Big brother is always watching. Sometimes he’s watching birds. This year my big brother watched more birds than I and once again, for the second straight time, claimed bragging rights over me, having seen more birds than I in 2019.
We call our tri-annual competition the Kelly Brothers Birding Championship or “KBBC”. The competition is pretty simple. Whoever sees the most bird species during the calendar year is the winner of the KBBC. Ryan quickly got out ahead of me this year and by February had a comfortable lead which he would maintain for the rest of the year (did I mention he went to California and saw a boat load of birds on his trip?).
I enjoy the competition and I enjoy the added bird talks between my brother and I, increasingly over texts. We usually alert the other if we find a new bird to add to our lists and maintain a spreadsheet that competition by-laws state has to be updated by the last day of the month to be counted. I get to geek out a bit more when it comes to birding during KBBC years, My wife cuts me more slack when it comes to going out on birding forays and I experience less bird shaming (it’s a real thing) from my family. We did pretty well this year with Ryan marking 20 more birds than the previous competition. The following is a list of the birds new to the KBBC all time list:
| Redhead Duck |
| Warbling Vireo |
| Yellow Billed Cuckoo |
| Northern Waterthrush |
| Least Flycatcher |
| Willow Flycatcher |
| Say’s Phoebe |
| Yellow-Throated Warbler |
| Greater Yellow Legs |
| Hermit Thrush |
| Black Phoebe |
| Pelagic Cormorant |
| Anna’s HummingBird |
| White Tailed KIte |
| Western Gull |
| Bewicks Wren |
| Bushtit |
| California Thrasher |
| Brandt’s Comorant |
| Black Necked Stilt |
| Cinnamon Teal |
| Marbled Godwit |
| Least Sandpiper |
| Dowitcher |
| Palm Warbler |
| White Faced Ibis |
| Allen’s Humming Bird |
| Ruddy Duck |
| White Pelican |
| Phainopepla |
| Brown Nuthatch |
| Surf Scoter |
| Black Scoter |
| Northern Gannett |
| Red Breasted Merganser |
| Eurasian Collared Dove |
| Summer Tanager |
| Ring Necked Pheasant |
Thirty-eight new species! Now to be fair many of the newbies on the list were seen by Ryan while in California but those species are on the list nonetheless. I added a warbling vireo, Say’s Phoebe and a couple of flycatchers to the official KBBC list, as well as my own personal list. The Yellow-Billed Cuckoo was a newbie this year and once I saw it the first time they seemed to pop up wherever I was in Virginia. I seemed to hear that distinct clucking everywhere I went. I remember seeing a Baltimore Oriole and a Scarlet Tanager just once each, within the span of about 15 minutes. I saw just one owl that a neighbor saw in her backyard and called to tell me and I stared down a stately looking Great Crested Flycatcher while walking slowly along a trail. My list is partly a timeline and place marker of where I was over the course of a year. When I look back over my list I can recall the exact moment, the weather, the scenery and the time of day that I saw the birds on my list. If you have never kept a list of birds you’ve seen I suggest you give it a try. Win, lose or draw I look forward to the next KBBC Challenge and perhaps some new species to add to our list.
the suburban naturalists 