No one publishes an average life list. The best figures we found: 400 keen birders surveyed online averaged 670 species, pulled up by a few long lists. Competitive birders in one Texas study averaged 1,139. In August 2025, the 100th-ranked lister on eBird had seen 815 species in the US. Many people who watch birds keep no list.
A life list is every bird species a person has ever seen, each counted once. Below is what the data says about how long those lists get, where each number comes from, and why they vary so much.
Key facts
- 96 million people in the US watch birds, and 95% of them watch from home (US Fish and Wildlife Service, 2022 survey).
- 400 birders recruited online in a 2013 study averaged 670 species on their life lists. The 52 most active averaged 1,076 (Essayli, 2013).
- At the first Great Texas Birding Classic, a birding competition, 72% of competitors kept a life list, and those lists averaged 1,139 species (Scott, Baker and Kim, 1999, as reported by Burr and Scott, 2004).
- On eBird's all-time Top 100, 100th place was 815 species for the US (August 2025) and 6,718 for the world (May 2026).
Facts checked: October 1, 2026.
Typical life-list sizes, with sources
| Who | Life list | Source and date |
|---|---|---|
| Everyone who watches birds (96 million in the US, most of them at home) | Not measured: no survey we found counts their species | US Fish and Wildlife Service, 2022 survey |
| Festival visitors (about 100 people, Great Salt Lake Bird Festival) | Only 38% kept a North American list at all; 55% kept a yard list | Burr and Scott, 2004 |
| Keen birders (400 people recruited online) | 670 species on average | Essayli, 2013 |
| Serious listers (the 52 most active of those 400) | 1,076 species on average | Essayli, 2013 |
| Competitive birders (Great Texas Birding Classic) | 1,139 species on average, among the 72% who kept a list | Scott, Baker and Kim, 1999 |
| Top listers: 100th place on eBird, US | 815 species seen in the US | eBird Top 100, August 2025 |
| Top listers: 100th place on eBird, world | 6,718 species | eBird Top 100, May 2026 |
| The very top of eBird's world list | Just over 10,000 species | eBird Top 100, May 2026 |
eBird's Top 100 lists only people who take part, and anyone can opt out (Team eBird, 2014). So the real thresholds may be higher.
Beginners and backyard watchers: a big gap in the data
Most people who watch birds do it at home. In the US Fish and Wildlife Service's 2022 survey, 91 million of the 96 million bird watchers watched from home, and at least 43 million traveled a mile or more to see birds.
How many species these people have seen, nobody knows. We found no survey that measures the life lists of everyday bird watchers.
The closest figure comes from apps. In 2025, more than 2.5 million people saved 55 million identifications to their life lists in the Merlin app (eBird's 2025 Year in Review). That's about 22 per person, by our arithmetic. But a saved identification is a sighting, not always a new species, so it isn't a life-list size.
And many birders don't keep a list at all. At the Great Salt Lake Bird Festival, only 38% of visitors kept a list of all the North American birds they had seen.
Keen birders: averages from 670 to over 1,000
The best numbers for keen birders come from a 2013 study at the University of Hawaiʻi. Jamal Essayli surveyed 400 birders recruited online, mostly from English-speaking countries. On average they had:
- 670 species on their life lists,
- birded for 20 years,
- birded on 128 days in the past year,
- traveled to 5 countries to watch birds.
The 52 most active birders averaged 1,076 species, 24 years of birding, 261 days in the field that year and 9 countries.
An average can mislead here. A few people with very long lists pull it up, and the study says so. Essayli also warns that the sample is likely "more skewed in the extreme direction than Internet-using birders as a whole." So treat 670 as the average of an unusually keen group, not of all birders.
An older study points the same way. At the first Great Texas Birding Classic, a competition that draws serious birders, 72% of participants kept a life list, and those lists averaged 1,139 species.
Top listers: the ceiling
eBird, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's sighting database, ranks its most prolific listers. Here is where 100th place stood in each Top 100 we checked:
- US: 815 species in the US (August 2025). The top of that list was 958.
- ABA Area (the US, Canada and Hawaii): 802 species (July 2022). The top was 949.
- World: 6,718 species (May 2026). The very top was just over 10,000.
What makes one list longer than another
1. Travel. For the longest lists, this matters most. The ABA Checklist counts 1,161 species ever recorded in the US, Canada and Hawaii, including rare strays. AviList counts 11,131 species in the world. So a list above about 1,000 almost always means birding abroad: nobody on eBird's US Top 100 had reached 1,000 US species.
2. Years and days in the field. In the 2013 study, the most active birders had birded longer than the group as a whole (24 years against 20), and on about twice as many days in the past year (261 against 128).
3. Where you bird. One state has fewer species than a whole country. In Minnesota, 100th place on eBird's state list was 318 species seen in the state (April 2024), against 815 for the whole US.
4. What you count. Heard-only birds, birds seen abroad, and changes to the species list all move a total. See life list vs year list and bird splits and lumps.
So how many birds is a good life list?
There's no pass mark. A yard list of 30 species, known well, is a fine thing. Birders celebrate round numbers along the way: our guide to birding milestones and gifts explains the usual ones, and how many bird species are in the US and Canada shows what share of the total each one is.
Whatever your number, the list means more with the date and place of each first sighting. That's what a Birdfolio prints beside every species, with a classic painting or a credited photo. Look inside a Birdfolio, give one with a gift card, or browse more gifts for birders. New to lists? Start with what a life list is, and your spark bird.
Birdfolio is not affiliated with eBird, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology or iNaturalist.