Join me in my “Little Year” wildlife spotting challenge

My primary hobby is wildlife spotting. I’ve always enjoyed nature and like that this is a hobby that you can do whenever you have the chance.  I appreciate that sometimes nature surprises you, like when a bobcat walked across a local road in front of me early one morning. I’ve kept a life list since February of 2002, it currently includes 247 birds species, 48 mammals and 13 reptiles. Some of my sightings are tied to special memories – spotting puffins with my family off the coast of Maine, a Quetzal flying over our mission trip bus in Costa Rica, rescuing a soft shell turtle from a busy road near our home on the way to church and the occasional sighting of the scissor-tailed flycatcher near our home. There were also the ones that got away, especially the monitor lizards I saw in Singapore, only to realize when I tried to classify them that there were at least two candidates and my pictures didn’t capture the necessary markings to make a species level classification.

Recently I read “Lost among the birds” by Neil Hayward, describing his quest to see as many North American birds as he could in one year. During his epic year he broke the North American record by spotting 749 species of bird in one year in the U.S. and Canada.  I’ve enjoyed other books about people who have pursued global quests and seen more than 8500 bird species, for example Olivia Gentile’s “Life List“.  The Steve Martin movie, “The big year“, describes men in pursuit of the U.S. record.  In nearly each case, however, these quests come at great expense, especially on relationships.

As I reflected on Hayward’s book, I thought about how I have stopped paying attention to the birds and other animals that I already have on my life list. Some of them I have only seen once, others I see every day. People who do “big years” pay close attention to everything they see, regardless of whether or not it is already on their life list. I know that a “Big year” is out of the question for me because the most important aspect of my life are the people I share everyday with – my wife and daughters. I also enjoy my job and value balance in my life. I don’t want an obsessive, all-consuming, relationship-damaging, finance-draining quest. But I do want to find new ways to enjoy my hobby and to sharpen my skills further.

As I thought about what I could do, I came up with a concept that I am going to try in 2017 – a “Little Year”. Starting today, January 1, 2017, I will strive to spot 100 distinct vertebrate species by the end of the year. The number 100 is arbitrary but nice and clean and may not be as “little” as I’m thinking, so I might have to adjust in future years. My rules are simple:

• Only live animals, no road kill or other dead animals.
• Only free-living animals. No domesticated, captured, caged or escaped animal will count.
• Migrants and invasive species will count.
• I have to be able to convince myself of a species level identification.
• I have to see the animal with my own eyes. Recorded or heard animals will not count. Brief sightings confirmed through sound (distinct bird calls) will count.

I have three tiers of goals for reaching the count of 100.

1. Birds only – I will be especially happy if I can spot 100 distinct bird species.
2. Birds and mammals – this gives me some hedge room.
3. Any vertebrate – more of a hedge by including reptiles, amphibians and fish.

I’d like to challenge you to consider doing the Little Year Challenge as well, whether you are a seasoned wildlife observer, someone who enjoys nature or somebody who cares about the environment. I expect that if you take the challenge you will :

• Enjoy exercise in the open air.
• Change how you experience nature. Instead of going through natural areas, you will learn how to be in them.
• Learn more about wildlife, their behaviors, beauty, life cycles and migration patterns.
• Appreciate the diversity of life. Making species calls is easy for American robins, but very difficult for sparrows, gulls, shorebirds and so many other “little brown birds”. It is very satisfying to learn the details necessary to distinguish a western meadowlark from an eastern meadowlark.
• Learn about species naming. The fact that European starlings are formally called “Sturnus vulgaris” says a lot.
• Gain deeper appreciation for the common and the unusual.
• Improve your overall powers of observation.
• Learn more about the geography and habitats of places that you visit during travel. Doing the research before a trip can be very rewarding, adding a detour to a park or natural area can be very satisfying.
• Train your memory by keeping running counts of your sightings.
• Consider starting a life list or have the opportunity to add a few new sightings to your life list.

I’m including an Excel template that I will use to document my sightings.

Little year template

Please share your experiences if you choose to do a “Little Year”.  I will tweet some of my sightings @markhoffmankc and will use the hashtag #littleyear2017 .