Just in time for the fall migration, the Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology is making available a free checklist for birds that are known to frequent the arboretum.

The Birds of UC Davis Arboretum: Checklist and Field Card comprises 159 species of birds grouped by type and identified by their common names. For example, all warblers are in a group, and the swans, geese and ducks are in another.

“This list summarizes all species observed on the UC Davis Arboretum since records have been taken starting in the 1960s,” said Andy Engilis Jr., curator of the Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, and the person behind the arboretum checklist effort.

Alison Kent, publications coordinator for the Wildlife Health Center, described the new checklist as “awesome.”

“This will be really useful,” said Kent, who regularly birds in the arboretum during her lunch break.

Kent serves as president of the Yolo Audubon Society, which puts out a checklist for the birds of Yolo County.

With the arboretum checklist completed, the Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology plans to follow up with a larger checklist for the entire campus, with records dating back to the 1930s.

Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator for two campus museums — the Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, and the Bohart Museum of Entomology — said many birders maintain their own life lists, U.S. lists and California lists.

And some birders maintain competitive yearly lists, as highlighted in the new Steve Martin movie, The Big Year, due in theatres Oct. 14.

Engilis started birding as a boy in Sacramento and kept it up during his undergraduate days at UC Davis — and continues today with his passion for birding, as part of his life’s work and for recreation.

For example, as an ornithologist and museum curator, he is in charge of a 10-plus-year wildlife survey of Putah Creek, a project that is connected to habitat restoration.

He established and runs the Rio Cosumnes Christmas Bird Count and participates in the Sacramento bird count. He also organizes a yearly winter bird count of UC Davis property.

“He does this as Andy, a locally born and raised birder, but also as Andy, the curator of the UC Davis Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology and the one responsible for the scientific direction of the museum,” Yang said.

“He created the arboretum list in part for the joy of birding — and that is why he is sharing it with everyone,” she said. “And he assembled the list as a scientist who understands the value of collecting observational data over long periods of time.”

The checklist can be printed on a single sheet of paper, 8½ by 11 inches, or reduced to field card size. The checklist includes space at the top for the date, time, weather and observer names.

Said Engilis: “I know a paper list of birds is a bit old-fashioned in today’s day and age of the digital realm, but the checklist was fun to make and I still keep hand-written notes.”

On the Web

The Birds of UC Davis Arboretum: Checklist and Field Card is available for download here.

Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology

The museum’s Facebook page

UC Davis Birders

The UC Davis Birders Facebook group gathers for informal birding at lunchtime in the arboretum, usually meeting up at noon Fridays at the Putah Creek Lodge.