
By Stan Tekiela
I’ve spent a lifetime and a full career of over 40 years writing about and taking photos of all sorts of wildlife, and birds in particular. So, it would be natural to think that I’ve seen all the birds or all the wildlife. Nothing could be further from the truth. You might also be surprised to learn that I don’t keep a life list.
So, what the heck is a life list? A life list is a simple check list of all the birds you have seen over one’s lifetime. When you see a bird for the first time you put it on your life list, indicating you have seen
this bird in your lifetime. Let me remind you that there are over 11,000 species of birds so the average bird watcher never gets to see them all.