It’s a rainy day in Birderland. It’s October 30, 2025 and I am writing this on night before Halloween.  I won’t claim that this is going to be a spooky episode, but there are one or two scary birding stories from our guest Liam Ragan.  Liam broke the record for a Vancouver Island, British Columbia Big Year, but beyond that, he does a lot of fine conservation work out west, for the Rocky Point Bird Observatory.  His job gave him the freedom to travel around the island while also allowing him to go after his Vancouver Island Big Year record. But enough about Liam.  Time to get back to me. As you may have ascertained, I just love talking about birds and myself, not necessarily in that order.  If I didn’t cut out all of my personal stories, these podcasts would be twice as long, and nobody wants that.  That being said, and the reason for a two month gap between episodes, is that I have been on the road birding nearly every day since the end of August.  On August 29, I finally got my first Wilson’s Warbler of the year at Long Point and later that afternoon a Buff-breasted Sandpiper at in the sod fields of Brant County.  A week later I was back at the Long Point Field Staton for a very rare Townsend’s Warbler. That same afternoon I rushed to Staynor, Ontario for a Ruff. All the while I was planning my trip out west to see the Whooping Crane migration for the first time, in Saskatchewan.  That had been a dream trip of mine since beginning birding in 2012.  I had seen Whooping Cranes where they winter in Texas, in Wood Buffalo National Park, where they breed in Northern Alberta and in between, a couple of others in Florida and Michigan.   Finally, on September 30, 2025, after a four day drive, I saw my first flock of migrating Whooping Cranes in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, just north of Saskatoon.  I met up with my friend Gavin McKinnon and his birding group and we all got to enjoy these marvelous, but endangered birds.  I then headed down to Grasslands National Park, but made a stop in Swift Current for a Broad-billed Hummingbird that had been visiting feeders and Josie’s back yard.  This bird went north instead of south and was enjoying the cool autumn weather of southern Saskatchewan.  Alas, it’s fate is unknown, as it likely never found its way back to the southern United States.  The next morning I got to Grasslands National Park as the sun was coming up and after an hour found what might have been the last remaining Burrowing Owl in the park.  The rest had headed south for the winter.  Back in Ontario, I’ve been seeing fall specialties like Red Phalarope and Nelson’s Sparrow and chasing rarities like Purple Gallinule, Western Cattle-Egret and Little Blue Heron.     With those birds I surpassed my best Ontario species count ever.  We also had two super rare birds, a Graces Warbler, which I was a day late for in Algonquin Provincial Park and a Gray Kingbird in Chatham-Kent.  I wasted no time with that one and raced down the highway to see it.  A new Lifer for both my Ontario,(386) and Canada,(496) lists.   I am exhausted from all the driving, chasing and even just recounting of these stories, not to mention editing this very podcast.  So, it’s time to relax, clear your mind of birds and chases and lists and such and listen to Liam Ragan’s story of his Vancouver Island Big Year, where he will recount his stories of birds and chases and lists and such on this very podcast.  He even has a few scary tales from the west coast of Canada, as is fitting for a Halloween episode.  So, Happy Halloween, happy birding, and may the Ravens and crows stay away from your eyeballs, while you enjoy yet another episode of The Big Year Podcast. Links: https://friendsofmidway.org/explore/wildlife-plants/birds/albatrosses/laysan-albatross/wisdom-the-albatross/ https://www.birdability.org https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/06/21/that-time-the-us-almost-went-to-war-with-canada-218881/

