Extreme nerdiness warning for this post – read on at your own risk…

No birding of note today, but I’ve been playing with the eBird data again, and am happy to announce the top 10 Brisbane year lists of all time prior to 2018. Drum roll please…

Jo Culican 225 (2017)

Chris Attewell 218 (2017)

Matteo Grilli 218 (2017)

Ged Tranter 217 (2017)

Chris Attewell 216 (2016)

Mat Gilfedder 213 (2014)

Mat Gilfedder 211 (2017)

Chris Attewell 210 (2015)

Chris Wiley 210 (2013)

Stephen Murray 208 (2016)

This year is turning out to be smashing all previous records, with seven people currently equaling or exceeding the all time Brisbane year list record. I think this is a direct result of adding LGAs into eBird as pseudo-“counties”. This has stimulated interest in local birding, and I think has also resulted in more people exploring more places in far-flung corners of the LGA. The big story of the year so far is the meteoric rise of Shelley Road Park and Lake Manchester, with heaps of exciting species being found along the far western border of the LGA, that has been relatively thinly birded until this year. Also significant is more birding activity west of Mount Glorious Road, e.g. at Lawton Road. But we still collectively need to make huge inroads into finding out what’s inside the camel’s head.

Who will win this joyfully pointless race? As I have pointed out before, the raw totals cannot yet be used to reliably indicate who might steal gold this year, because folks have a different number of easy birds “up their sleeve”, e.g. I still need White-winged Triller, Baillon’s Crake and Powerful Owl. Ged still needs Sooty Owl, Paradise Riflebird etc. OK, these sorts of species aren’t easy easy, but they are essentially guaranteed given reasonable effort at the right time of year.

Richard Fuller – 270

Ged Tranter – 256

Jo Culican – 251

Stephen Murray – 250

Rod Gardner – 234

Mat Gilfedder – 234

Rick Franks – 225