How Many Birds Have been Reported in Each County?

Full Update 6/24 (Click on More)

eBird is just about the only source of recent consolidated records available to everyone.  A record 7,719 lists were submitted in Texas to ebird in Jun 2008. Over 7,000 lists were submitted in April, 2009. eBird also does a very good job of keeping your personal county records.

Above are 2 maps of Texas colored by number of species reported to Ebird. Counties in Blue have 200+ species reported. Counties in Green have 100-199 species reported. Counties in   Yellow have 25-99 species reported. Counties in White have 0-24 species reported. Top map is as of 3/22/09, Bottom map is as of 7/3/08.

Below is a table of the total species reported to each of the 254 counties through eBird. Added species between Apr - Dec 2008 in red) (Increases in 2009 in Blue). At bottom see list of counties categorized by number of species reported.

249 Counties (98% of Texas Counties) have added species since Mar, 2008!

Partial Update May 19, 2009-JB  

What are the most birded counties in Texas?

Twenty-Three (as of 3/23/09) counties have more than 300 species reported to ebird; Hildalgo, Cameron, Nueces, Travis, Bexar, Galveston, Brazoria, Harris, Aransas, Brewster, Chambers, Van Zandt, Tarrant, Starr, Calhoun, Kleberg, Hunt, Rains, Williamson, El Paso, Jefferson, Kenedy, Dallas. No surprise that most of these are population centers or major birding areas.  Hunt, Van Zandt and Rains Counties are the the three that don't fit that pattern. Looking at the the eBird first records for those three counties I see that one super birder (Richard Kinney) has imported more than 20 years of records. It's a great tribute to the value of keeping records.

What are the least birded counties in Texas?

There are now ZERO counties (as of 5/7/09) with fewer than 25 species reported to eBird:  Camp County in NE Texas was the last (Thanks Janie Henderson, Linda Wilkins, Anthony Hewetson, Charles Smith,Dan Symonds, Bill Lupardus for eliminating the last few)

However there are still 66 63 (as of 5/19/09) counties (including Camp) with fewer than 100 species reported. See totals by county in article above.

What's Possible?

I think that's a very interesting question. I've no doubt that 100 species is possible in every county. 191(upd 5/19/09) counties have more than 100 species reported already. Is 200 possible in all counties? 85 (upd 5/11/09) counties already have more than 200 species reported.

It really boils down to someone going there and birding and then reporting the results. I'm eyeing these under-birded counties for  a future trip to pad the records for these counties.