In 2017 Ted Wolff set an audacious but fun goal for himself: bird every county in Illinois and record more than 100 species in each. Edward Warden, president of the Chicago Ornithological Society, spoke with Ted to understand what motivated the landscape architect and avid birder to take on the challenge and to hear tales from the journey.
-Transcribed by Lauren Kostas

Edward Warden: 102 counties in Illinois, and you hit them all, and you got 100 species in each. What possessed you to do this?

Ted Wolff: It’s probably the slippery slope of birding. First you start birding locally. I started out in the 1980s, mostly birding the Wooded Island in Jackson Park and Montrose. In 2013 I decided to devote myself to it more fully.

I wanted to go to Emiquon, and Chautauqua, and Carlyle Lake. I began to realize there's a great big world of Illinois birding and birds outside of the Chicago area. I think you just started to get captivated by the different suite of birds, the different habitats. And then of course, there's always the different people, which is always the fun part.

Then I really looked at my map, and I was like, okay, I've been to 40 or 45 counties, just by not even thinking about it, just by going to places I wanted to go.

And then someone told me about this concept called “county birding,” where you try to see as many bird species as you can in individual counties, which admittedly seemed silly, like, why do that? A county isn’t important in and of itself. It's just a way to keep track of where you've been.

Then I realized I’d already been to a lot of counties, including some way down state, like Massac County on the banks of the Ohio River. I'd been to Pulaski and Alexander because they both have good birding. I'd been to the ones that are farthest away, so I could go to the ones in between here and there, and I started doing that.

So, then the slippery slope starts: Well, let's get birds in every county. You can get a lot just from the front seat of your car—Red-tailed Hawks, Turkey Vultures, Blue Jays, cardinals—at 65 miles an hour. And if you're on a back road, then you can see more or even stop. You can get 10, or 15, or 20 just looking through the windshield of your car, but it's just much more fun to get out and actually bird that county. So that's when it starts to become a real project.

EW: Some counties are easier. You show up, and you get a lot of birds right away. For others it's a little bit more work. At what point where you're like, okay, I've been to every county, but now I want to get to 100.

TW: It’s just been the past three years that I've worked at that goal. Those first counties were Cook, DuPage, Lake, and McHenry, and all the ones that are around Chicago, where I live. And then Fulton and Mason, because of Emiquon and Chautauqu, and then Clinton because of Carlyle Lake. So, you're going to get 100 species just easily or almost naturally, without thinking about county birding. From that point, it was a full three-year project to get to 100 species in every county.

EW: Were there a couple of counties where you thought, man, this 100 is feeling like a pain in the butt?

TW: There are quite a few like that. There are places like Stark County, Crawford County, and Edwards County, which are really quite small. They're tough because they haven't got a variety of habitat.

In Stark County, for instance, I’m trying to find a pond with waterfowl, a lake with waterfowl, but there's almost no such thing. So, I talked to Dustin Hulschoh who is trying to get to 150 in all the counties around Peoria where he lives. He pointed out that there was a certain time of year when some of the creeks are flooded, and they have a floodplain. So, if you go there at the right time in February or March, you might get a lot of migratory waterfowl in Stark County. That's where the local knowledge and the timing really makes a huge difference. You could go there eleven months out of the year and not see anything. And if you're at the right time, then boom, you get shovelers, you get Gadwalls, and you get Green-winged Teal—wow, that really helped my Stark County list a lot.

EW: As you're bushwhacking these counties and looking for all those details, were there any birds that particularly surprised you, that made you think, wow, this was the last thing I expected to find here?

TW: Exactly! This spring was kind of fun, because I was driving around in April in Macoupin County, and I ran into a couple of flocks of American Golden-Plover. I’m just driving down the road and I see some movement and follow it. Getting American Golden-Plover is nice—the habitat they need is stubble cornfield and bean fields. You don’t expect shorebirds in these farm counties and yet there they are. It is super pleasing to get a cool bird in that kind of place.

EW: Are there any counties where, because you were going so hard, you ended up either breaking records, or were out birding more in an area than had ever been done before?

TW: I saw I'm in the top 10 in about 40 Illinois counties. In DuPage I’m at about 222 species, but I’m ranked only 53. But if you look at White County, there's Sandra Spence, a local birder, and the only other eBird reports are from other Chicago people exploring or doing the same thing I'm doing. In White I have only 104 species, but I’m ranked 8. It’s kind of neat that you can actually get a ranking there.

