GREENE CO., MO — Thanks for your well wishes in response to my Gulf Coast target list last weekend. Unfortunately, they weren’t enough to bring success in the venture.

It’s not really fair to complain about a trip that included Long-billed Curlews, Marbled Godwits, avocets, Snowy Plovers, and Roseate Spoonbills, but the fact is, Saturday just wasn’t one of those lucky days. I stared into cattails until I started hallucinating, but we couldn’t even find a Sora, let alone a Virginia Rail. And anis remain a jinx bird for another year.

Thousands of Snow Geese fed in the fields at Anahuac, and we picked out a few Greater White-fronteds too. The tide was way out at Bolivar Flats, so shorebirds were dispersed over vast expanses of sand. The saltmarsh, which should have been crawling with Seaside and sharp-tailed sparrows, was very quiet. Ah well.

The two most interesting sightings, for me, were the Neotropic Cormorants in breeding plumage and three Horned Grebes in flight over the Gulf.

I don’t recall ever seeing a grebe (of any sort) in flight before, but as I scanned the water from Bolivar Flats, I picked up three birds moving low over the water, flashing white secondaries. They didn’t seem right for loons or ducks. They finally landed, and I was able (barely) to get them in the scope. They bobbed in and out of sight on the waves, but as far as I could tell, they showed the black-and-white faces of Horned Grebes. Cool!

So, all of my target birds will have to wait for another day.

I have seen 386 bird species in Texas. Depending on your frame of reference, this may sound pretty good, until I tell you that the current Texas big year record is 522 species. Yeah, 522 species in one year.

Now, if you know me at all, you probably realize that accumulating a huge state list is not of particular interest to me. I am more interested in habitats, biomes, and ecoregions than in arbitrary political borders, but the fact remains that arbitrary political borders do sometimes slice up the world into convenient little chunks. So, it makes sense to look for gaps in my life list, identify species that I should be able to find in my current little chunk of the world, and concentrate on finding those species.

So I’ve made a list of birds I’d like to find in Texas between now and the time I leave the country again in late winter:

• Greater Scaup
• King Rail
• Virginia Rail
• Groove-billed Ani
• Sprague’s Pipit
• Smith’s Longspur
• Chestnut-collared Longspur

You’ve already seen most of those names. I didn’t include species that occur in distant corners of the state (for example, Steller’s Jay and Spotted Owl), because I doubt I’ll be able to travel that far in the next couple of months.

So that was my list as of last week, and of course, the very first new bird I got was one I’d chosen not to put on the list. Sunday, a Long-tailed Duck was reported from Village Creek in Fort Worth. Monday morning, I stopped by on my way up to Missouri, and I found a crowd of other birders already there.

Scanning hundreds of Buffleheads, pintails, and shovelers, I finally found the female Oldsquaw (Can I just say it, please? There, I said it. Oldsquaw.), who was diving frequently and staying under for long periods. Eventually she came up and stayed for awhile, preening and offering nice, if distant looks. Her stubby, “rubber ducky” shape and white face with a dark cap and cheek patch were very striking. Long-tailed Ducks are reported a few times a year across Texas, and I didn’t expect to be in the right place at the right time to see one. But this little gal was sitting pretty. Score!

I didn’t get any pictures because of the distance, but here’s one from another Metroplex birder: female Long-tailed Duck.

So, hurrah for Long-tailed Ducks! I’m a fan. Now, let’s get busy on those other species. Anybody want to join my team? A-pipiting we’ll go!

DALLAS, TEXAS — Well, I’ve moved to Texas. Again. I think I’m going to like my new apartment, but I don’t expect to see many birds. I’m surrounded mostly by parking lot in a busy part of town, but an older neighborhood stretches away to the south, so there are a few trees.

I’ve decided to keep a list of the birds I see or hear from the property, just to see who lives near or wanders past this sterile-looking bit of ground. This morning, I got off to a better start than I’d anticipated:

1. Carolina Wren
2. Great-tailed Grackle
3. European Starling
4. Dark-eyed Junco
5. Northern Mockingbird
6. Blue Jay
7. Ring-billed Gull
8. Yellow-rumped Warbler
9. American Robin

Three male grackles perched in a tree across the fence this morning, stretching skyward, taking turns to spread their tails, fluff their feathers, and sing. At least with them around, I won’t be bored for long.

