Day 366 + 3 - Statistical Stuff
This year I tracked my day to day birding activity via spreadsheet. Total number of hours birded, miles driven and walked, money spent, photos taken, etc, etc. I tracked my monthly totals, and various other pieces of data I found interesting. I did the same thing in 2007 on my previous Big Year and found some of the difference astonishing. I'll go over the major differences in an upcoming post, and keep this post limited to the actual numbers for 2016. So here goes...
358 - Number of Species seen and/or heard
331 - Number of Species photographed
3 or 4 - Other Species audio recorded
3 - Number of Species seen but not counted
254 - Number of days where I birded at least 15 minutes in Utah
39 - Number of Days spent entirely outside of Utah
872 - Total number of hours spent birding in Utah
20,742 - Number of miles driven (My vehicle, work vehicle, others vehicles)
246 - Number of miles birding by foot
$1,217 - Total Fiscal contribution to birding (mostly gas)
101 - Number of other people I watched birds with during 2016
This all means that:
I saw an average of .97 species per day in 2016
I saw an average of 1.4 species per day birded in 2016
I saw an average of .41 species per hour birded in 2016
I saw an average of .017 species per mile traveled in 2016 or 1 species every 57.9 miles
By Month I saw the following number of species in Utah:
145 – January
54 - February
82 - March
156 - April
257 - May *new state record
159 - June
156 - July
109 - August
209 - September
114 - October
88 - November
141 - December
Remarkably these numbers are actually pretty low. With the exception of January, May, September, and December, these total are below my usual averages year in and out.
The biggest single day in terms of numbers was the annual Great Salt Lake Bird Festival Marathon Birding Trip, where I personally had 159 species.
Some more numbers. Before 2016 I had seen 412 species in Utah. I was able to add 8 species to my Utah list this year, including 2 life birds.
I was lucky enough to see a number of state firsts this year, including:
Canada Warbler, Alder Flycatcher, Arctic Loon, and a Barnacle Goose that ended up not counting since it was believed to be an escapee.
2016 Year List: 358
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