The end . . .

[Mark Stackhouse <mark at westwings dot com>]

So . . . I survived my five days here in Utah at the start of the year 
without seeing a starling (of course, I only added six new year-birds 
during that time), and somehow made it back to Mexico unscathed. But 
this morning I returned to Salt Lake, and within an hour it was over. 
While pulling out of the parking lot of Walgreen's in Sugar House my 
eyed strayed to the power line overhead . . . aaarrgggh!!!! . . . a 
starling. It's over folks, I lasted until January 25 without a starling 
on my year list.

I had to wait until I got home before I could figure out how many birds 
I had seen before adding starling to the list. I had 179 before I 
crossed back into Mexico, then saw 186 on my trip to the mountains 
above Mazatlan along the Durango Highway, and 288 in a week's birding 
around San Blas. But of course, there were many, many duplicates in 
those lists. So I sat down to figure it out ( with a little help from 
my son, the math wiz, who corrected an arithmetic error). Looks like 
starling was number 360 on my year list - a new record to shoot for 
next year.

On the bright side, I saw 18 species of hummingbirds before a starling, 
five species of parrots, including a macaw species, Pomarine Jaeger, 
Red-billed Tropicbird, four species of Jays, two trogons, four buntings 
etc. etc. etc. Oh, and lots of Fulvous Whistling-Ducks, but none in 
Utah :-(. And no Boreal Owl either (yet).

I was hoping to add California Quail to my list during the first few 
days of January, but for some strange reason, none came to my feeders. 
They were at my feeders today - after the starling . . .

Good birding!

Mark

Mark Stackhouse
mark@westwings.com
801-487-9453 (Salt Lake City, Utah, USA)
011-52-323-285-1243 (San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico)

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