The change in distance measurements has other consequences. Distances will look larger this year than comparable walks last year. Also, total bird counts should be lower. For those who don't know how to count birds, you are supposed to provide conservative counts for the total number of birds in the area. Last year, if I had Red-breasted Mergansers on the Puget Sound and Chambers Creek, I could count them for one checklist then recount them for another. Since they would be on the same checklist this year, I have to keep the high count because I have no way of knowing if the birds on the different bodies of water are different. They could have easily moved around while I was on the east side of the park.
With the two changes that went against eBird, I added one more in line with what they want. I included birds identified by voice this year. For each checklist, I made sure to include "Heard" in the comments when I failed to actually see a bird. Usually, I don't bother with species that were heard, although birds seen and identified only by voice usually works for me. The Steller's Jay is the only species I recorded that I never actually saw during the bird count. Others I reported as heard were seen elsewhere.
For a quick summary, I walked 49.31 miles in 23 hours 35 minutes (these numbers don't count walks between parks). This is in comparison to 61.57 miles (actual walking rather than the reduced amount I reported - see above) in 31 hours 35 minutes. This year, I recorded 64 species and a total count of 4146 birds. Last year, I had 76 species and 8182 birds. I have broken down the sightings by day and by locations below.
| Day/Location | Checklists | Time | Distance | Species | Count |
| 2/12/2016 | 3 | 5:25 | 11.51 | 38 | 963 |
| 2/13/2016 | 3 | 5:52 | 11.28 | 48 | 1354 |
| 2/14/2016 | 5 | 6:01 | 12.99 | 49 | 892 |
| 2/15/2016 | 3 | 6:17 | 13.53 | 42 | 937 |
| Sequalitchew Creek Trail | 1 | 1:32 | 3.35 | 8 | 21 |
| Fort Steilacoom Park | 2 | 1:52 | 4.13 | 19 | 590 |
| Chambers Creek Properties | 3 | 11:13 | 25.20 | 41 | 1509 |
| Farrell's Marsh Wildlife Area | 3 | 2:55 | 5.32 | 16 | 57 |
| Saltar's Point | 1 | 0:16 | 0.43 | 5 | 35 |
| Sunnyside Beach Park | 1 | 0:18 | 0.64 | 6 | 22 |
| Steilacoom Parks Total | 5 | 3:29 | 6.39 | 22 | 114 |
| Point Defiance Park | 1 | 1:28 | 3.10 | 14 | 277 |
| Titlow Park | 1 | 0:40 | 1.20 | 15 | 312 |
| Tacoma Parks Total | 1 | 2:08 | 4.3 | 23 | 589 |
| Pierce County Totals | 13 | 20:14 | 43.37 | 55 | 2823 |
| Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge | 1 | 3:21 | 5.94 | 43 | 1323 |
| Grand Totals | 14 | 23:35 | 49.31 | 64 | 4146 |
For a breakdown of individual checklists, links have been provided below:
Alternatively, I have created a spreadsheet that can be found at: https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=2E6EFB80915ED5BD!10122&authkey=!AIL3OT8STfVHttQ&ithint=file%2cxlsx
I also decided to play around with an image (that Google appears to have lowered the resolution). A taxonomic portrayal of all the species I recorded can be found broken down by order (15), family (28), genus (47), and species (64) below (common names when available):
UPDATE: Pictures have been uploaded to an album in Flickr. I have also added the pictures to a post at my photo blog.
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