It was the perfect way to begin The Big Year Podcast On the Road, Again, with discovery of a very rare bird, right here in my backyard, near Cambridge, Ontario.  A young birder by the name of Nathan Hood found a Spotted Redshank, a rare visitor lost on its way back from Eurasia.  Almost every birder I know in Ontario, from within 2 to 3 hours drive, has shown up to see this amazing rarity.  It’s September 1, 2025 and I t's hard to believe summer's nearly over and that fall migration is really underway.  It certainly got started in a big way with this Spotted Redshank.  While I was there, I talked to a couple of birders, including Nathan Hood, who found the bird and a local Waterloo birder who lives close by.  He told me he’s not a chaser but couldn't pass up seeing an incredible rarity, so close to home.  This is only the third or forth sighting of this bird in Ontario.  It was also a big deal for those birders doing doing Big years, including Ellen and Jerry Horak doing their Canada Big Year and Jude Szabo, on his Ontario Big Year.  They were there early in the morning, long before I arrived.  I was glad to have made it by late morning and get to see, photograph, record videos, and talk about this amazing bird with many of my birder friends.  But, before we head back out on the road, just a quick update on me.  And no, it’s not about the bloody Wilson’s Warbler.  I finally saw a juvenile at the Long Point Field Station on August 29, so we can finally put that one to rest.  However, about a week ago I was set upon by an angry, vicious mob of… Yellowjacket Wasps. These wasps are a predatory social species of wasps, recognized by their small size and black and yellow striped abdomen and painful venomous sting. The morning began, innocently enough.  Our neighbors were replacing their fence and Sue asked me to remove a birdhouse before the workers tore it down.  I trotted out with a screwdriver bit on my drill and proceeded to take the retched old bird house off the fence.  As I removed the second screw, the birdhouse fell to the ground.  What I didn’t know was that instead of birds nesting in the house, it had become a Yellowjacket home.  They were not happy.  When I reached down to pick up the old bird house the enraged wasps attacked me.  I began yelping for help as my hands were repeatedly stung.  Wasps, unlike bees do not leave their barbed stinger in your skin, so they can sting you multiple times.  Once the first wasp stings you it releases a pheromone, alerting other wasps to engage in the attack.  I tried to run away from them, screaming, “Why are they after me?” as Sue tried to calm me, but I was, as the old saying goes, “running around like a chicken with its head cut off.”  Now the wasps were stinging my ankles through my socks as I was desperately trying to swat them off.  I probably got a bonus sting on my hand from that maneuver.  Finally, the wasps had made their point and went back to regroup with the others and find a new base of operations from which to strike.  I quickly took two Benadryl, and lay down, hoping that would work and I’d be better in a few hours.  No such luck.  Fifteen  years ago, I was bit by an ant in Florida and went into anaphylactic shock.  When returned home my doctor prescribed an EpiPen.  I’ve had to carry it with me at all times since then, getting a new one every 18 months or so.  And I had never needed to use it.   Many people, over time, forget to get fresh EpiPens or just figure if they haven’t needed it in a decade, why bother with the expense.  My wasp attack is why.  Around 15 minutes after the battle ended, I started to feel swelling in my mouth.  Not good!  My throat felt like I had just eaten a big spoonful of peanut butter.  I reported my condition to Sue and she rightly said, “That’s not good.”  It was time.   I was getting pretty agitated, as was the case first time this happened.  I warned Sue I was going to be a bit crazy.  Well, relative to how crazy I normally

