Bird list

One of the most common things birders track is the species they've seen, the most popular of which is a "life list". The total being the number of different species in either their home country, continent or globally. Some even track by county by year!

Bird list

The below is my spreadsheet tracking the spcies of birds I've seen in the UK, globally and in the our garden. The list is based off of the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) official list. Some species seen in the UK may have had questionable origins, e.g. an escaped pet, and therefore aren't included on the "official" British list. 

The total number number on the British list at writing this (1st June 2024) is 634 species. Some of these are long distant vagrants to the UK, going very far off of their usual migration so will rarely be seen. A few on the official list have only been seen the once, so getting even close to seeing all of them is incredibly hard and requires a lot of long distance trips to the edges of the UK. The very ends of the British Isles are great spots for picking up rarities, as they get blown off course, Shetland, Orkney and the Isles of Scilly in particular.

Going further and looking at the global life lists, you have many many more places to visit and with over 11000 species across the world it becomes an even more of a challenge to find them all.