Last week I woke up feeling the need to go birding. Admittedly, I hadn’t been birding as often this year as I would have liked. I was set to go to Madison that day to drop Derek off for a show he was playing and wanted to see what birds I could find in the area. I logged onto ebird and pulled up the ole’ year needs alert. I was horrified at what I saw. Common Loon, Snow Goose, Bonaparte’s Gull, Winter Wren?! What have I been doing this year?

With a sense of urgency, Derek and I made a stop at Tenney Park Dam on Lake Mendota and quickly located two Common Loons out in the waves. Relief rushed over me as I checked at least one ridiculous missing species off my year list. No less than five minutes later a Bonaparte’s Gull flew into view. Number two checked off the list.

Later that night I viewed my now slightly smaller needs list. I made it a goal to try and find those common species I was still missing to end the year on a high note.

A week later I crossed off Snow Goose as one turned up at Greenfield Park in West Allis. With three down I felt fueled in my quest to locate my missing common year birds. Here are the species I will be searching for the rest of the year:

Surf Scoter – Understandable
Black Scoter – Should be more to come
Canvasback – How?
Merlin – Can be tricky and viewing is often incidental
Winter Wren – Absurd
Tundra Swan – It’s like I don’t bird during migration
Barred Owl – I clearly haven’t tried
Eastern Screech Owl – I should just ask a photag
Ring-necked Pheasant – Do I even go outside?
Rusty Blackbird – Declining species, giving myself a pass

I will be looking for these species in the coming months and reporting back with my sightings. Leave a comment with the common birds you still need this year or anything else you consider a 2018 birding fail.

Disclaimer: Just to be clear, the definitions of birding success and failure depend on the individual. Don’t feel bad if you haven’t seen some of the birds I am considering common. We all share the joy of birding which in itself is a big win.