Welcome all to The Big Year Podcast.  I’m Robert Baumander and you’re, well, you.  It’s the end of July, 2025, and you know what that means?  Certainly an all new episode of the Big Year podcast, naturally, but mostly, we’re smack-dab in the heat of the summer and the lack-of-birds blues.  In July and August, it's more about the butterflies and bees than the birds in the trees.   It's hot, humid, and clammy.  You get soaked with sweat and barely see or hear any birds.  Nothing makes you look forward to fall migration more than the heat of July and the dog days of August.  However, butterflies, bees, fireflies, and dragonflies abound.  So slow down, look down, and you'll see there are many tiny creatures all around. And before you can learn what all of them are, it will be time for the shorebirds and warblers to return, fall migration will be in full swing and you can't forget all about those sting-y, bite-y bother-y bugs. Now, that is not to say I didn’t seen any new birds in July.  The first week or so was pretty good, as I finally got to see that Brown Pelican.  Last month I was grousing about the fact that I had missed it in Niagara-on-the Lake.  But, wouldn't you know it, a week later it showed up on the shores of Lake Erie.  I raced down there the next morning, and within an hour, I finally got to see, photograph and enjoy my first Brown Pelican in Canada. A rarity indeed. That same day in Chatham Kent, I got to see a Lark Bunting.  Not unheard of in Ontario, but still pretty rare in any given year.  A few days later, I went to see a Short-billed Dowitcher and a Stilt Sandpiper in London, Ontario.  But since July 11th, no new birds have shown up and I can now just sit, wait and hope for those fall migrants, including that dastardly, fancy yellow warbler with the black cap called the Wilson's Warbler.  Maybe it should be called the Black-capped Warbler, or the How-the-heck-did-I-not-see-that-Warbler in the Spring Warbler. Anyway. Enough griping. This month's episode has been a long time coming and it is dedicated to my birding pal, Andrew Keaveny.  Oh, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew.  Why the lament?  Because according to my iMessage history, Andrew and I actually recorded this episode back in late February, or early March of 2023.  Sometime afterward, as I was going through podcast recordings to edit, I couldn't find that specific recording.  So I went on to other projects, recorded new ones,(didn't lose any of those), and occasionally searched my hard drives, iPads, iPhones, and sound recorder apps, looking for the original recording. After a while, I just forgot all about it, as you do.  Sorry, Andrew.  Then, late last year, someone asked me about Andrew's episode that was already over a year overdue, and I went back to searching, thinking that it had to be somewhere, right?  Once again, I was searching old iPhones, hard drives, my sock drawer, and under the bed where I found only fluff and dust, which, I'm told, my brain is mostly filled with. Again, no original recordings.  Again, sorry, Andrew.  Oh, and who is this Andrew Keaveny, you ask?  Most Ontario birders will have heard of him, but you haven't had the pleasure, Andrew is a long time Ontario birder, world traveler and guide, one of the most knowledgeable birders I know, an all-round swell guy, and a good birding friend of mine, whom I met way back in 2012. I was doing my ABA Big Year, and Andrew was doing his Ontario big year.  The first time we met, I learned that he knew Sue from when he was just knee high to a Canada Goose, birding with his parents at Colonel Samuel Smith Park in Toronto.  Well, maybe he wasn't that young.  Since then, we have run into each other often while out birding or at rare bird sightings all over Ontario.  As well as at Colonel Samuel Smith Park in Toronto, where we always try to show up for new park species to add to our coveted Sam Smith Park list.  Not that anyone’s counting, but Andrew sits second all time with 256 species fo

