On Keeping Lists
I have mixed feelings about lists.
In some ways, the “list” is how a birder keeps track of what they’ve done and which species they’ve seen. Lists are, in a way, fundamental to tracking your activity as a birder.
At the same time, I think lists are an intimidating thing that discourages potential birders from becoming involved in the activity. The way many of us birders talk about lists, it can seem that birding is about bookkeeping, not birds. And if you let it, it can be.
If you are wandering around with binoculars, you're already birdwatching. Lists and tracking things are completely optional. That said, as you get more involved in birdwatching, I think it's natural to want to keep track of some of the things you're seeing, and it can increase your enjoyment because it will trigger memories of previous outings and also let you see as you progress.
Keep a beginners list
A list is, effectively, a diary of your birding activity. It can be a mental list you keep of the birds you’re seeing today. It can be a paper list of each species that you add to the list the first time you see it.
When you’re getting started, I do recommend you try keeping a couple of simple lists. When you go out birding, or happen to see an interesting bird, make a “trip” list of the date, the location, and the species you saw. Also keep a list of species — your “life” list — noting the first time you record a species in one of your trip lists.
Having suggested this, it's completely up to you. Walking around and looking at birds with your binoculars is the same activity whether or not you write something down. I do think someone just starting down the birding path should try keeping lists for a while, and then judge whether or not you want more information on the lists, or stop doing them. The choice will be based on what you find interesting and fun.
I know birders who keep extensive lists, with paper journals reaching back decades of every outing and every species. I know birders who sketch interesting birds into their journals. I know birders who track sub-species and bird calls and plumage variants and… and way more detail than I would ever consider doing, and that’s the part of birding they love, so bless them. I know birders who only keep a life list, and some that don’t even do that, and are just as happy. I know a birder who's life goal is to see 200 species in every county in California. I think that's awesome. I will never ever be that birder -- and that's what's really great about birding. We can all tailor the activity to our personal interests and set goals to do whatever makes sense for us.
My suggestion then, is to start with a basic list or two, and do it for a while, and then figure out if that works, or if you want more, or if you want less, or none at all. You should only do the kind of list keeping that is enjoyable and helps you answer whatever questions you have about this activity you've gotten involved in.
Most birders I’ve known are perfectly okay with this. I have met a few who really wanted to tell me what I had to track and how I had to track it to be a "real" birder. Usually, I just stopped going birding with those people.
How I keep my lists
I keep my lists on eBird. I do this for a couple of reasons:
eBird will do most of the bookkeeping for me, so I don’t have to.
By putting my information into eBird, I am contributing in small ways to the citizen science aspect of birding and helping us better understand the birds we’re watching and enjoying. There are some really interesting new ideas coming out of research being done using this data and I like being able to add to that knowledge while I bird.
My listing tends to be pretty simple: eBird has apps for both IOS and Android smartphones, and I carry that when I’m out birding. When I arrive at a location, I fire up eBird and start a list. As I bird, I will occasionally stop and add in the new species I’ve seen — not every one, since I find that too interrupting, but every three or four, I’ll stop for a minute and log them. I find if I go more than five or six species I’ll start forgetting some, but if I stop and dive into the phone more often, it keeps me from enjoying the experience as much — try different things and see what works for you.
When I’m done birding, I review the list to see if I remember a species I forgot to add, and I’ll update the number of each species I’ve seen; to be honest I’m often estimating that at the end of the trip, and more than anything else, I want my numbers to properly reflect how common each species was to the others I saw that trip. Again, this is that tradeoff between serious accuracy work and wanting to spend more time looking at birds than updating my phone, and I usually choose updating my phone.
Once the numbers are updated, I submit the report to eBird, and I’m done. eBird will update my personal data and I can then look at the various reports and summaries it will generate for me.
I typically pay attention to very few of the lists eBird can create for me. The ones I use regularly are:
My life list, which tracks how many species I’ve seen since I started adding data to eBird
My year list, which tracks what I’ve seen since January 1
County lists for these two, so I can see how I’m doing in my local region
Birding is about having fun
Amusingly enough, the bird that "turned me into a birder" -- that western tanager -- is not in my birding lists. I didn't actually see AND list it until 2007. And the birds that drive my interest and love of the wildlife refuges like Merced, the Sandhill Cranes and the geese, also didn't enter my lists until well after my first visit -- fall 2007 instead of spring 2007 for the crane, and Snow Goose, 2008 for the Ross's goose and Greater White-Fronted Goose. Which mostly shows how your loves and interests change over time.
Keeping lists can be a fun part of birding because it helps you understand how you’re progressing as you grow as a birder. Having said that, though, they’re still optional. Do them if they work for you, but don’t feel obligated, and don’t pay attention to anyone who tries to define your birding status for you based on how extensive and complicated your lists are.
