The Listing Game
 Why do so many birders keep lists of what they see? There are probably almost as many reasons as there are birders who keep lists, but bird lists take up much less space in the house than baseball card or salt & pepper shaker collections. Lists can be saved in an application such as eBird to contribute to citizen science projects. Interesting sightings can be pulled from lists and entered into seasonal field reports to be used in writing a snapshot of a season for Iowa Bird Life and North American Birds. But in addition to altruistic reasons, listing is just plain fun.
Although there is understandably a certain amount of competition among top listers (re-watch The Big Year for a refresher course), for most of us our lists are simply ways to reminisce about certain birding adventures and mechanisms to help plan for future trips. You may only track birds seen in your yard, but reviewing that list and speculating about what the next species might be is fun on a cold winter day. I often wonder what Jim Fuller or Curt Nelson, the only Iowans with 200+ species recorded in their yard, are anticipating next. What species might Tom Stone, who sits atop the list of Iowa life birds with 394, find in the coming year? County listing can add to your birding skills. Go birding in a county unfamiliar to you and test your skills in exploring different habitats in an unknown area to find that magical number of 100 species. It's harder than you think but a heck of a lot of fun.
Have the listing bug yet? Take a look at the IOU Listing Report to see some of the goals to shoot for. Click on the button to login and add your 2016 totals. Did you do a Big Day in 2016. Report it as well. All reports will be reviewed by Paul Hertzel, the listing compiler, to be published to the website soon. If you aren't already a lister, now is a great time to start and add another fun dimension to your birding. Compete against yourself from year to year to enhance your enjoyment.
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