Happy Canada Jay Day.  It’s July 1, 2025 and for most people it’s a holiday and a chance to  barbecue, picnic, get away from the house and watch or set off fireworks after dark.  For birders,(those poor souls that have to work for a living during the week), it’s a day to celebrate birds and go birding with friends, family, or just get away on your own and and listen to the summer breeding birds in a quiet forest, park or glen.  As I write this, I’m sitting on a quiet bench in Long Point, Ontario at the Long Point Bird Banding Demonstration Station at what they call the Old Cut.          Since last we visited, a lot has gone on in the birding world here in Southwestern Ontario.  I still have yet to see a Wilson’s Warbler, but hopefully fall migration will bring one my way.  Aside from that, the last month has been good to me.  I saw a Laughing Gull in Toronto and Sue and I found, and listened to an Acadian Flycatcher in the oddly named Skunk’s Misery.  The other amazing happening, has been an eruption of American White Pelicans that have refused to fly north and west to their breeding grounds.  They’ve been spotted all over southwestern Ontario.  The big news for the local birders, was that 9 of those pelicans are visiting us where I live in Brantford.  They first appeared on the Grand River at Waterworks Park, only minutes from home. And happily, this batch of, perhaps bachelor pelicans, has stuck around and may, verily, spend the summer with us on The Grand.      I only added 11 birds to my year list in June, many of those I should have seen during migration.  But not that sinker, the Willson’s Warbler.  Look, I can understand missing a Worm Eating Warbler,(and yes,I confess I missed that one too), but for Audubon’s sake, really, one of the easiest spring warblers, the bright yellow bird with the black yarmulka, described by American ornithologist Alexander Wilson in 1811!  And it’s a bird that seems to have little fear of peoples as it hunts bugs and such in the outsides of branches, like dogwoods, in the spring.  So yeah, am I bitter?  Heck yeah!       Okay, take a deep breath. Center yourself.  Breath. It’s just one bird.  Not like I missed a Brown Pelican.  Oh yeah, a Brown Pelican showed up in the Niagara region this past Monday. I raced to Niagara-on-the Lake, searched the buoy it had been on, but the heat haze made it impossible to be sure I was looking at it, maybe it was there, maybe it wasn’t. By the time I was able to see the  buoy clearly in the afternoon, it was long gone.  But missed opportunities lead to future celebrations when you finally do see the bird you’ve been searching for all year.  Your patience,(and mine),may one day be rewarded.      Now on to the show.  My guests are a birding couple from Maine, Ingrid and Ethan Whitaker.  Ethan set the record,(since broken), for a Maine Big Year on his own and then Ingrid got into the Big Year spirit so they could see the country, maybe see 600 species of birds, and, for some reason, a giant ball of twine.  They weren’t chasing any records, but were more successful than they ever imagined when they set out on their Lower 48 Big Year.  Please enjoy as Ethan and Ingrid Whitaker tell the rest of the story.      Next month, we’ll be venturing back in time to the year 2012 and returning to Ontario.  At the beginning of that year I was a 51 yr old, less than novice birder and had started an ABA Big Year on a wing and a prayer.  My guest, however, not even half my age at the time, was an experienced and knowledgeable birder and was setting out on his Ontario Big Year.  It ended up being a battle worth of Kenn Kauffman and Floyd Murdoch back in 1973.  Suffice it to say, my guest, Andrew Keaveny, played the part of Kenn Kauffman.  During the course of 2012 I got to know Andrew very well, and often I was able to follow up on his finds and get birds I may not have seen otherwise.  We have become good birding friends over the years and it will be nice to finally

Well, thank you once again for joining me on the Big Year podcast.  As May turns to June, spring migration is coming to a close. I've been busy all the merry month of May, birding in Long Point Provincial Park, where we got to see a Summer Tanager, Rondeau Provincial Parks for a Mourning Warbler, and Point Pelee National Park for Prothonotary Warblers and a Yellow-breasted Chat and Hillman Marsh for a Neotropic Cormorant and American Avocets.  I’ve taken trips to Toronto where I just saw a Western Kingbird at Humber Bay East and a Western Grebe at Colonel Samuel Smith Park, which was, for the longest time, my birding patch.   Now my birding patch is here in Branford, at a lovely spot called Gilkison Flats, along The Grand River.  I do enjoy birding there, but it’s not quite the same as Colonel Sam. That was always my favourite spot to be during spring migration, and of course, that’s where the Whimbrels have passed through on the way to their nesting grounds in the far north.  Alas, this year weather and other circumstances made it a disappointing Whimbrel Watch in Toronto, with much lower numbers than usual.     It might have been that they took a more westerly route this year.  I got to see Whimbrels in Chatham-Kent not far from Rondeau Provincial Park, in the same field I had not long before seeing a Yellow-head Blackbird, back in April.  And that was the same day I saw the Crested Caracara, which was probably the highlight of the season and Canada lifer for me.  That adventure started on a Monday, spending most of the day cruising around Essex County and going home disappointed, driving through blinding snow that prevented me from seeing the Yellow-headed Blackbird too.  On Wednesday the weather was much improved and I returned to Chatham for the Yellow-headed Blackbird, only to discover the caracara had been re-found only minutes from where I was.  I ended up seeing both birds that day.     It’s now June 1, 2025 and the weather is perhaps, finally, hopefully, going to feel more spring like and I am going to enjoy birding without all the layers.  Sue and I spent a chilly final day of May, layered up from the wind, at the Huron Fringe Birding Festival, and we got to see Brewers Blackbirds and Upland Sandpipers, two of their specialty birds.  If you decide to go, you’ll discover why the Kincardine Sewage Lagoons,(yes sewage lagoons-really), are known as Pelee North. The difference is that in Point Pelee, the birds are migrating through, but at the Huron Fringe Birding Festival, you are liable to find lots of nesting birds and birds that you may have missed because you weren't in the right place the right time during spring migration.   In fact, for me, I'm embarrassed to say this, but somehow I have not seen a Wilson's Warbler this year, and that's a little bit frustrating.  I was hoping to find one on Saturday, but no such luck.   But now it's time to get back to the podcast. And today we have Alberta’s own, Gavin McKinnon. He was the birder, who in 2022, gave me a few tips and tricks to get some specialty songbirds in southern Alberta, like the Lark Sparrow and Thick-billed Longspur. I noticed late in 2024 that he had passed 400 species for Canada for the year and I wanted to know a little bit more about him, not just because he helped me, but because he is such an expert about birding in Alberta.  I will say we did chat before the end of 2024, after he had already passed 400 species, but I will follow up with him at a later date to find out how the year ended, and share it during an episode of "The Big Year Podcast: On the Road", in August.  In fact, as of June 1, he’s once again the top birder in Canada with 324 species. Now, please enjoy all the stories you are about to hear equally and please don’t show a preference for any one story, or birds will be removed from your Life List.  

