The Art of Divining Future Firsts
By: Jonah Eckels-Galbreath
Many may not know that birders partake in the occult arts. No, we don’t wear macabre outfits decorated with dead birds (at least not anymore). Nor do we consult the innards of deceased birds (at least that’s not what I think those museum drawers full of bird cadavers are for). No, no, we birders enjoy divining the future; sifting through endless possibilities in search of that next possible addition to the all-encompassing list.
Birders have long loved to predict the future; to peer into our crystal balls, attempting to foresee first records of rare birds. There are many mystics, oracles, and sages who've plied this prophetic trade in birding’s long history, often leaving their predictions bracketed within the hope of possibility. But what does it take to summon the hypotheticals, those birds listed in brackets, into reality (and the record books)? This fall, I finally set out to practice these arts, seeking to divine the next first records for the state of Missouri.
I decided not to dive right into prophetic visions—that would be foolish—so I began my journey with a little research. There's a certain hubris in trying to predict the wanderings of winged things, just ask anyone who’s set out to see a bird only to find that it’s flown the coop. Yet, there's much fun to be had in seeking the future, as evidenced by the numerous predictions that have made it into print and the likely countless other mutterings of would-be prophets that simply became one with the stratosphere. While combing through the dusty digital volumes of prophecies long-ago foreseen, I discovered a California-based oracle from the ‘80s, whom I hoped could provide some prophetic guidance.
Don Roberson, a Monterey-based mystic, authored one of birdings' most accurate predictions to date back in 1988. With the help of a druidic circle of rare bird conduits and “just a little wine,” he sought to foresee the next first records for North America (north of Mexico). In what I imagine to be a cult-like ritual, these prophets summoned forth ten names, ten birds, ten hypotheticals. They then etched their predictions into the pages of Birding (the American Birding Association’s flagship magazine), preserving a record of their occult musings for posterities sake. Fast forward to the present day, where nine of their ten predictions ring true and one is left to wonder if there may be something to a little wine and divine council consultation.
So, when I set out to make my predictions, I assembled my own circle of prophets. Discord—the group chat app, not the state of the world—served as this group’s divination medium. Via this chat, a group of St. Louis-based birders and wannabe prophets made their best guesses this past April. One name that came up repeatedly was the Arctic Tern; a bird that showed up in the state for the first time in May. If I’d gotten this to print sooner, we’d already seem like professional fortune-tellers; my apologies team. Outside of the tern, our Discord Divine Council reached no emphatic consensus. Based on this discord, I decided that if I truly wanted to foresee the future, I first needed to consult the oracles of Missouri’s past.
Otto Widmann, first of his name, lover of birds, and the Sage of St. Louis, would be one such place to start. If you don’t own a copy of his Preliminary Catalog of the Birds of Missouri, I highly suggest making the purchase, if for no other reason than the bracketed birds within. You see, Widmann was an oracle long before the Monterey Mystic. After immigrating to Missouri from Germany in 1867, he made it his mission to catalogue every bird in Missouri. He worked diligently, compiling a grimoire of all things birds. Unfortunately, a house fire destroyed his original manuscript, ruining decades of work. But like a mad mage, he conjured it all back from the flames, finally publishing his magnum opus in 1907. Within these hallowed, dog-eared pages were eighteen birds in brackets—his hypotheticals—the birds he foresaw turning up in the state sometime in the future.
Sixty-five years later, one James F. Comfort sought to resolve these predictions in a September 1972 article of the Bluebird. His findings revealed Widmann’s prophetic prowess, as of the Sage’s original eighteen predictions, thirteen had come true. The five he missed were the King Eider, White-tailed Kite, Great Gray, Boreal and Northern Hawk Owl. Of those five, only the kite has been recorded in the state during the intervening fifty years, leaving Widmann’s record, so far, at fourteen of eighteen. The Sage was definitely blessed with the gift of foresight.
Tucked away at the end of Comfort’s 1972 article were two more predictions. The author, Comfort, got in on the forecasting fun, predicting the Northern Hawk Owl as the next first for Missouri. His editor, Richard Anderson, also couldn’t help himself, tacking on an editor’s note predicting a future sighting of a King Eider. Once again, there’s much fun to be had in the occult art of divination.
Yet to date, Comfort and Anderson’s prophecies remain unfulfilled. But grant them grace, as there’s no way they could have foreseen some of the mind-blowing birds that have turned up in Missouri over the past fifty years. For example, no one could have predicted the 1983 Slaty-backed Gull; the 2001 Smew lay beyond the reach of even the most spiritually in-tune diviner; and the Limpkin invasion of 2022-3, no one in their right mind would’ve thought of that. To properly foretell our birding future, I surely needed to tap even deeper into the occult arts.
So, when I finally sat down in the fall of 2025 to make my predictions, I sought to channel everything I’d learned. First, I donned my LA Rams jersey, conjuring the spirit of Roberson, the Monterey Mystic. He’s still alive, but I don’t have his number so I felt like this was close enough. Next, I filled a stein of lager in a nod to Roberson’s wine and in honor of the Sage of St. Louis’s German roots. After partaking in an appropriate amount of libations, I threw on a Cardinals cap, hopefully tuning my rare bird visions into the proper Missouri-centric channels. I then consulted the Discord Divine Council’s musings and my charts (eBird), sifting through all possible futures. Finally, with Nordic rock (vikings were excellent seers of course) blasting in the background, I, in a trance-like state, created the following list of Missouri future first records.
[Black-throated Gray Warbler: how in the world does each and every state (all eight of them) that borders Missouri have a record, but not us?]
[Ash-throated Flycatcher: can we hold those 2020 Tennessee birders that saw one on the wrong-side of the Mississippi River accountable for not scoping the bird from our side?]
[Black-tailed Gull: one showed up at Carlyle Lake in Illinois a decade ago; that’s basically Missouri right?]
[Northern Wheatear: if we systematically scan each and every empty cornfield come fall we will eventually find one; who’s with me?]
[Flame-colored Tanager: I’m crossing my fingers that we’re in the flightline of another errant tanager like the one that ended up in Wisconsin in 2022; here’s to hoping.]
With all my prophetic potential tapped, please check back with me in a decade. If you too seek to practice the occult art of rare bird divination, send your prophecies to the editor of The Bluebird and we’ll see how you stack up amongst history’s birding seers, mystics, and first record oracles.
The Arctic Tern became the latest addition to the Missouri bird list in May 2025.
References
Roberson, Don. “The 10 Most Likely Additions to the ABA Checklist.” Birding 20, No. 6,
December 1988.
Widmann, Otto. Preliminary Catalog of the Birds of Missouri. St. Louis, Missouri: Academy of
Science, 1907.
Comfort, James F. “Otto Widmann’s Bracketed Species.” The Bluebird 39, No. 3, September
1972.
