The following County Codes have been adapted from the American Birding Association's Checklist "Birds of the Continental United States and Canada" although the premise is the same, the codes have been modified to apply to the County level.
Code-6 Birds cannot be found. They are probably extirpated from the county or species that have not been seen in the area in the past 100 years.
Code-5 Birds should not normally occur or accidental and normally far out of range in the county. These birds are typically on the Arizona Bird Committee review species list.
Code-4 Birds are very rare and irregular in the county. There is no place in the county were they can be expected and occur infrequently. Typically these species are on the Arizona Bird Committee sketch details list.
Code-3 Birds probably occur regularly in the county, but are either very local, are very difficult to see or have a very short season when they can be observed readily.
Code-1 and Code-2 Birds occur routinely and are easily found year round or in season. Code-2 birds are simply a bit more difficult to find than are Code-1 birds because their distribution barely enters the border of, or is relatively localized within the county, or their habits or habitat make them difficult to find. If you get to the habitat and range of many Code-2 birds, finding them may be relatively easy.
This county coding project is under development and sets a simple starting point to begin developing a status for species at the county level. Do not read too much into the codes. A future project will include a hyperlink to a species account for all species with a status of three or higher.
The following status and abundance codes are based on DeSante and Pyle 1986 and Patton et.al. 2001
c | Common (occurs in large and/or is widespread in the region) | |
f | Fairly common (occurs in modest numbers) | |
u | Uncommon (occurs in small numbers) | |
r | Rare (occurs infrequently but regularly; a few records per year) | |
x | Extremely rare (few records for the region; unexpected) | |
l | Local (occurs regularly but in less than 10% of region) | |
e | Extirpated /former status | |
i | Irruptive/irregular (peak commonness status is listed) |
S | Summer Visitor | |
T | Transient ( if unmodfied [see below], then both spring and fall) | |
W | Winter visitor | |
R | Resident | |
P | Perennial visitor (individuals migrate, but species present all year) |
* | Breeding confirmed | |
+ | Breeding suspected | |
a | Autumn records only (for transients) | |
s | Spring records only (for transients) | |
as | Autumn records predominate (for transients) | |
sa | Spring records predominate (for transients) | |
p | Postbreeding visitor (for transients) |
Red-throated Loon | xTs, xW | At least two records, a transient spring record and at least one winter record |
Black Storm-Petrel | xS | At least one summer record |
American White Pelican | fW, uS, euS* | Fairly common in winter, uncommon in summer, formerly an uncommon breeder |
Magnificent Frigatebird | xTp | Extremely rare postbreeding transient |
Orchard Oriole | xT, xW | At least two records, a transient record and at least one winter record |
Brown-heade Cowbird | cP* | Common Perennial resident, confirmed breeding |
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