Happy Podcast day, one and all!  Welcome to back to The Big Year Podcast.  Thank you once again for joining me.   It’s April 15, 2025 and spring migration is well underway here in southwestern Ontario.  It’s actually a bit of a miracle that I finished this episode on time because the last 2 weeks have been very busy for me and my fellow birders.  It started with a Western Grebe in Port Credit, a Black-headed Gull, at Port Colborne, followed by a Long-billed Dowitcher right here in Brant County.  The fun continued with over 50 American White Pelicans at Holiday Beach and a female Harlequin Duck down in Chatham-Kent.  I also go my first Ruffed Grouse and Common Loon for Brant County, but the real excitement was the chase for a Crested Caracara in Essex County, not too far from the Ontario/Michigan boarder, on April 7.   Dozens of birders flocked to the small town of Amherstburg for a once in a lifetime look at this large falcon that lost its way.  This bird should have been in Texas, and after a long day of searching seemed to have returned home.  I had then tried for a Yellow-headed Blackbird back in Chatham, but near blizzard conditions sent me home to contemplate missed opportunities.  However, on Wednesday the weather was nice again, so I decided to go back and look for the Yellow-headed Blackbird.  To my complete surprise, before I even arrived at McGeachy Pond, I was alerted to the return of the caracara, not in Amherstburg, but right there in Chatham, only 15 minutes from where I was parked at the side of the road.   Talk about being in the right place at the right time.  I drove, I saw, I counted a new Canada Lifer!  And I got to spend time with some of my favourite birding friends, including Kelly Sue, who you met on season one of the podcast.  She lived only 5 minutes away.  And yesterday we had another rare bird party as dozens of us migrated to Stoney Creek for a rare spring sighting of a Loggerhead Shrike.  And all through that I was trying to find time to finish this podcast.  Not only that, it’s the onset of allergy season and my head feels like it’s full of teddy bear stuffing.  Today’s episode features Robert Gundy and Natasza Fontaine.  Robert is a biologist and Natasza was the 2024 ABA Bird of the Year Artist, painting the Golden-winged Warbler.  And they both completed a record setting (Covid)Florida Big Year in 2020.   

In the premiere episode of season 3, my guest is Jean Iron, one of the most prolific and well respected birders in Ontario.