But what’s better than ranking is that eBird connects you to local experts and information. Steven Lima birds East Central Illinois, so Crawford, Cumberland, and Clark. If you look at his eBird reports, you get information on flood plains, how quickly things are drying out, the temperature, the wind. Or Sandra Spence in White County, she is your connection to White County birds, because no one else is reporting down there on a regular basis.

EBird is the starting point of the research, but I also look at maps, which is a lot of fun. The Delorme Illinois Atlas and Gazetteer is a super helpful, old-fashioned, analog tool. I start reading the topography and trying to anticipate the habitat. Okay, it looks like a creek might have some steep banks, that means it's not going to be ag field all the way up to the edge and might be wooded. Here's a county road that crosses that creek, so I'm going to go to this bridge on this creek and stop, take a look around, listen, and maybe play a tape and see if I can get a reaction. There is a bit of detective work and the joy of discovery.

One thing I do is ask is in how many counties can I get a certain species, for example the relatively uncommon Bell’s Vireo. When I started birding Bell’s Vireo, this mystery bird showed up once or twice a year in the Chicago area, and then more regularly at Steelworkers Park. So, if you wanted to get it for the year, fine, you can go there. But it turns out, I've got it in 33 counties now. And so, when you’re driving around, you say, wait a second, that habitat looks good for Bell’s Vireo. And therefore, it also looks good for Yellow-breasted Chat. So, it might also be good for Orchard Oriole. You start to tune yourself to the nuances of habitat. It may look like all ag land but if you look closely, you see creek bottoms, and flood plains, and patches of prairie, and successional agricultural fields, and much more.

EW: So, 100. Is that it? Are you going to go for more now?

TW: Definitely going to go for more, but it will have to be in Arizona, where my wife and I are moving shortly, and I hope to knock off more counties in New Mexico, southern California, and who knows where else?

What I think is cool is we all contribute to Cornell’s eBird database in our own very, very small way. But some of us contribute a little bit more because we’re providing data for underbirded areas where there isn’t a lot of data.

When you go to Wayne County and Crawford County and Cumberland County, and you are setting your target birds, eBird spits out this list from most expected to least, from highest percentage reported to lowest. But it's based on how many reports—maybe 40 or 50 reports for the area for the month, since the start of reporting. That means maybe 50 reports over 15 or 20 years. That’s barely two a year, in that month. So, you know it's not heavily birded.

That’s honestly the part of this that interests me the most. I find it really fascinating going into those areas where nobody else is going. You know, just every observation you make, is that much more meaningful for the statistics and our understanding. Even if I'm just reporting 30 House Sparrows in this area where otherwise they would never have House Sparrows reported. I added some information, and I got some personal gratification.

That’s one of the great things about eBird: it's this fabulous ecosystem where both parties get something significant out of it. I enjoy providing the data, and if I can report Bell’s Vireo where it’s rarely been seen that’s great. I'm happy to do that. That's fun. And the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which runs eBird, gets the data. Win-Win.

EW: Any kind of final personal wisdom or takeaways from all of this that you want people to know about?

TW: First, it’s clearly different strokes for different folks. Do what you enjoy.

I’ve always liked lists. I’ve always liked geography. And I became a landscape architect because of my interest in maps, at least in part. So for me, birding in different geographic areas—even artificial government ones—revs my motor. I’m too restless to be a patch birder going to the same place all the time. I get how that can be rewarding. It’s just not as rewarding to me as going to new places and seeing new things.

Second, get out birding, and especially get out by yourself and find your own birds! We have such great access to almost instantaneous online information that it’s tempting to wait for alerts and then chase that next rarity. But it’s equally rewarding, in my opinion, to be birding some random park in Montgomery County and finding a Black-bellied Whistling Duck, or a Western Tanager in Peoria County, or just Bell’s Vireos throughout the state.

As I prepare to leave Illinois my next project is to get one hundred species in every state in the country. Thirty-seven down, fourteen to go (including the District of Columbia), so I’m well on my way.

EW: One hundred species in every county is nothing to sneeze at. One hundred in every state would also be impressive. Good luck!

TW: It’s a lot of work. And it's a lot of reward. And sometimes it's just too much driving. But in the end, I had a great time doing it. So, if it is the kind of thing that interests you, go ahead and do it. And if it isn't, then do whatever revs your motor. There are so many ways to enjoy birding, which is what's so great.

The County Lister: Ted Wolff