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Since eBird’s launch in 2002, there have been more than  U.S. checklists submitted to the community birding platform, from more than 703,000 birders. The majority of them are fairly mundane—a couple of American Robins in the backyard, maybe, or some Ring-billed Gulls in a parking lot. Some are awesome—a fun morning of spring migration or a rare bird on your favorite patch. But a small set of checklists are something else entirely: the best of the best.

These are those checklists—the greatest eBird checklists in the nation. Single checklists that, in one way or another, have separated themselves from the pack and stand as truly remarkable examples of American birding.

There isn’t a set definition here. The most famous eBird checklist of all time, at least in terms of media , is the report of in Tadoussac, Quebec, in May 2018. Its greatness is obvious—108 species! 72,000 Tennessee Warblers! 108,000 Cape May Warblers!—but massive numbers aren’t the only thing that can make a checklist exceptional. To find as many different examples of greatness as possible, I’ve solicited help from birders on Facebook and X, and consulted with staff from eBird itself, to bring you several categories of the Greatest eBird Checklists in the United States. Sit back, enjoy, and try not to fall out of your seat.

Migration Madness

We may not have Tadoussac, but we’ve got plenty of other incredible migration checklists.

 
eBird allows you to search by “high count,” meaning the most individuals of a species recorded on a single checklist. This bonkers checklist from a Gulf Coast birding landmark includes American record high counts for six different birds: Rose-breasted Grosbeak; Eastern Wood-Pewee; Yellow-throated Vireo; Red-eyed Vireo; Scarlet Tanager; and Summer Tanager.

  
Fall migration can be just as spectacular as spring, especially if you’re at a migration hotspot like Cape May. Expert birder Tom Johnson and six others counted more than 67,000 individual birds—including all-time high counts for Eastern Phoebe (724 individuals) and Ruby-crowned Kinglet (5,805)—in October 2022. 

 
High numbers are always great, but high numbers of rare birds are really exciting. Ross’s Gull is one of the most difficult-to-see birds in the country, but this tour group saw 508 of them—along with triple-digit Short-tailed Shearwaters and an all-time high count of 2,750 Glaucous Gulls—while seawatching along the northern coast of Alaska. 

Several people suggested this checklist, part of a major pulse of migrant birds through Chicago. Conditions converged to direct hundreds of thousands of birds to the city. Marky and her friends counted an eye-watering 187,550 individual birds of 56 different species, led by 25,000 Palm Warblers and 142,800 Yellow-rumped Warblers. That morning in south Chicago highlighted both the importance of urban parks as migratory refuges (like the one where this checklist was made) and the dangers of urban infrastructure that awaited birds in other parts of the city that morning.

Remote Rarities

Some of the best checklists come from the absolute edges of the United States: far-flung islands or border regions that are more likely to get strays and vagrants than other parts of the country. Some of the greatest American checklists are the ones that include species rarely, or never, seen in this country.

 
The American Birding Association uses a code system to convey the relative rarity of a particular species in the United States and Canada, from common Code 1 species to “accidental” Code 5 birds, which have been recorded in the country five or fewer times. According to eBird’s Drew Weber, this south Texas checklist is one of just a few examples of two documented Code 5 birds—a Blue Mockingbird and a Black-headed Nightingale-Thrush—on a single checklist.

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Perhaps an even more impressive double Code 5 list is this one, which includes a pair of mega-rarities—a Mottled Owl and a Bare-throated Tiger-Heron—that were heard and not seen. With recordings to prove the detection of these two long-staying vagrants, this may be the best heard-only checklist out there.

Islands in the Bering Sea have long been known to American birders as the best places to luck into Asian species blown in from the West. Nowhere is that phenomenon better illustrated than this checklist, which includes North America’s first record of Oriental Honey-buzzard and, almost as an afterthought, a Steller’s Sea-Eagle, among many other Old World goodies. 

Birders have recorded on Southeast Farallon Island, far more than any other single U.S. hotspot on eBird. Sitting not far from San Francisco Bay, this island is a perfect position to lure vagrant birds coming from all directions. In late April of 2024, volunteer biologists working on the island spotted a Code 5 Swallow-tailed Gull, typically found off the coast of Peru, and a Code 5 Blue Rock-Thrush, an accidental visitor from Asia.

Family Fun

I’ve always wondered: Who saw the most different kinds of hawks in one day? Who saw the most owls? These are difficult to search for with the tools available to the public, but eBird’s Applications Programmer Matt Smith was very helpful in helping me track down some species sweeps.

A vagrant Eastern Bluebird helped Richard Laubach be the first to record all three American bluebird species—Eastern, Westernnand Mountain—on a single checklist. 

To the best of my knowledge, the most vireos on a single checklist is this one from the famous Louisiana coast hotspot, which includes Red-eyed, Warbling, Philadelphia, Yellow-throated, and White-eyed Vireos alongside a vagrant Black-capped Vireo.

Tom Johnson and friends spotted the common Bald Eagle, a rare Golden Eagle, and the famous, mega-rare Steller’s Sea-Eagle one morning in Maine.

A vagrant Common Crane and rare Whooping Crane nestled among a massive flock of wintering Sandhill Cranes made for a full day of birding in Texas.

As far as eBird’s Matt Smith can tell, no single checklist contains more owl species. Stasz and Boyd completed the route at night and without the use of playback (other than their own whistled imitations of Northern Pygmy-Owl), and with a little luck could have added Spotted Owl to the list as well.

Southern Arizona’s “sky islands” host many bird species at the northernmost edge of their ranges, including several hummingbirds. Couple that with dozens of feeders, and it’s no surprise that more hummingbird species can be found at Beatty’s Guest Ranch, a sky islands staple, than anywhere else in the United States. The ranch's website says that they’ve hosted 14 species on a single day, but the most I could find on eBird was this incredible single list containing 13 species of hummingbird—plus a hybrid! 

eBird’s Smith passed along this remarkable count of 20 species of raptor, including vultures, eagles, hawks, kites, caracara, and falcons, from a hawkwatch in Texas.

Sparrows are an overlooked group, but they’re apparently hard to miss at Milton Reimers Ranch Park, where Jeffery Jackson saw 20 different species (sparrows and towhees) in 2021.

Biologists counted a whopping 31 species of shorebird on a survey of this remote Alaskan island, including vagrant Ruff and Sharp-tailed Sandpiper.

A vagrant Swainson’s Warbler in New Mexico helped this birder record the first checklist with all three American species named after William John Swainson (for now, anyway), also including a hawk and a thrush.

Strange Birdfellows

Vagrant birds fascinate me, in part because they must be really confused about all the other weird birds around. Here are some checklists with two birds that have never appeared together on a checklist before.

An icon of the Arctic meets desert-dwelling quails. I bet the owl wondered what they tasted like.

The flamingo irruption of 2023 provided some strange moments, like a checklist with this tropical wader and this woodland grouse.

The Great Black Hawk lives in forests and marshes of Central and South America, and the Common Eider is a chunky northern sea duck. I doubt they’d ever been close to each other before this famous vagrant in Maine.