It is December of 2024 and we’ve come to the end of another season of The Big Year Podcast.  Welcome one and all as we look back on another year of birding or are looking forward to next year and possibly your own Big Year.  If so, let me know and we can have a chat, sometime.  I love to hear your stories, big or small.   Today, we have a mixed bag of birding guests.  Over the course of 2024 I've recorded a few short conversation with birders I’ve met during my travels and I’ll have a preview of some of the guests we will be meeting early in Season 3.  But before we get to that… One birder's story we have yet to really get into, is today’s guest.  I’ve been wanting to talk to him and let him tell his story in a bit more detail ever since I began this podcast, but he’s been busy birding and doing his own podcast and it’s been tough to get him to commit chatting with us.  Part of the reason it’s been so hard is he’s me.  Yes, today I get to talk to me, and find out a bit more about why he, I mean me, got into birding and learn little more about his, I mean my, Big Years.  Later in the show we'll meet with Gavin from Alberta who recently passed 400 species for 2024, Jean Iron, one of Ontario's most illustrious birders, who taught me an important lesson way back in January 2012, and Robert and Natasha Fontaine, who did a Florida Big Year not too long ago.  Natasha, has her own claim to fame, beyond Big Year Birding.  Listen on to find out more. As always, I hope you enjoy and thanks to each and every one of you out there in Listening Land.  Thanks for your support and until March of 2025, enjoy your birding wherever you are.  Unless you're in Australia, then have a great summer. Thanks again, and hear me next year.

Well, it's Friday, November 7, 2024. I'm now five weeks late for my latest podcast, this episode with Joshua Gant, which was supposed to have appeared on October 1st. Well, I got busy in October, actually in September as well, and I started a project that kept me pretty busy. Not only was I building a set of cat shelves in the living room for the cats to play on this winter, I was building a dream project of mine. I was born in 1960, and in 1966, the TV show Star Trek appeared, and by the time I was about 13 or 14, I was getting into woodworking, and I loved building the props from Star Trek.  I used Lego and wood and tape and markers to make my own phaser and communicator, and kind of destroyed my brothers clock radio to get the parts I needed. So, yeah, that was a different time. I was not a birder way back then, but I was an obsessive compulsive, though I didn't know that at the time, and I decided at that point that I was going to make the ultimate prop from Star Trek, the command chair that Captain Kirk sat in. Well, as a 13 year old with crappy tools from Canadian tire and a bunch of plywood and other scraps of wood that I found behind apartment buildings and things like that, I tried to make one. I didn't get very far. It fell apart before it even got started. Well, fast forward to 2024 and as a woodworker, who builds a lot of my own furniture, I decided it was time to build my own chair. So that's what I've been doing the last six weeks.  debuted it on Halloween, and it was a success, and now it's in my recroom as my TV chair, so woo hoo for me, but as far as my podcast is concerned, yeah, I kind of dropped the ball on that. So, the last few days, I've been working feverishly to finish the podcast, which I did yesterday, and the episode is finally ready. Josh Gant is a birder from Tom's River, New Jersey, and he did an Ocean County Big Year in 2020. So thank you for your patience and your continued support of my little show.  I appreciate everything that people say to me when I meet them in the field. It's always exciting to know that I put something out there that people enjoy - all three of you 😏 - Thank you very much.

