Today I met my goal of seeing 100 species within 6 months in the area around Bryce Canyon National Park after adding four to the list in the past few days. Number 98 came while roaming around the eastern edge of the park on Monday where I encountered a flock of about 20 Bushtits moving through the Gambel Oaks right at the park boundary. Today I was on the way back from the lake with a wet dog when I notice a lot of movement in the brush beside the road and decided to check things out. I didn't see anything new at first - juncos, Chipping Sparrows, and bluebirds - but then a behavior caught my eye that didn't seem to fit with the aforementioned species and when it popped out so I could get a better look at it I found an American Goldfinch. I eased on down the road to find another group of birds and the first was a sparrow that I recognized but couldn't quite place. Out came the field guide and what would turn out to be number 100 was a Song Sparrow. Not satisfied (I knew I was close but hadn't tallied the list for a few days) I kept looking and discovered several White-crowned Sparrows foraging in the same area. Try as I might, I was unsuccessful in adding a fourth species to the day's total when I just could not get good enough views of a greenish-yellow bird that was in that location, too. It was most likely a Common Yellowthroat, but I just can't be certain, so we stand at 101 species to date

Two species on my list are not on the official checklist for Bryce Canyon National Park so I still need one to make that list complete. They are Burrowing Owl (documented but not yet added) and Eurasian Collared-dove (not sure why they aren't on it because the development just outside the park is riddled with them). And I need 6 to have seen half of the total number of species on the checklist.

(Click to see full list.)