In the London Marathon they talk about the 'wall' where you suddenly find it hard to go on.
When did you hit the 'wall' in your US/UK life lists? I am currently on 185 and the last few months have been a bit slow but looks like picking up again. I know 185 is paltry and that I will greatly improve this with say, a Scottish birding holiday but I think after 200 it will become very hard and the quality of the lifers will increase. What number are you on and when did you hit the 'wall'?
In a review of one of the British guides on the fatbirder site (great Site if Bo reading this) the comment was made that of the 280 or so birds listed quite a few of them are quite scarce in the uk. I'd guess to get well above 200 you've got to do a bit of twitching or spend a hell of a lot of time in places like the shetland or scillies.
My list is a paltry 140 plenty of time to go!!
With a moderate amount of travelling getting to 200 in the UK is fairly easy.
I've been almost permanently on the wall for about 20 years, although I did have a very good spring this year, adding 5 new birds to my British List of which 2 were full lifers (the Lark and the Gull). Before this good run my previous Brit tick had been some 16 months earlier (Gull-billed Tern at Titchwell).
My Birt list is somewhere in the region of 390 - one day I'll check it - and I've plenty of ticks to get but I just don't twitch enough.
Dave