On the hunt for 100 bird species in one month, from nuthatches to bald eagles

The month of January was a good month for birding — so good that I was able to achieve a little personal milestone birding goal!

That was to identify 100 bird species during the month of January. Many years ago, a well-known birder from the Buffalo area had contacted me about an eastern towhee that was spending the winter here at our home. He wanted to locate it as he was working on his “100 species in January” quest. Of course, I told him to come over and look for it whenever he wanted to. I thought to myself, that’s quite a feat, wonder if I can do that someday?

Fast forward to this January. My intent didn’t include doing 100 birds in January, but as you know from reading my column over the last 30-plus years, every New Year’s Day I’m off to an enthusiastic start on getting my new list off to a good start — 2024 included.

It started at 4 a.m. when I located the screech and great-horned owls. Then at daylight my son, Karl, and I connected with my birding buddy, Rick, and we were off to a busy day of birding.

We quickly added the most common species to the list here at the feeders and took a hike around the farm adding horned larks, cedar waxwings, and a raven for a total of 24 species which was a great start for right here on LaGrange Road in Wyoming! Our next destination would be to go to Genesee County Park.

We added a couple species on the way and at the park enjoyed seeing many of the regular favorites again, but added red-breasted nuthatch and white-throated sparrow. We used this opportunity to fill the two feeding stations that are located near both parking lots on Raymond Road.

Now it was off to Batavia to the Wastewater Treatment Plant where there is a network of several water retention ponds — really quite amazing in case you’ve never been there. Due to the mild weather in late December and early January all local ponds and lakes were open which would be good for adding several species of waterfowl to our New Year’s List. That happened! We found 11 species of ducks and a northern shrike.

Next, we headed back to Wyoming County toward Silver Lake and added bald eagle and Lapland longspur on the way. The longspur is a hard-to-find field bird that migrates here from the tundra. Silver Lake had a nice variety of waterfowl and the new ones we added were tundra swans and white-winged scoter. My list was now at 46!

On Jan. 6 Karl and I headed up to Webster Park up along Lake Ontario where the Rochester Birding Association had a birding hike which allowed us to add a dozen new woodland and lake bird species including barred owl, hermit thrush and harlequin duck.

From there, more lake birding toward Braddock Bay got us a few more species including cackling goose, kingfisher and mute swan. List at 68 only six days into January!

So as the month progressed, I found a few species here and there and even some unusual ones here on the farm including towhee, grackle, fox sparrow and great blue heron. A quick trip to see the short-eared owls in the Nations Road area was successful. Now I was at 80! To hit 100 — 20 more wasn’t looking doable.

But a day trip up to the Niagara Falls area with Rick would prove to be rewarding as we added nine more species of birds, including turkey vultures and black vultures in Lewiston and Iceland and Bonapartes gulls. List now at 93 as of Jan. 23! At this point I realized that 100 birds was in reach.

Now what? The 24th we would go to Cornell University in Ithaca with Karl for his last day there finishing up his duties as a new PhD in the plant breeding department. I used some down time to explore a little along the east side of Cayuga Lake for a few more birds and was thrilled to add common loon, pied-billed grebe, ruby-crowned kinglet, and American pipits to my list — all in the pouring rain! 97!

So now it was Friday the 26th and I had my 92-year-old mother with me for the day and we drove all over looking for No. 98 which we finally got in Linwood. It was a merlin — a falcon species. She kept encouraging me to keep trying which was very nice — typical of her. No. 99 came on Saturday the 27th at Beaver Meadow where I found the swamp sparrow. That early morning it was especially peaceful there and birds were everywhere!

It reminded me of many days spent here with my good friend, David Junkin, the former 20-year Beaver Meadow Naturalist-Director who was a great inspiration to me all my life, especially in my younger years, and who had become such a good friend.

It was later this morning that we would memorialize David at his funeral at the Protection Methodist Church (near Arcade) — and what a nice service it was. What a great person he was — birds and people were his life! A truly remarkable and knowledgeable and kind person and mentor to so many.

Outdoors: Over-hunting our deer stands can doom hunts before they start

Now it’s Sunday afternoon the 29th and it’s rainy and miserable out, but I needed to go look for No. 100 — hoping for the red-headed woodpecker up around Nations Road. Not to be seen, but instead I found No. 100 — a flock of 14 snow geese feeding in a cornfield!

The bottom line is that I had a great time with my little personal challenge and the memories of the ways in which I got there will stick with me for a long time. Retirement is great and God is too! What a wonderful world we live in.

98 … 99 … 100! Dave would have been proud of me!

— Hans Kunze writes a bi-weekly birding column.

This article originally appeared on The Evening Tribune: How one birder counted 100 New York species in the first month of 2024