Expect a slowdown (or complete cessation) of updates for the next week or two as I unpack, take care of paperwork, wait on the phone company to hook me up, and (drumroll, drumroll) transfer Search and Serendipity to a new host and domain.

UKARUMPA, PNG — For more than a year, I have been looking for a satisfactory, comprehensive list of the world’s birds. I thought my requirements were relatively straightforward: The list should be widely accepted, updated regularly, and available freely and electronically. But reality is not so simple.

There have been several recent attempts to list all the birds of the world and hypothesize about their relationships with each other.

Sibley and Monroe’s controversial list grows more obsolete with each new ornithological paper that’s published. It is rapidly becoming a part of history. Some of the taxonomy used in the impressive Handbook of the Birds of the World is also going out of style — unfortunately, even before the entire series has been published. (This, of course, reflects not on the value of the awe-inspiring series but on its utility as an international taxonomic standard.)

As far as I know, this leaves Clements’ “Birds of the World: A Checklist” and “The Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World” as contenders for an up-to-date taxonomic standard.

Reviews of Howard and Moore have been mixed. The ABA still names Clements’ taxonomy as its standard for world lists.

Until this year, the Ibis Publishing Company has provided semiannual updates to Clements’ fifth edition. Following Clements’ death, however, the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology has taken over his project, and the Cornell University Press will publish a sixth edition of Clements’ checklist later this year.

Because Clements’ list is copyrighted, it is not available electronically except with a few relatively expensive birding software packages. Even then, the license is for personal use only.

What Cornell will do with the list remains to be seen, but for now, it appears that the only comprehensive and relatively up-to-date bird lists will be confined to expensive paper volumes or software packages.

Meanwhile, our knowledge and hypotheses about bird taxonomy are growing and changing at a very rapid rate. DNA studies in particular are shaking up traditional views on taxonomy, and it appears the changes will continue for years to come. For example, see these recent proposals for the ‘Sylviidae’.

Though some birders grumble about the constant upheaval, I’m convinced that this is an exciting time to be a birder. But we need a taxonomic ’standard’ (see Ronald Orenstein’s comments about the nature of taxonomic lists) that can readily adapt along with our knowledge.

Birders all across the Web are wishing for a freely available electronic list that we could adopt as a de facto standard. The benefits to such a list would be tremendous. An online database could respond quickly to new discoveries, unlike a printed book of 800 pages. (See, for example, Don Roberson’s ever-changing list of world bird families.) Enterprising birders and geeks would surely create a fantastic array of new services and mash-ups to enhance our birding lives.

But the demands in putting together and maintaining such a database would be enormous. The project would require extensive ornithological knowledge and experience, great technical competence, and the time and energy required to analyze perhaps hundreds of scientific papers and other documents every year. It seems that there is no one with both the ability and the desire to undertake such a project, or at least not yet. Perhaps the day will come.

Until it does, I’m left wondering: Should I order Cornell’s new book?

ARLINGTON, TEXAS — Rock Pigeons. Great-tailed Grackles — bowling pins on wings. House Sparrows. Great Egret. Gull high away.

I’m always birding, but sometimes the commute is all the time I’ve got.

2005 was an unrepeatable year. Great Gray Owls, Evening Grosbeaks, Hudsonian Godwits, Willie-wagtails, White-tailed Tropicbird, Superb Fairywrens, Red-bellied Fruit-Doves. American Woodcock, Pyrrhuloxias, Chihuahuan Ravens. I didn’t manage to keep a year list, but it would have been sweet. I know there were over 100 life birds.

But after all that, my life list is still comparable to what one crazed birder can see in one oversized state in one very lucky year.

By the end of 2006, that sobering fact will no longer be true. I’m not keeping a list this year either. It’s fun … for the first day or two, and I always sort of wish I’d done it in the end. Maybe I’m too lazy, but I’d like to think it isn’t that.

Our New Year’s Day nightjar is likely to have been a Common Poorwill, according to some Texbirders, including Mark Lockwood. The species’ wintering habits are still poorly known. Evidently they can enter deep torpor and tough out some winters. It can’t be listed of course. Didn’t see it well enough for that, unfortunately.

My time in the United States (if all goes according to plan) is now measured in weeks, not months.

I won’t be sitting still for any of that time. I’m hoping for Snowy Owls and Florida Scrub-Jays, but who can say what the future holds.

Meanwhile, the British words keep ringing in my ears: “There are birds of paradise in Ukarumpa! I’ve seen four species on the ridge!”

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.