Bird-a-Day year in review: how big is your species pool?

The end of the year is the natural time to look back on a Bird-a-Day run: how many days you lasted, which bird ended it, and how that compares with the number of species that were actually available to you. This page collects the reference numbers for that comparison: the size of the North American checklist, official state lists kept by bird records committees, and what birders in two states recorded in a single calendar year according to eBird. Every figure carries its source and as-of date, because these totals change as committees accept new records. The second half is a worksheet for reviewing your own year.

The ceiling: 365 days against the checklist

The American Birding Association's checklist covers the ABA Area. Its 1997 definition was the 49 continental United States, Canada, the French islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, and adjacent waters out to 200 miles from land or half the distance to a neighboring country, whichever is less. In October 2016 the ABA voted to add Hawaii, which Audubon reported could add as many as 115 birds to the list. The January 2026 checklist update added three species: two through splits (Whimbrel and Yellow Warbler) and one new record (Waved Albatross), for a total of 1,161.

Not all of those 1,161 are realistic Bird-a-Day birds. The ABA gives every species a code from 1 (most common and easily detected) to 5 (five or fewer records from the ABA Area), with 6 for species presumed extinct, according to the ABA Checklist Committee's 2023 report. Audubon's Bird-a-Day article points players to the birds coded 1, 2 or 3, which it puts at more than 700 species across the US and Canada. A full year needs 365 of them, one per day, with no banking.

State pools: official all-time lists

State lists are maintained by state bird records committees, which review reports of rare birds (Texas Parks & Wildlife). The totals below are all-time lists: every species ever accepted for the state, including one-time vagrants.

All-time lists overstate what one birder can find in one year. In a May 2025 Texas Parks & Wildlife article, Romey Swanson showed how much of each list is rarities: removing review species (173 for Texas, 185 for California) leaves California at 503 and Texas at 498, and removing exotics as well leaves Texas at 490 and California at 486.

One state, one year: eBird totals

A closer guide to a one-year pool is what everyone together reported in a single calendar year. Two state eBird portals published year-in-review summaries with those numbers:

The arithmetic is plain: in both states, the combined effort of every eBirder over a whole year produced fewer than 365 species. A Bird-a-Day player confined to one of these states would need more species than all of them reported together. For comparison, Texas Parks & Wildlife gives the single-birder Big Year records for the two biggest state lists: 524 species in Texas (2021) and 526 in California (2024).

How to read these numbers

• All-time lists include rarities. A state list counts every accepted species ever recorded there, so it is always larger than what turns up in any one year.
• Year totals are a community effort. The Wisconsin and Minnesota figures combine every checklist submitted from the whole state in that year (over 200,000 in Wisconsin in 2022). One person in one county will usually find fewer.
• Dates matter. Records committees keep adding species, and splits change the count (the ABA's January 2026 update added two species through splits alone). Check the source's latest version before comparing.
• Your house rules change the pool. Whether heard-only birds count, and whether travel counts, are choices each player makes before Day 1, as the challenge guide explains.

Pull your own year in review from eBird

If you log your birds in eBird, it already holds the numbers for your review. eBird says every checklist you submit is tallied automatically on your applicable lists, including life, year, county, yard and patch lists.

1. Year summary. Open My eBird. Below your name is a summary of your activity for the current year, month and day. Click the blue numbers to get the list of species reported in that period, then narrow it by region or species.
2. Region and period. On Explore pages, use the Change Location and All Years menus to switch to another place or time period, and sort species lists by name, count or date.
3. Download everything. In My eBird, choose Download My Data in the sidebar (on mobile, tap Manage first) to get a spreadsheet of your sightings. For part of your data, filter the Sightings Lists page by region, location, date or species and download that.
4. Compare. eBird's Top 100 shows how your lists compare with other birders' lists; you can opt out in your eBird Preferences.
5. Plan next year. Use bar charts and Targets, explained in eBird for beginners, to see which species are likely in each month.

If you kept your run in the site's streak tracker, use its Export to save the year's list before you clear it.

Year-in-review worksheet

Answer these for the year just ending. The answers become next year's plan.

• How many days did the run last, and on what date did it end?
• Which species was the last one logged, and why did the next day fail (no new bird, no time, weather, travel)?
• Which month had the fewest new birds available? Audubon's Rene Ebersole found the going got tough when the winter visitors left in March, before the spring migrants showed up; her 2012 run ended on April 1, Day 92.
• Which reliable "sure thing" birds did you spend early that you needed later?
• How many species did you see on days when you could log only one?
• How does your total compare with your county or state's year total in eBird?
• Which house rules (heard-only birds, travel) will you change next year?
• Which months need a trip or a new habitat to fill gaps?

Keep the result in perspective. Audubon notes that most people don't make it past a month or two, and only a rare few keep going beyond six months. Then turn the worksheet into a plan with the species planner, which counts the days left against the species you expect each month. Two community counts, the Christmas Bird Count and the Great Backyard Bird Count, are another way to see which species turn up near you in winter.

Sources

• Listing & Taxonomy (ABA Checklist, 1,161 species after the January 2026 update) — American Birding Association
• 34th Report of the ABA Checklist Committee — Pyle et al., North American Birds 74(2), 2023 (PDF)
• The ABA Checklist Area (from the ABA's 1997 List Report) — ABA Checklist and Updates, B. Bowman
• Hawaii Counts: Meet 10 Island Birds Now Eligible For Your Life List — Kim Steutermann Rogers, Audubon (2016)
• Boost Your Birding Skills by Seeing a New Bird Every Day This Year — Sharon Stiteler and Purbita Saha, Audubon (2017)
• Bird-A-Day Challenge Ends on Day 92 — Audubon (2012)
• Is Texas the Birdiest State? It Depends on How You Count the Birds — Romey Swanson, Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine (May 2025)
• FOS Checklist of Florida Birds — Florida Ornithological Society
• Washington State Checklist — Washington Ornithological Society
• Checklist of the Birds of New York State — New York State Ornithological Association (list approved by NYSARC)
• Official OOS Ohio Bird Checklist — Ohio Ornithological Society
• The Official List of the Birds of Pennsylvania — Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology / PORC
• 2022 Wisconsin eBird Year in Review — Aaron Stutz, Wisconsin eBird
• Minnesota eBird 2023 Year in Review — Minnesota eBird
• Tracking your lists with eBird — eBird
• My eBird — eBird Help Center
• Explore species, regions, hotspots and checklists — eBird Help Center