Ending 2010

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In the final few days of 2010, I spent a morning birding Bear Creek Park in Houston.

The park was very busy with birds: I saw 35 species, including my first-of-season Cedar Waxwings and a Merlin.

Most exciting of all was seeing a couple of female Purple Finches, a new bird for my Texas list. 

All in all, I did much better with my birding in 2010 than in previous years: My Texas year list was 263 species (vs. 203 in 2009) and my USA year list was 299 (vs. 271 in 2009). My USA/Canada life list moved up from 442 to 456 species.

With regard to Texas counties, I have now passed the 100 species mark in five counties: Harris (225), Galveston (153), Brazoria (134), Chambers (107) and Fort Bend (104). 

It's certainly going to be a while before I reach 100 species in any other Texas county. However, the effort to do so will insure that I keep getting out and looking at birds in less familiar areas - which is the only reason for bothering to keep lists.   


BTW, my 2011 birding begins later this morning, when Deanne and I are heading over to the Attwater Prairie Chicken NWR.
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