And the winner is....
Pam Hunt
SULLIVAN!!!!!
Let’s give them all a round of applause!
It was quite the weekend for last minute surprises, with Iain MaCLeod pulling a Golden Eagle out of the air for Belknap, and Nora Hanke’s Hail Mary Spotted Sandpiper in Hillsborough. As I noted in my last update, this still would have given Belknap the win, but unfortunately one of the refs found something that slipped through the filters for Belknap, and Iain’s eagle was only enough to maintain the status quo. And then Sullivan pulled out a final surge to add an impressive FOUR species at the last minute, thus making the Belknap/Hillsborough rivalry moot. Thanks to Stan McCumber and Kyle Jones for RN Grebe and OC Warbler in the county on the last two days!
So yeah, Sullivan did it again, but if you look at the rankings for the second half of the month there was a LOT of shifting around, and I don’t think a repeat performance was ever guaranteed. The “worst” part is that it seems Hillsborough wasn’t even trying – or at least not doing anything to jazz up their team here on the listserves. Perhaps they’re just that confident. In addition to a well-deserved bronze, Belknap also gets the coveted “most-improved” award. Ninth place to third place is no small feat in this contest!
In other last minute moves, Coos crept ahead of Rockingham with Snowy Owl and BH Cowbird, while Cheshire inched ahead of Strafford thanks to my trip down there on Sunday (you’re welcome!). Cheshire still gets the “biggest drop” award, but was closely followed in THAT contest by poor Merrimack. Don’t know what happened there, but it was pretty much a train wreck here in my home county.
County | Max | 30-Nov | % | Rank 11/8 | Rank 11/15 | Rank 11/22 | Rank 11/27 | Rank 11/30/2021 | Rank (# sp) 11/30/2020 |
Sullivan | 118 | 86 | 0.7288 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 (93) |
Hillsborough | 156 | 110 | 0.7051 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 4 (107) |
Belknap | 129 | 90 | 0.6977 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 9 (81) |
Carroll | 140 | 96 | 0.6857 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 (94) |
Grafton | 148 | 97 | 0.6554 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 10 (92) |
Coos | 132 | 84 | 0.6364 | 10 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 7 (87) |
Rockingham | 260 | 164 | 0.6308 | 3 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 8 (173) |
Cheshire | 155 | 97 | 0.6258 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 9 | 8 | 2 (111) |
Strafford | 177 | 108 | 0.6102 | 9 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 9 | 6 (117) |
Merrimack | 178 | 104 | 0.5843 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 5 (119) |
State | 285 | 196 | 0.6877 |
What’ll be interesting is how the all-time November species totals change for each county, but I haven’t looked at those yet and wanted to get this out. With Hillsborough and Sullivan consistently near the top and finding cool stuff, the game DOES get a little harder for them in the future. All the same, I’m continuing to contemplate a means of leveling the playing field a little better, and think it might involve not counting the rarest of the rare in the species total. That way the denominator for heavily birded counties would go down – and percentages go up.
And I have the perfect plan to test this out! I hereby announce the FEBRUARY County Challenge. It’s another under-birded month, and essentially the flip of November in that the bonus stuff gets found at the END. I discovered that I even have the base numbers already – including a total that only includes species seen at least ten times in Feb in each county. I propose comparing two percentages in Feb 2022 and see if one does a better job than the other. Here’s what those numbers look like:
County | Total Feb | >10 records |
Belknap | 97 | 50 |
Carroll | 86 | 48 |
Cheshire | 109 | 61 |
Coos | 85 | 43 |
Grafton | 101 | 58 |
Hillsborough | 121 | 74 |
Merrimack | 112 | 64 |
Rockingham | 175 | 125 |
Strafford | 126 | 70 |
Sullivan | 79 | 49 |
You have been warned, but until then, have some great winter birding!
Pam Hunt
Penacook
“The most dangerous worldview is the worldview of those who have not viewed the world.”
- Alexander von Humboldt
Iain MacLeod
Well done Sullivan!
Thanks for coordinating this Pam. It was a blast. It was great reconnecting with my old birding buddy Rob Woodward. He and I did big days together for many years starting a quarter century ago!! This certainly rekindled our competitive spirit and it was fun egging each other on. Rob’s efforts made all the difference in the “most improved” award. He was out every day of the month until he headed back to Florida last Monday. He thrashed the county from top to bottom.
I managed 63 species in Belknap for the month and submitted 55 checklists. I added six new birds to my Belknap year list (now 162). I didn’t add any new species for my Belknap life list, which has been stalled at 197 since October – I’m just two species behind Pam for the all-time ebird Belknap list (but who’s counting J) and shot myself in the foot with the Red-throated Loon in Meredith which was new for Pam for the county.
I’m curious Pam if there is a way to apply your proposed new filter (minus >10) to the November results and see what the impact of that would have been.
Rob won’t be around in February (unless he changes his winter migration plan), so the Belknap birders will have their work cut out . . . but we are ready!
Iain MacLeod
Executive Director
Squam Lakes Natural Science Center
PO Box 173, 23 Science Center Road
Holderness, NH 03245
Phone: 603-968-7194 x123
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