2010 Birding

Well, 2010 is over and while I didn’t get out as often as I had wanted, I still had a number of chances to bird in new places including an awesome trip to the San Francisco area. Along with a number of new bird species, I got to see some new butterflies and dragonflies, as well as having some great photographic opportunities.

Birding

And I had a good year – I saw 170 total species of bird, bringing my lifelist total to 437 species, including 16 new species (* = NJ list, too; ^ = new to NJ only). Not only did I add a bunch of new birds, but I had a great guided tour around Monterey Bay, and got to take some nice pictures:

Butterflies & Moths

Butterflies were less successful this year – I was too early in San Fran for a good number of species and I wasn’t able to get out very often this summer and find local varieties. Still, my one ‘big’ trip to Tom’s River ended up yielding 3 new hairstreak species, while I added a new skipper and large moth species in NC.

Odonata

I had a really slow year for dragonflies and the like – again, my only big trip was to Tom’s River where I picked up the majority of my sightings and my only two new species for the year. Still, I got to see some other species that I haven’t seen much of recently, so it was nice in that way.