County listing, keeping track of all the species you've seen in a given county, has been going on for probably as long as there were two or more birders in an area. In Kansas, county listing became "formalized" in November of 1999 when Lisa Edwards issued her first call for county lists. The first list, on November 30, 1999, had a total of 85 county life list records. By March 2020 that number had jumped to a list of over 3,500 county life list records. I doubt that anyone foresaw this explosive growth in county listing. Lisa continued to compile the monthly updates through January 2010 when she handed the database over to Mark Land. In January 2018 Mark handed off the list keeping responsibilities to Kevin Groeneweg. The county life lists are published bimonthly on KSBIRD-L, the Kansas email bird list. Anyone can go back through and view the progression through the years in the KSBIRD-L archives.
Regularly, questions are asked about who has the "most". Since that can be defined in many ways, following are a series of tables. Where the report of county listing is updated, bimonthly, this list will not be updated bimonthly. It will be updated once or twice a year as Chuck has time and or feels that enough changes have taken place to justify updating it. All of these tables are based on the database that Kevin keeps on the reported county list totals.
Listed in all 105 counties
150 species in 105 counties |
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Birder |
Year Milestone Reached |
Total current county species |
Henry Armknecht | 2018 | 19,565 |
100 species in 105 counties |
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Pete Janzen | 2011 | 16,910 |
Kevin Groeneweg | 2013 | 16,770 |
Jim Malcom | 2016 | 16,424 |
75 species in 105 counties |
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Matt Gearheart | 2013 | 15,030 |
Jeff Calhoun |
2022 |
14,475 |
Tom Ewert | 2019 | 13,647 |
Glenn Caspers | 2016 | 12,315 |
Dan Larson |
2022 |
12,224 |
Sam Mannell | 2016 | 11,463 |
Terry Mannell | 2016 | 11,463 |
Listed in 75 or more counties.
75 species in 75 counties or more | counties | Total county species |
Scott Seltman | 104 | 13,600 |
Mike Rader | 99 | 14,543 |
Kathy Carroll | 92 | 10,594 |
Doris Burnett | 78 | 8,862 |
Robert Penner | 78 | 8,844 |
Nic Allen | 76 | 8,886 |
The 300 Club - Birders who have seen 300 or more in an individual county.
County list total | County | Birder | # on official county list | Percent of total |
349 | Sedgwick | Pete Janzen | 385 | 90.65 |
331 | Morton | Sebastian Patti | 381 | 86.88 |
323 | Morton | Mike Rader | 381 | 84.78 |
318 | Stafford | Mike Rader | 366 | 86.89 |
317 | Douglas | Galen Pittman | 369 | 85.91 |
316 | Morton | Scott Seltman | 381 | 82.94 |
315 | Barton | Robert Penner | 382 | 82.46 |
314 | Johnson | Mark Land | 346 | 90.75 |
313 | Johnson | Matt Gearheart | 346 | 90.46 |
312 | Russell | Mike Rader | 342 | 91.23 |
312 | Riley | Ted Cable | 362 | 86.19 |
308 | Geary | Chuck Otte | 333 | 92.49 |
308 | Cowley | Max Thompson | 347 | 88.76 |
307 | Sedgwick | John Northrup | 385 | 79.74 |
305 | Cowley | Gene Young | 347 | 87.90 |
304 | Neosho | Andrew Burnett | 306 | 99.35 |
303 | Stafford | Scott Seltman | 366 | 82.79 |
303 | Douglas | Phil Wedge | 369 | 82.11 |
301 | Johnson | Terry Swope | 346 | 86.99 |
300 | Douglas | Kathy Carroll | 369 | 81.30 |
300 | Sedgwick | Kevin Groeneweg | 385 | 77.92 |
Top individual county lists based on percent of official list total, minimum of 90%.
Percent of total | County | Birder | # on official county list | Birder's county list total |
99.35 | Neosho | Andrew Burnett | 306 | 304 |
98.68 | Pawnee | Scott Seltman | 303 | 299 |
95.05 | Atchison | Don Merz | 283 | 269 |
93.80 | Osborne | Henry Armknecht | 242 | 227 |
93.64 | Atchison | Al Schirmacher | 283 | 265 |
93.27 | Leavenworth | John Schukman | 297 | 277 |
92.49 | Geary | Chuck Otte | 333 | 308 |
91.34 | Rush | Scott Seltman | 277 | 253 |
91.23 | Brown | Don Merz | 285 | 260 |
91.23 | Russell | Mike Rader | 342 | 312 |
91.03 | Sherman | John Palmquist | 290 | 264 |
90.97 | Labette | Chad Gardner | 277 | 252 |
90.85 | Sumner | Gene Young | 328 | 298 |
90.75 | Johnson | Mark Land | 346 | 314 |
90.65 | Sedgwick | Pete Janzen | 385 | 349 |
90.65 | Ellsworth | Mike Rader | 310 | 281 |
90.57 | Miami | Malcolm Gold | 318 | 288 |
90.55 | Sumner | Max Thompson | 328 | 297 |
90.46 | Johnson | Matt Gearheart | 346 | 313 |
90.24 | Leavenworth | Galen Pittman | 297 | 268 |
90.15 | Franklin | Malcolm Gold | 274 | 247 |
It should be pointed out that county listing is not for everyone. Many birders choose not to keep track of each and every bird that they see in every county or perhaps not at all. This is an individual choice that we support. For those who do enjoy keeping track of county records we encourage you to also consider utilizing the eBird online sightings program sponsored by The Cornell Lab of Ornithology. While a great deal of resources can be spent on county listing, there is also a great deal of value we have gained from these citizen scientists in the thousands of new county records that are collected. We have improved our knowledge of bird distribution in the state thanks to the hundreds of people who have submitted new sightings in pursuit of building their own county lists.
To achieve the kinds of numbers shown above requires a heavy commitment of time and money. The potential environmental impact, i.e. gasoline consumption, has been mentioned by many sources and should not be ignored. While competitive birding does have a certain appeal to some birders, there are other options: a big county list/year, a big yard list/year and there have even been "green" big years (BIGBY - Big Green Big Year) where birders only count birds that they've seen by walking or biking to birding destinations. - Chuck Otte, KSBIRDS Webmaster
Updated January 2023
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