Oh what a year

As the sun set the evening of this last day of 2011 my Junior Big Year was ending.  What a year it was.  436!  436!  First bird: European Starling, out my bedroom window, January 1st.  Last bird: Bell's Vireo, "The Beanery" Cape May New Jersey, December 30th.  And 434 in between.

A few of the most memorable birds:

Brown Shrike
Gyrfalcon
Horned Puffin
Black-vented Oriole
Green Jay
King Eider
Prairie Falcon
just a few of the most amazing.

Now that the Big Year is done, I'll of course continue birding.  I will continue to grow my life list and keep a year list in 2012, but it won't be that intense traveling and relentless birding.  I will still have plenty of travel in 2012: Glacier National Park in Montana, Canaan Valley West Virginia, and Chincoteague Virginia.

I would like to give my thank yous to everyone that has helped me on this amazing Junior Big Year.  There is a very long list of so much help from so many people that I couldn't begin to list everyone.  But the biggest, most important thank you to my amazing parents for their incredible support.  I literally could not have done this Junior Big Year without you.

On another note, I am happy to say that Skyler Bol of Colorado is setting out tomorrow on his own Junior Big Year, inspired by me!  I wish you best of luck and tons of fun, Skyler.  His blog is http://2012juniorbigyear.blogspot.com/

Thank you to all of my blog readers for following my progress on this amazing year.