My Big Green Big Year, part 2

I noted in an earlier posting that I had 184 BIGBY species in 2009 in Monroe County Indiana. I'm still trying to figure out my top BIGBY highlight for 2009. It's down to two birds:

1. Whooping Crane - one of the the rarest birds in the world, with only a few hundred individuals in the wild.

2. Scissor-tailed Flycatcher - a relatively common bird in its native habitat, but a rare vagrant for Indiana, with only about 20 sightings since the first state record in May 1947. This bird was seen in the fall, and most Indiana records are from the spring and early summer. Also, this is the only November Indiana record for this species. Normally this species should be living the high life in southern Mexico by the time November rolls around.

The eastern flyway Whooping Cranes aren't ABA-countable, but it's still an incredible treat to see one in a flock of migrating Sandhill Cranes. The irony is that, even if they were countable they wouldn't be a new life bird for me (I've seen a couple of countable Whoopers along the Platte River). On the other hand, the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher is a life bird for me, and, believe it or not, they are rarer in Indiana than the Whooping Cranes that pass through in the spring and fall.

Maybe I should just call it a tie. :-)