A flash of brilliant yellow with black accents cuts through the gloom of the darkest time of the year. These dramatic colors belong to the Townsend’ Warbler that just landed on our feeder. We acknowledged the arrival of this charismatic bird to our yard by adding its name and the date we saw it to our yard list on the refrigerator. For us, this was a form of gratitude.
Gratitude is considered a coping mechanism: a way to keep your head up and spread positivity in troubling times. As the 30-Day Gratitude Challenge indicates, nature is high on the list of things to be grateful for. In fact, it touches on at least eight other items on the list including: self-care, health, beauty, animals, color, inspiration, memories, and seasons. 
Keeping a yard or apartment, condo, townhouse, etc. list is a good way to begin. If you don’t have a suitable birding spot, you can “adopt” a neighborhood park or green space. Habitat is the key. Forests, shrubs, wetlands, oceans, lakes, rivers, grasslands, and/or deserts are all productive in their natural state. Any bird that you see or hear with one foot on your property or park/greenspace qualifies, including birds that fly overhead and birds you can see nearby. We tally these and keep our list on the refrigerator. The new 2024 list was posted on January 1. Previous lists have been there for 25 years.
Over the last quarter century, we have tallied a grand total of 77 bird species from our north Seattle yard. Due to the close-proximity of heavily-wooded Ravenna Park, a relative abundance of tall evergreen trees, and our converted native plant landscape, we attract more species than highly urbanized parts of the city.
Since we date our bird sightings, we pay close attention to their seasonal arrivals. Winter, for example, coincides with the arrival of Red Breasted Sapsuckers, Townsend’s and Yellow-rumped Warblers and Pine Siskins to our yard. Spring – the busiest bird season of all – ushers in Turkey Vultures, swallows, flycatchers, grosbeaks, hummingbirds, warblers, vireos, and tanagers. Summer brings two kinds of swifts, Purple Martins, Osprey and Caspian Terns; and Fall features southbound migratory flocks of swans and geese honking and cackling as they pass over our roof.
When we first started keeping yard lists, our totals were lower, in the 30s. We were busy with full-time jobs and child-raising back then. Now in our retirement days, they average above 50 species per year, with 66 the largest ever in 2020 – the year Covid hit. We also compile eBird lists. In 2023, I submitted 332 of them, tallying 629 species and 108,323 individual birds. But we like to also keep a simple longhand list on our refridgerator of yard birds. It is more friendly, accessible and can be a conversation starter.
Pleasant surprises happen when you keep yard lists because you are looking, anticipating, and hoping for new avian visitors. Birds are wonderful ambassadors of nature. They live everywhere, including in our biggest cities, if we provide suitable habitat for them. They sing, they migrate incredible distances, they are athletic, and thankfully, resilient.
Birds remind us of our responsibility as fellow beings to steward the planet for their sake as well as ours. Try counting birds at your home. There are plenty of Apps that can help you, like Merlin https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/. It makes living on planet earth more gratifying.
