A Checklist of the Common Birds of Grand Canyon

A Checklist of the Common Birds of Grand Canyon

This brief checklist presents all of Grand Canyon National Park’s regularly occurring bird species and their relative abundance in different parts of the park throughout the year.

This checklist is designed for Grand Canyon visitors who are interested in what birds they are likely to see, or what birds they have already observed. All regularly occurring bird species are included. Birds that have been seen only a few times and those not expected to occur regularly are omitted. Similarly, this checklist does not include the entire Grand Canyon region, instead focusing on four main areas: the South Rim, the North Rim, the inner canyon below the rims, and river and riparian habitats within the canyon.

Birders interested in a more complete treatment of all birds occurring in the region and their habitat preferences should see [Title of annotated checklist].

The following categories are used to describe the seasonal abundance of each species.

COMMON: Always present.

FAIRLY COMMON: Present in small numbers, but not always seen.

UNCOMMON: Seldom seen, but not a surprise. Occurs locally or in small numbers in the proper habitat and season.

RARE: Always a surprise, but within normal range, occurring at least every year.

CASUAL: Out of its normal range.

IRREGULAR: Of irregular and unpredictable occurrence. An irregularly occurring species may be completely absent or even locally abundant in different years.

Todd: here are some notes on the unannotated brief checklist.

First, a note on the conventions used in the Excel file:

In order, from most common to least common:

C=common

FC=fairly common

U=uncommon

R=rare

IR=irregular

Ca=casual

My strong preference would be for these to be depicted with graphics (rather than with these confusing letters). As an example, we could use a thick black line for common, a medium black line for fairly common, two thin black lines for uncommon (=), one thin black line for rare, a series of dots for irregular, and a single dot for casual. A very small key for interpreting these could be at the bottom of each page. Some people also suggested using colors along with varying thickness of lines, and I’m open to that too if you think it would be helpful and not confusing. It might be a good idea to use the same graphic methods that we use in the annotated version, but that may not be all that important.

As shown in the top line of the Excel file, the progression of seasons as I have depicted it is winter-spring-summer-fall.

Please let me know if you have other needs or suggestions for the introductory text. I had a hard time writing it, and tried simply to be as brief as possible. Would you prefer a more explicit description of what each area (South Rim, North Rim, inner canyon, river/riparian) and season entails, or do you find it sufficiently self-explanatory? I feel like if the graphics are done well, it shouldn’t need much in the way of text—people should be able to just pick it up and use it.