Piratic Flycatcher: Joey Kellner's 500th species in Colorado

[Nathan Pieplow]

Hi all,

An article in today's Denver Post celebrates the Yuma County Piratic Flycatcher found by Dan Maynard as the 523rd species ever to be seen in Colorado, and Joey Kellner's 500th state bird.

https://www.denverpost.com/2026/09/23/rare-tropical-bird-colorado-piratic-flycatcher/

Huge congratulations to Joey on this enormous milestone. As far as I can tell from a quick stroll around eBird, a single person seeing 500 species has only been accomplished in 5 other states: California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Florida, although it's possible that someone's done it in Oregon as well, as the top public eBird list there is 495. 

If you needed more evidence that we live in one of the finest US states for birding, there it is.

(Note: it's possible Duane Nelson has also seen 500 species in Colorado, but Duane doesn't officially keep track of his number, according to what he told me when I ran into him at the Phainopepla in Baca County last month 🙂).

Nathan Pieplow

Boulder

[Doug Ward]

Nathan, thanks for passing this fun article along, and a big congratulations to Joey (and probably Duane too) for hitting an unfathomable milestone!  Also want to thank Daniel (Maynard) for having the awareness that this was a crazy unusual bird and getting the word out so others could head to Wray and experience the bird for themselves.  I was one of the lucky ones yesterday (Tues., 22 Sept.’26) around 2pm in the Russian olives on the far northwest part of Stocker Lake SWA (near the train tracks), so there may still be a good chance if you’d like to chase for yourself.

 

Again, congrats Joey and thank you Daniel on this amazing find!

 

Good Birding,

Doug

Currently Denver

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[Doug Ward]

Sorry for any confusion, but had a “Trumpian” moment in my previous email in renaming Stalker Lake to “Stocker Lake”.  Hope my fat fingers and spell check didn’t lead anyone astray.

 

Cheers,

Doug

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/001c01dd4b72%2439561280%24ac023780%24%40frontier.com.

[Patrick O'Driscoll]

That's all right, Doug -- Google Maps calls it that, too.

Good navigating 

Patrick O'Driscoll

Denver

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/001a01dd4b86%24aaf3d3f0%2400db7bd0%24%40frontier.com.

[David Suddjian]

On the theme of first Colorado records, BIRD BOMBS: First State Record! from Dec 2022 made an attempt, with expert input, to consider which species would be found for the next new state record. You can view it here: First State Record! 

Ten new species were predicted (including Piratic Flycatcher) to be the next most likely choices, although in reality the wide pool of possible species makes such predictions very challenging to get correct. Also included is discussion on past state additions and why and where vagrants come from. All 47 episodes of BIRD BOMBS are available here.

David Suddjian

Littleton CO

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