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The 10% Club - Milestones (1 Viewer)

pbjosh said:
Well done. There are no hard birds, only lazy birders, right? :ROFLMAO:
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Exactly!

Those are all Brazilian, and having been to Brazil a couple of months ago, I "missed" Southern Margarettae (but we spent only some hours in the right area, on the way to the airport, on borrowed time, was always an unexpected extra if seen), seen inland Hook-billed near Poções, and I haven't been in Cinnamon-throated areas...
So still on course :)

ps: Chilean Woodstar is on the brink... Can't think of any other hummer that's so severely / desperately threatened?
 
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temmie said:
You should get rid of those 'friends'.
They already made you misspell Racket (instead of Racquet)!
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I don't know when this sarted being the case but in the UK, it's always been 'racket' and it entered my head again recently when doing my World list and coming to the 'Racquet-tails', so of course, I Googled it.

The Collin’s Dictionary, Cambridge Dictionary and Merriam Webster all call ‘racquet’ a variant spelling of the word racket.

The Associated Press Stylebook also prefer the ‘racket’ spelling, and it seems that while acceptable, the word racquet is more of an alternative form.

And finally, although not an authoritative body on the English language, the International Tennis Federation and the Lawn Tennis Association use racket(s) exclusively for all their communications.

So, it's Temmie who's been miss-spelling it ;)
 
Andy Adcock said:
I don't know when this sarted being the case but in the UK, it's always been 'racket' and it entered my head again recently when doing my World list and coming to the 'Racquet-tails', so of course, I Googled it.

The Collin’s Dictionary, Cambridge Dictionary and Merriam Webster all call ‘racquet’ a variant spelling of the word racket.

The Associated Press Stylebook also prefer the ‘racket’ spelling, and it seems that while acceptable, the word racquet is more of an alternative form.

And finally, although not an authoritative body on the English language, the International Tennis Federation and the Lawn Tennis Association use racket(s) exclusively for all their communications.

So, it's Temmie who's been miss-spelling it ;)
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Maybe read the topic, and Josh's spelling (= racquet, clearly influenced by his Swiss/French speaking 'friends') before commenting.
When I say someone is misspelling (insert word how it should be spelled = racket, instead of (insert word how it should not be spelled = racquet / raquet...), it's clear as well.
 
temmie said:
Maybe read the topic, and Josh's spelling (= racquet, clearly influenced by his Swiss/French speaking 'friends') before commenting.
When I say someone is misspelling (insert word how it should be spelled = racket, instead of (insert word how it should not be spelled = racquet), it's clear as well.
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No need for the arrogance.
 
English is either entertaining or maddening I guess, depending on your mood / point of view :) The older I get, the less I care about spelling and grammar on a lot of these kind of cases and I see english sort of simplifying over the next couple of generations. It is one thing to try to sound smart and then misuse a word (ie, penultimate is not "even more ultimate" and nonplussed is not unimpressed). However, lie/lay, dying/dyeing, affect/effect, everyday/every day, less/fewer, then/than... bah, life is too short to get wound up and I really feel for all the non native speakers when even us supposed native speakers fowl(!) up so frequently.

I managed to spell it Racket in one use, per Clements, and Raquet in another which is neither anglicized French nor French but somewhere in between...
 
It always interests me when I see discussions like this and I have actually seen one of the species! I think that it just reaffirms that there are thousands of birds in dozens of countries...

Thought-provoking thread (with your usual Birdforum humour & an argument thrown in).

:)
 
Near-term goals: First, I would like to hit 2000 species before my 46th birthday, which is basically less than 2 years from now. I am hoping I can maybe pull off a short Belize trip this summer (40-60 potential lifers), and a trip to Malaysia next year (200+ lifers), so I think this is doable, although I might be cutting things close to the wire to make that goal.

