With 40 species in the set, it was quite a chore to get them all updated. It is still an educational experience for me to sift through scholarly articles looking for useful information and interesting trivia. Some subjects lend themselves to the investigative process better than others. This is true, largely because we have not studied all species in the same detail.
When first I embarked on my Don Quijote-like mission, looking at almost 500 species to revise, the windmills I faced seemed overpowering. Now, barely six weeks later, I find I’ve completed over 250 accounts. Still, there are miles to go before I sleep, and promises to keep. I may not sustain the present pace, but my earlier prediction of years to complete my mission may end up being much less.
Of the forty warbler species in my collection, I met eighteen for the first time during my recent Texas expeditions in 2020 and 2021. I’m still refining my totals, but it looks like of the eighty bird species I met for the first time during these Texas adventures, 18 were warblers. This, by far, exceeds any other group of birds in my collection. The only reason I know this is because I need to keep track of the updates I’m making, and I’m using a spreadsheet for this purpose. The spreadsheet allows me to sort the list in various ways, and I can check my progress.
The next group of birds on the revision docket is another large one: Waterfowl. There are 46 members in this collection, but I’ve sectioned them into seven groups: Dabbling Ducks, Diving Ducks, Geese, Grebes, Loons, Mergansers, and Swans. Somehow, tackling such a large group seems less daunting when broken down into more bite-sized pieces.
Click on the thumbnail below to review all forty of the revised warbler galleries.
