2014 was another great birdwatching year for me with well over 200 species not including my November trip to Mexico making 2014 my best year yet (Fig. 1). Not surprisingly the majority of my birding happened in Metro Vancouver again this year but I did bird further afield than in 2013 (Fig. 2). Trips out to Alberta, Saskatchewan, Washington, the Okanagan, and Tofino helped bump up my year total relative to last year. Of my 245 North American (north of Mexico) species, 189 were from Metro Vancouver, 5 fewer species than in 2013. This drop in species was reflected in a drop in rank from 14 to 20 among Metro Vancouver eBird contributors

From Fig. 1 you can see my drop off in birding effort this year. This drop off were largely due to a busy November and December with almost no birding, largely explaining the drop in Metro Vancouver species. This drop in effort was offset by my wider travels and despite the novelty of the Metro Vancouver avifauna wearing off I was able to tally up 31 (non-Mexico) lifers in 2014. Highlights for the year include birding the Okanagan for the first time (which I still need to blog about), a great Pelagic Trip out of Tofino, and the oft-mentioned Mexico Trip.