Pennsylvania Birdlists Summary 1989

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Compiled by Terry Schiefer

Welcome to the fifth annual edition of Pennsylvania Birdlists. For those of you who are asking whatever happened to the first three editions, a few words on the history of Pennsylvania Birdlists are in order.

Pennsylvania Birdlists was dreamed up by Jerry McWilliams and me back in 1985. The plan was to have a listing of birders’ totals similar to Birding  magazine’s list supplement. But instead of having lists for each state, we would have lists for each county in Pennsylvania, acknowledging the efforts of local birding experts.

During the next three winters winters, birders across Pennsylvania received postcards announcing the project, followed by the three issues of Pennsylvania Birdlists issued in 1986, 1987, and 1988. The newsletter was supported by generous donations from many of the birders who submitted lists, but the bulk of the financial burden fell on me. In 1989 Frank and Barb Haas agreed to include Pennsylvania Birdlists in the pages of PENNSYLVANIA BIRDS. This was a godsend for me, since it freed me from the financial and time constraints involved in mailing individual announcements and newsletters.

I moved to Mississippi in the fall of 1986, but chose to continue editing Pennsylvania Birdlists, since it remains my main link to the birding community in the Keystone State. (I do, however, still visit Pennsylvania occasionally to see such novel items as mountains, rocks, snow, and clear water!).

The list totals that appear in this edition of Pennsylvania Birdlists are current as of 31 December 1989, unless otherwise indicated. A few lists not submitted to me were pulled from Birding  magazine’s list supplement and are so indicated. These include Pennsylvania Lifelists over 175 and Pennsylvania Annual Lists over 240 or when no list was over 240 the highest for a given year is listed.

This year I’ve initiated a few listing thresholds in order to prevent things from getting too unwieldy. They are as follows (at least for now):

Pennsylvania Lifelists – The threshold is 200. Lists under 250 will be dropped if not updated in five years.

Pennsylvania Annual Lists – All lists are accepted for the current year. Past years have a threshold of 200, except where no list exceeds 200 in a given year.

County Lifelists – The top five lists will be included for each county as well as any list over 100.

County Annual Lists – All lists are accepted for the current year as well as the top five lists for each county and those over 200.

I hope you enjoy perusing these lists as much as I enjoyed compiling them.