CT's Next 15 Birds - Twelve Years Later!

Back in the summer of 2007 I began to piece together an article, later published in The Connecticut Warbler, that attempted to predict (I mean ‘guess') the next 15 bird species to be added to the CT state list. How time flies. We’re nearly twelve years from that voting period. Periodically it’s fun to look back on this to see how we fared!

The "research" included assembling a 13-member panel to submit their own personal Top Ten Lists, ranked from most (10 pts) to least likely (1 pt). A total of 47 species received votes (Top 15 were featured in the article). Here they are. Species since added to the state list are in bold print.

Rank		Votes	Points
1	Townsend's Warbler	13	117
2	Swainson's Warbler	11	68
3	Black-chinned Hummingbird	10	70
4	Little Egret	6	39
5	California Gull	6	28
6	White-winged Tern	6	19
t7	Allen's Hummingbird	5	29
t7	Hammond's Flycatcher	5	29
9	Slaty-backed Gull	4	30
10	Garganey	4	18
11	Northern Lapwing	4	15
12	Common Murre	3	26
13	Pacific Golden Plover	3	17
14	Redwing	3	13
15	Black-tailed Gull	3	9
16	Shiny Cowbird	2	16
17	Western Meadowlark	2	14
18	Rock Wren	2	13
19	Reddish Egret	2	12
20	Vermillion Flycatcher	2	11
21	White-tailed Kite	2	9
22	Lesser Sand-Plover	2	7
23	Yellow-legged Gull	2	6
t24	Black-bellied Whistling-Duck	2	5
t24	Sage Thrasher	2	5
26	Lewis' Woodpecker	2	4
27	Great-tailed Grackle	2	2
28	Inca Dove	1	9
t29	Long-billed Murrelet	1	8
t29	Trumpeter Swan	1	8
t31	Black-throated Sparrow	1	7
t31	Common Ground Dove	1	7
t31	Lesser Nighthawk	1	7
34	Anna's Hummingbird	1	6
*t35	Fieldfare	1	5
t35	Western Wood-pewee	1	5
t37	Gray Jay	1	4
t37	Western Reef-heron	1	4
39	Eurasian Kestrel	1	3
t40	Broad-tailed Hummingbird	1	2
t40	Cassin's Sparrow	1	2
t40	Clark's Grebe	1	2
t43	Brown Booby	1	1
t43	Common Chaffinch	1	1
t43	Common Ringed Plover	1	1
t43	Mountain Plover	1	1
t43	Violet-green Swallow	1	1

Panel members: Nick Bonomo, Milan Bull, Frank Gallo, Greg Hanisek, Julian Hough, Jay Kaplan, Frank Mantlik, Edward James Raynor, Dori Sosensky, Mark Szantyr, Daniel Williams, Glenn Williams, and Joseph Zeranski.

Since then, the following 23 species have been seen in the state (in chronological order):

Common Ground Dove
“Western” Flycatcher (later, a Pacific Slope was positively identified)
Broad-billed Hummingbird
Slaty-backed Gull
Graylag Goose
Western Meadowlark
White-tailed Kite
Northern Lapwing
Common Murre
Band-rumped Storm-Petrel
White-tailed Tropicbird
Brown Booby
Black-chinned Hummingbird
Trumpeter Swan
Zone-tailed Hawk
California Gull
Sprague’s Pipit
Gray Flycatcher
Mexican Violetear
Black-backed Oriole
Little Egret
Black-bellied Whistling-Duck
Roseate Spoonbill

*NOTE: The Avian Records Committee of Connecticut (ARCC) occasionally reviews historical records. Often, these records have not been adjudicated previously. Such was the case with a 19^th-century specimen of Fieldfare, which was reviewed and accepted to the state list after these predictions were made.

Also, a 1986 record of Ivory Gull, originally rejected, was re-reviewed and accepted by the ARCC. However, nobody included Ivory Gull on their predictive lists anyway.

Lastly, a 1988 record of Jackdaw was re-reviewed and accepted to the state list due to new evidence.

You'll see that many of our new birds were not even mentioned in the predictions! Goes to show what a crapshoot this exercise can be. Still, I think we did pretty well. Six of the top 12 species have been seen over these last dozen years – that’s a pretty good hit rate if you ask me.

The number of “overdue” species is slowly dwindling as we continue to expand the state list. Still, new trends will emerge, especially as the climate continues to change at an increasing rate. For instance, note the position of Black-bellied Whistling-Duck on the list from 12 years ago – it only got two votes! If you had re-polled the panel only a few years later, it almost certainly would have landed in the Top 5. This is because there was a serious uptick in regional records of this species starting about a decade ago.

Common Ground Dove received one vote (Frank Gallo), Western Meadowlark got two votes (Milan Bull and Frank Mantlik), Slaty-backed Gull received 4 votes (Nick Bonomo, EJ Raynor, Danny Williams, Glenn Williams), Northern Lapwing got 4 votes (Greg Hanisek, Mark Szantyr, Frank Gallo, Danny Williams), Common Murre fetched three (Nick Bonomo, Glenn Williams, Frank Mantlik), White-tailed Kite had two (Jay Kaplan, Danny Williams), Brown Booby one vote (Joe Zeranski), Black-chinned Hummingbird received 10 (all but FG, MB, JZ), Trumpeter Swan with one vote (JZ), California Gull had 6 votes (MS, ER, MB, GW, FM, NB), Little Egret saw 6 votes (GH, MS, NB, MB, GW, DS), and Black-bellied Whistling-Duck received two votes (MS, NB).

It’s not a competition, but as of our previous check-in six years ago, Danny Williams had correctly predicted the most new species (3). As of today, yours truly leads the pack with six correct, while Julian Hough brings up the rear with one correct :)

We'll keep checking in as the years pass.

 - NB