On this last day of the year we officially failed in our Little Year quest (more after the jump), but we did see a lifer, so that gave us some hope. The bird was a MERLIN, and it was the fourth (!) Little Year bird in a row to be a double lifer. There was a sighting a couple of days ago at Chicago’s Irving Park Cemetery, and we saw the bird right where it was supposed to be: perched in a bare tree near the entrance. It flew away after about five minutes, but we had a decent look at it on this warm, rainy day. We drove around the cemetery trying for another glance, but no luck. However, we did see an large neoclassical building with an odd inscription on its pediment: COLUMBARIUM. It turns out (thank you, Wikipedia) a columbarium is place for the public storage of ash-filled urns. These buildings are said to look a little like dovecots, and columba being Latin for dove, columbarium is Latin for dovecot, and so there you go. The odd thing is that the scientific name for the Merlin is Falco columbarius, and I guess the bird is sort of dovelike. But it’s an odd coincidence all the same. So anyway, I think a dovecot for urns (an urncot? an ashcot?) would be a great place for any birder’s ashes.

But enough about death. Let’s talk about failure. Our goal this year was to see 400 species. That was doable. That was reasonable. Still, we both came up more than 100 birds short. Here’s the final tally:

The main reason we failed is simple: I got laid off at the beginning of August. This meant no major birding trips until I got another job. I got another (and better) gig at the end of November, but still, unemployment really messed up our scheme. We had planned a trip of several weeks to California and Arizona in the middle of August, which would have given us at least another 100 birds. And I guarantee that if we had come up a dozen or so short, we would have found the extra birds somewhere. The good news is that in planning for Little Year, I saved up about a month and a half of leave. I didn’t get to use it for birding, but, boy, the cash I got paid for those days really saved my hapless undertail coverts.

We’ll try another Little Year some time, but we need a break. 2007 will be a Regular Year. It’s frustrating to take vacations only if they’re in the U.S. and generally in pretty dismal places. We’ll probably take some trips abroad this coming year, and though we’ll still bring all our birding equipment, it will be great to walk through a beautiful city and stay at a smart hotel instead of staking out chickens in a plywood icebox and return to a grim base camp at a Best Western. But we’re keeping up the web site because we’re addicted to it now. It may broaden in scope over the years, but the humble name is staying.

And I think it’s fitting that we spent our last day of our failed Little Year in a cemetery. And fitting that we saw a lifer there, a lifer with a magical, wizardly name. What a nice day. What a nice year. And what a nice, nice woman to have spent them with.

I love birding.