 50th birthday I hope to celebrate with an international trip. My life list currently stands at 421, a perfectly lovely number. But that 450 looms in my mind, tantalizingly close. I know 500 will feel like a real achievement, one I’ll look back at, even more so than 400…

Which brings me to another point. These values we assign to numbers are pretty arbitrary, and often not as sticky as we think. Earlier this year, as I was leafing through an album from my study abroad in Salzburg, Austria in 1997, I landed on a photo of a sizable black bird perched on a railing. I remember trying to photograph it, and the bird budging every time I snapped the shutter. I used up three precious shots, but managed just one I deemed worth keeping.

Bad photo, but clear enough to ID a Yellow-billed Chough. I hesitated to record the sighting, but thanks to some encouragement from my mentor, and some handy journaling I’d been doing at the time, I was willing and able to enter the Chough into eBird. Why not? I saw the bird, I remember the bird, and I had photographic evidence and a date. But a funny thing happened with that eBird entry. Suddenly my 400th lifer, Bridled Titmouse, whom I toasted with glee in Tucson last October, was pushed to 401. Sliding into the 400 spot was Say’s Phoebe. My celebration of the Titmouse, it turns out, had been a sham.

Obviously, round numbers aren’t that important outside of human psychology. They are, after all, just one in a infinite litany, and a single photograph was all it took to unglue 400 from my Bridled Titmouse. But I do think our relationship to these numbers is fascinating, and it’s especially interesting to think about numbers and counting in the context of birds. Because what is it about birds that, more than any other animal (that I know of), compels us to count? To keep lists? To do a Big Day, Month, or Year? Is it as simple as the conservation-minded Frank Chapman setting something in motion when he created the Christmas Bird Count in 1900 as a sort of bird census? His idea stuck, gained momentum, and then got on steroids when Cornell launched eBird a hundred years later.

Chapman’s legacy is super-important, but I think there’s more to it. There’s just something so countable about birds I’m not sure I can fully explain. Is it simply the fact they’re so beautiful and charismatic and awe-inspiring? That they sing and fly and add such beauty to our world? That they offer such a dazzling array we can’t help but be drawn to them? I don’t know. I’m awed by dolphins too, but I feel no urge to count them.

Maybe there’s something to the challenge birds present. They’re everywhere, but not like insects are. Imagine doing a Big Year for bugs. Fish also strike me as preposterously difficult to identify and count in the field. Birding is hard too, but counting birds is a reasonable challenge. We need binoculars to bird, not a boat.

Then again, what about reptiles and amphibians? Perhaps those would offer a similar challenge, but does anyone do a Big Year for reptiles? Is there an amphibian equivalent to eBird? Why don’t we count mammals on the scale we count birds? Why does no other branch in the animal kingdom seem to inspire checklists, annual counts, hotlines, alerts, competitions, listers, twitchers, stringers…all the stuff borne of a desire to see more birds? This isn’t to say other animals aren’t similarly beloved, or that they go uncounted. Thank goodness for the brilliant minds using sophisticated methods to keep track of all sorts of animal populations. We have lists of endangered and threatened species as a result. But this phenomenon of birding? Nonscientists getting out there and counting birds to the point that movies are made about them? That seems unique to birds.

As for me personally, I’m almost fatally allergic to numbers, except when it comes to birds. I certainly keep track of my county and state totals, and there’s nothing like the dopamine high that comes with seeing a bird for the first time, checking its box in my field guide, and watching my life count rise ever so slightly.

And on a deeper level, part of the appeal of numbers is the connection they keep alive between me and my late grandparents. Bill Bowler (for whom this Substack is affectionately named), certainly was a numbers guy. A devoted Christmas counter, a careful travel diarist, and avid keeper of lists, it’s by virtue of his birding records I was able to create this posthumous eBird account. A note taped to his old Golden Guide indicates his life count of 494 was one short of my grandmother Florence’s, who somehow got a Dusky Grouse (then Blue Grouse) in British Columbia without him. I’ve always wanted to know the lore behind Grandma’s Canadian grouse, but that story seems lost to time.

Left to right: the author, Florence Bowler, the author’s brother, and Bill Bowler

I wonder if Grandpa cared about his own looming milestone, the 500th bird he got so close to. The care with which he curated his birding records suggests he probably did. I also wonder if my grandmother, who had her competitive side, was quietly amused by the +1 she had on Granddad.

Unfortunately, they never got the chance to hit 500. By the time they got their last handful of lifers in south Texas in 1994, Green Kingfisher, Hook-billed Kite, and Clay-colored Thrush among them, his once-brilliant brain and her once-athletic body were in steady decline. Maybe they didn’t dwell on it much. Maybe for them, it was more about the joy of exploring the country and seeing birds together in their white VW Vanagon. You know, the old journey vs destination thing.

For my part, their 494/5 always seemed astronomical and unreachable. After four years of devoted birding, and given our family’s yen for international travel, I see just how reachable it is. I’ll almost certainly surpass it one day, and when I do, I’ll celebrate the very unround 496 Bill Bowler-style—not with brown liquor, but an ice-cold Beefeater martini.

Who knows what bird I’ll be toasting. Won’t be American Pipit though 🍸

Featured Photo - Yellow-rumped Warbler

It’s the time of year when pretty much every warbler is a Yellow-rumped, but I’m not mad about it. This one came to visit while I was leisurely smoking some ribs out back. Our big white oak was loaded with a dozen Cedar Waxwings in flycatcher mode, but one bird was moving a bit differently—until it wasn’t. How generous of this energetic friend to sit still for two precious seconds, long enough to get a crystal-clear photo…of the tree limb. Oh how I admire the wizards who capture the warblers and vireos and kinglets of the world in sharp focus. Still, even though my bird here is slightly blurry, I’m grateful to commemorate our time spent together.

10/10 Recommends

Birding with Benefits, by Sarah T. Dubb

Sparks, and birds, fly as a veteran birder and a non-birder team up to try and win a local birding contest. I’m not well versed in romance novels, but it seems to me Dubb strikes the right balance in crafting a brisk and sexy story that’s birdy enough to keep the nerdy non-readers of the genre happy. I had a lot of fun reading it 🐦‍⬛🦩🦉❤️

Sandy Komito

RIP to the ultimate counter. I listened to the half hour of Komito’s interviews (really more monologues) with Greg Neise on the American Birding Podcast a couple of days ago, and I could have listened for hours more. What a character, what a passion, and how fascinating to hear tales of his Big Years from the man himself 🐦 1, 2, 3…

That’s all for this week. Do you have a least favorite bird of your own? What do numbers mean to you when it comes to birds? Let’s talk in the comments!

Until next time, bird your ass off!

nwb