The other near-term goal is 700 ABA birds by 50. I am at 657 currently, so ~43 species to go. More time but I have sadly reached the point of diminishing returns. There are some birds I've missed or which occupy places I haven't been to, but I don't think there is any single place with more than 5 potential reliable non-vagrant ABA birds. Hawaii is probably the biggest source of new potential ABA birds, followed by Alaska, but both destinations are expensive and logistically challenging

The long-term goal is to see one of every family of bird in the world (and when I am feeling ambitious, every subfamily). That's going to be difficult, as some families are quite expensive to access (cough New Guinea cough), travel isn't getting cheaper, and work means I have large chunks of the year that I can't travel. Following that, getting to 50% of the total bird list seen would be great, but I expect that would come naturally if I get every family, given the number of different places I would have to visit.
 
I'm currently on a goal-crunching Eastern USA birding trip, and have just crossed back over the 50% line (IOC) for the second time, having "gone under" due to all the splits since I first crossed the 50% line by a decent margin in Peru about 5 years ago.

This time round I crossed back over the 50% line 3 days ago with Rusty Blackbird and have seen 3 more lifers since (Field Sparrow, Red-headed Woodpecker, and Eastern Screech Owl). But if IOC split Wackerty Wockerty White-eye into 9 different monotypic obscure island endemics this afternoon, I'll beheading back to Blighty back at square one! 😂
 
Thought of that
qwerty5 said:
Well technically, 1101 birds is only 9.994%, you would need 1102 to surpass 10% 😜. Anyway, my main goal for now is 200+ species for my home county year list.
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haha I did think of that but was anxious to post the thread before I forgot about the idea. Anyhow I now hit 1,110 or maybe one or two more after I look over some photos of an outing yesterday.
 
Larry Sweetland said:
I'm currently on a goal-crunching Eastern USA birding trip, and have just crossed back over the 50% line (IOC) for the second time, having "gone under" due to all the splits since I first crossed the 50% line by a decent margin in Peru about 5 years ago.

This time round I crossed back over the 50% line 3 days ago with Rusty Blackbird and have seen 3 more lifers since (Field Sparrow, Red-headed Woodpecker, and Eastern Screech Owl). But if IOC split Wackerty Wockerty White-eye into 9 different monotypic obscure island endemics this afternoon, I'll beheading back to Blighty back at square one! 😂
Click to expand...

You can perhaps become the person to cross the 50% threshhold the maximum number of times. Like sports / racing type statistics, find the right metric and you can be the best in the world.
 
Mysticete said:
Near-term goals: First, I would like to hit 2000 species before my 46th birthday, which is basically less than 2 years from now. I am hoping I can maybe pull off a short Belize trip this summer (40-60 potential lifers), and a trip to Malaysia next year (200+ lifers), so I think this is doable, although I might be cutting things close to the wire to make that goal.

The other near-term goal is 700 ABA birds by 50. I am at 657 currently, so ~43 species to go. More time but I have sadly reached the point of diminishing returns. There are some birds I've missed or which occupy places I haven't been to, but I don't think there is any single place with more than 5 potential reliable non-vagrant ABA birds. Hawaii is probably the biggest source of new potential ABA birds, followed by Alaska, but both destinations are expensive and logistically challenging

The long-term goal is to see one of every family of bird in the world (and when I am feeling ambitious, every subfamily). That's going to be difficult, as some families are quite expensive to access (cough New Guinea cough), travel isn't getting cheaper, and work means I have large chunks of the year that I can't travel. Following that, getting to 50% of the total bird list seen would be great, but I expect that would come naturally if I get every family, given the number of different places I would have to visit.
Click to expand...
Are you planning Peninsular or Borneo Malaysia? Both have their own special families.
 
This is a timely post from my perspective, as I've been wondering whether I can join the '10% club' myself in the not too distant future. With the help of old notebooks I'm currently migrating my slightly incomplete and slightly inaccurate Scythebill list (IOC) to eBird, which of course is Clements and includes heard-only species, so it still won't be 100% accurate.
I reckon I'm in the 860s, and a short trip to the Neotropics planned for the end of the year should get me at least over 1000, hopefully more (at only 26/366 seen so far, this could include a few more hummers :)). At my age I realistically won't have enough time left to reach a massive target, nor do I have the money for multiple world birding trips each year, so when I can get away I'm going to focus on 'bucket-list' species and birding experiences.
 

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