I was showing James Watson the eBird alert system the other day, and he couldn’t believe I still needed Golden Whistler for the year, along with a number of other fairly common species like Scarlet Honeyeater, Spotted Pardalote, Forest Kingfisher etc. It’s true, I have foregone amassing these sorts of species to focus on chasing the trickier birds. But this morning, as I tramped around Mookin-Bah for the third time with not a sniff of Black Bittern I was bemoaning the repetition and slow advancement in my year list birding. Using the target species feature in eBird, here are the top 20 species I still need for the year list, along with the % of lists that each species has been seen on. For example, I still need Scarlet Honeyeater, which is present on 13.5% of all complete eBird lists for the Brisbane area. I only need 16 “1%” birds – those have been seen on more than 1% of eBird lists, but there are some quite common species in there.
| Number | Species | % lists |
| 1 | Scarlet Honeyeater Myzomela sanguinolenta | 13.52121 |
| 2 | Golden Whistler Pachycephala pectoralis | 12.71174 |
| 3 | Spotted Pardalote Pardalotus punctatus | 5.65133 |
| 4 | Forest Kingfisher Todiramphus macleayii | 5.25034 |
| 5 | Rose Robin Petroica rosea | 3.45525 |
| 6 | Varied Sittella Daphoenositta chrysoptera | 2.04992 |
| 7 | Azure Kingfisher Ceyx azureus | 1.87003 |
| 8 | White-naped Honeyeater Melithreptus lunatus | 1.6939 |
| 9 | White-bellied Cuckooshrike Coracina papuensis | 1.6077 |
| 10 | Nankeen Kestrel Falco cenchroides | 1.54774 |
| 11 | Collared Sparrowhawk Accipiter cirrocephalus | 1.37536 |
| 12 | Black Kite Milvus migrans | 1.35662 |
| 13 | White-winged Triller Lalage tricolor | 1.34912 |
| 14 | Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoo Calyptorhynchus funereus | 1.31539 |
| 15 | Restless Flycatcher Myiagra inquieta | 1.21046 |
| 16 | Brown Falcon Falco berigora | 1.14675 |
| 17 | Pacific Emerald Dove Chalcophaps longirostris | 0.95938 |
| 18 | Baillon’s Crake Zapornia pusilla | 0.93689 |
| 19 | Swamp Harrier Circus approximans | 0.84695 |
| 20 | Cotton Pygmy-Goose Nettapus coromandelianus | 0.83945 |
Jane Turnbull and Margaret Robertson had three Painted Buttonquails today at Anstead. I’m not sure exactly where the birds were, and I probably don’t have enough time to search tomorrow morning. I’ve got Friday off work so might go then, or at the weekend.
For tomorrow, what else can I do but search a fourth time for Black Bittern? OK, don’t answer that.
With no year ticks today, my year list at the end of the day remained on 222 species. I spent 1 hour 14 minutes birding, walked 2.17 km and drove 20.2 km.