GREENE CO., MO. — I’ve been home just over a week and have more or less finished listing the birds I saw while away. I’m still not completely done since I can’t find all the information I need. And my conscience still nags me about a few sightings — can I list them or not?

But one must draw the line somewhere, and for now I’ve drawn it here. I added 102 birds to my life list, bringing me up to 517.

Yellow-footed Gull did not make the cut. Neither did Dusky Lory, but I’d decided that before I ever left Madang. Brown Noddy is on; Black Noddy is not. Ebony Myzomela and Atoll Starling are on unless I someday discover that the species on Wuvulu Island go by different names. The triller from Port Vila is not listed yet. I cannot find enough description to decide whether it was Long-tailed or Polynesian. Hopefully I can clear that up when and if I get my hands on a Vanuatu field guide.

I added 57 lifers in PNG — considerably less than 10% of the nation’s species. Some of the birds, like Black Kite and Collared Kingfisher, range over much of the Old World. Others, like the aforementioned starling and myzomela, are extremely limited in distribution. Seven of the 57 lifers were pigeons and doves; only two were psittacids. Not one was a bird-of-paradise. Papua New Guinea, I shall return.

In Australia, I saw 38 life birds. Of those, three were cormorants and five were honeyeaters. Three — Spotted Dove, Common Myna, and European Goldfinch — were introduced. The fairywrens were dazzling. The Rock Warbler was serendipity at its finest. The lyrebirds never showed. Thirty-eight species is about 5% of Australia’s birds. Australia, I’m not finished with you either.

The quick trip to Vanuatu yielded six lifers. Two were doves, two were swiftlets, one was a honeyeater, one was a white-eye. Three can be found in very few places on earth. The entire nation of Vanuatu has only 70-odd species of birds, but many of those are endemic, or nearly so.

And in California, I added Black Turnstone. I don’t want to talk about the Yellow-footed Gull. Or whatever it was.

Red-rumped Parrots, Red-bellied Fruit-Doves, the Great Cuckoo-Dove, Gray Crows. Kookaburras, friarbirds, and terns. Bee-eaters. Tropicbird.

I’m not in this game to keep score. I’m in it … because I long to see … the fingerprints of Perfection. And I have. And I will.

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