Well

 

We don’t *totally* suck.

 

We had 35 birds by dawn.  We had 100 way before noon.  We had 125 by the time we got to the coast.  Things were going well.  Then things slowed down.  We got all the saltwater birds we were after, but it wasn’t a giant migrant day.  We needed to go north and get more birds, but the Sunday afternoon ferry line off the island was too long.  We couldn’t get to where we needed to be before it got too dark.  We made it to 196 birds and didn’t get any higher. 

 

A lot of things went right.  In-between all those storms we’ve had and are going to have, the weather was great.  But to break our own record of 207, *everything* has to go right.

 

We didn’t make our goal of 200-plus species, but we did well.  17 hours of birding.  250 miles of driving.  196 species.  28 new year-birds for me.

 

A good day.