Hi Everyone,

We hope you are all doing well and managing to get out and enjoy fall migration. No doubt many of us are also excited to see what rarities this fall may bring, especially since Virginia has already been off to a good start with the state’s first Scott’s Oriole in the beginning of the year, followed by the first chaseable Bell’s Vireo in many years as well as a nice male Garganey at Chincoteague and, most recently, the state’s first European Storm-Petrel. Who knows what the fall may bring! And on the topic of rarities, we’d like to take a moment to introduce and solicit your input for a project that several of us are putting together.

Rarities are one of the most exciting aspects of birding, and certainly many of us have spent time thinking about when, where, and how this or that species might be spotted in Virginia. Part of the fun of birding is applying our knowledge of status and distribution, historical records, population trends, geography, and many other things to the business of predicting which species might turn up. Of course, it’s even more gratifying when those predictions turn out to be accurate!

In this spirit, we’d like to invite you all to participate in compiling a report on Virginia’s Next Dozen bird species. This is a chance to offer up your thoughts on which species you believe will be likely future additions to the state list. Cumulatively, this will be a fun way to see which species are on our collective radar, and maybe which ones aren’t, but should be! This sort of report has been compiled in other states, including Maryland (they just published their excellent 3rd edition of the “Maryland Next Ten” this summer).

WHAT TO DO:

Simply send us your votes for the next dozen new species you think will be added to Virginia's list. You can send them in any format. Please also rank your top three choices. With a dozen slots to fill, we encourage everyone to think outside the box and not neglect those longshot species! Surely Lucy’s Warbler, White-crowned Pigeon, or Brewer’s Sparrow would have made very few Top 10 lists if this had been done a decade ago! Likewise, neighboring states have experienced similarly unexpected additions in the past ten years.

If inclined, please also include comments or speculate about when and where (maybe even by whom!) the species will be found. Any lists or comments submitted will be considered public and may be shared in the final report, which will ultimately be published online and hosted at BirdingVirginia.org. Please email your submissions to vanextdozen@gmail.com

For reference, Virginia’s official state list can be found at the VSO website. The list, which was most recently updated on July 27, includes 479 species. Please restrict your voting to full species and do not include subspecies or other identifiable forms. Although we are all ardent eBird users, we ask that you do not refer to the eBird list, which includes seven species not represented on the VARCOM list (Ruddy Shelduck, Passenger Pigeon, European Storm-Petrel, House Crow, Great Tit, European Goldfinch, Bachman’s Warbler).

A few species require specific instructions with regards to the voting process:

Please exclude European Storm-Petrel. A sight record of this species from a pelagic trip in August 2020 was well-documented by experienced observers and is currently pending final review.

Tropical/Couch’s Kingbird. A record of this species pair, documented by a single photo and not heard vocalizing, was accepted by VARCOM but there is no strong speculation about the species ID. Both Tropical and Couch’s Kingbird ARE eligible for consideration.

Greater/Lesser Sand Plover. A well-documented record of this species pair was accepted by VARCOM as a slash, but is widely believed to have been a Lesser. Please exclude Lesser Sand Plover from consideration.

“Western” Flycatcher. A well-documented record of this species pair was accepted by VARCOM as a Pacific Slope/Cordilleran Flycatcher, but is widely believed to have been a Pacific Slope. Please exclude Pacific Slope Flycatcher from consideration.

** Please submit your votes by Monday, September 28 **

We have done our best to circulate this announcement to birders we think would be interested in this project, but we also invite you to pass this along to anyone else you know who may be interested. We do ask that all participants provide serious submissions, and we reserve the right to exclude from final consideration any submissions which we deem are not in the spirit of the project. Naturally, the goal is to broaden our thinking about what rarities are possible in Virginia and get birders thinking about when, where, and how to find them. That being said, please don’t send us lists including penguins, ostriches, non-migratory South American passerines, etc.

Once submissions are received, we will compile the votes and create a report which presents the final results as well as some annotated comments about many of the species that received votes. We anticipate needing about a month following the close of voting to compile this, and will endeavor to produce it as efficiently as possible.

Thanks in advance for everyone’s participation, and we look forward to seeing what species make your Next Dozen!