Welcome, birders and non birders who have to put up with the birders in their lives, to the Big Year Podcast, with me, the one, the only,(thankfully), Robert Baumander.  As I sit and type this introduction, it is August 1, 2024 and the unofficial start of The Dog Days of Summer.  Actually, for birders in Ontario, at least, the birding really begins to slow down near the beginning of July.  But even so, there have been a few rare birds to chase, including a Brown Booby and a Ruff.  Boobies are quite rare in Ontario, but I’ve seen a few over the years.  Of course, if you want to really see boobies in their natural habitat you just need to visit south Florida in the spring.   And what’s a Ruff? My research has found that it is named for the feathers it displays with its tufts, or ruff extended. The Ruff is a medium sized sandpiper and on its breeding grounds the males put on the most spectacular displays worthy of any fashion show catwalk.  Alas, though I have seen plenty of boobies, I have never seen a Ruff display. For that you need to visit a Lek in Northwestern Alaska. Now, to get to today’s episode. We are returning, once again to Ontario and will meet a young man, who in 2023, after watching so many of his fellow birders do Big Years the previous year, decided that he would enjoy trying one himself. Marcus Legzdins was in his final year of high school, and was birding in the Oakville area when, in December of 2022, decided to do an HSA Big Year.  What’s the HSA you ask?  I had heard of it, but just thought it was where birders who lived in Hamilton reported their sightings.  But it has exact boundaries and strict rules for reporting species for official records.  It is a circle, 25 miles,(about 40 kilometres) centred on downtown Hamilton. Yes, we birders are sticklers for details.  If you see the bird on the wrong side of the road, well, you haven’t really seen it in the HSA until it crosses that invisible boundary.  I wonder if it’s bad form to coax the bird over the line with calls or sunflower seeds?  You don’t have to be crazy to do a Big Year, as Marcus showed me during our chat, but it doesn’t hurt either.  A common theme I have found is, even if it’s not to the level of my obsessiveness, a desire to make sense of the world, whether it’s making bird lists, or traveling to exotic places to see things you’ve never seen before, and in some cases, never imagined seeing.  It’s the desire to collect, not just things, but memories, and stories of adventures you can share with the world.  Many birders love taking photographs but a lot do not. To them it’s the experience that makes it rewarding.  Though I’m not sure I ever met a Big Year birder who wasn’t also a photo buff.  Exotic locals and photo memories are not necessary to enjoy many aspects of a Big Year, or birding in general. Marcus birded in a pretty good patch, but as he told me, anywhere you live, you can find that one spot where you’ll almost always have good birding. Big Years can be really small or really big.  And can be in any patch you find.  Anyway, Marcus was perfectly located in Oakville to begin his year long quest. So sit back, relax, since August birding is so slow anyway, and enjoy…    

Today’s episode, features a trailblazer, who was the first woman to do a full out ABA Big Year and has been an inspiration to women in the birding world ever since she saw 723 species in 2008, one more than Sandy Komito’s first Big Year in 1986.  Lynn Barber is an author and artists and had done two Texas Big Years prior to her ABA Big Year and has since done Alaska and Wisconsin Big Years,  Her first Book, Extreme Birder is a must read for anyone considering doing their own big year.  She now lives in Wisconsin and is working on a new book about owls.  

Brett Forsyth joins me to talk about his 2022 Self-powered Ontario Big Year

Welcome back to The Big Year Podcast.  Sorry to have been gone so long, but birding seemed to drag me away from editing more often than not in April.  Not to mention that I was recovering from a severe hand injury, when I fell after seeing both Ross’s and Snow Geese in Burlington in March.  I hyper extended all the fingers on my right hand, using it to brace myself and protect my camera as tripped over a rock and fell to the ground.   It is May 2, 2024 and I was supposed to publish this episode yesterday, but once again, birds got in the way.  In this case a Summer Tanager arrived in my old birding patch in Toronto, Colonel Samuel Smith Park, on the shores of Lake Ontario.  There seems to be an eruption of Summer Tanagers here in Ontario this spring. This year at least half a dozen have shown up in various locations.  I had just seen one in Chatham, not far from Rondeau provincial park, a few days ago, but one in Col. Sam was worth the drive yesterday morning.  Second only to my ABA list, my Colonel Sam list is the most important to me.  I began birding on January 1, 2012 and I have been birding there ever since.  The summer tanager was number 242 for the park.  With migration gearing up I’m sure to out birding nearly every day, including a drive to the east coast, along the Trans-Canada Highway. I’ll be working on some new content and working on the next episode along the way.  This trip, unlike my 2022 Big Year, will be on a budget. I’ve got a new air mattress for the back of my Ford EcoSport and will be camping most nights, probably in a WallMart parking lot, or the occasional roadside ditch.  I might even splurge and get a spot in a province or national park some nights.  I was inspired to do this trip by Tiffany Kirsten, as that’s how she saved money when shebroke the all time lower 48 Big Year Record.   Well, enough of me rambling, so let’s get on to this episode. My guest, all the way from the west coast, is Krissi Martin .  Krissi did a double big year in 2022.  While I was criss-crossing the country, Krissi was birding locally in two counties, the Fraser Valley and Metro Vancouver. So, sit back, relax, unless you’re driving, and enjoy.

Hello there everybody,   Welcome back to The Big Year Podcast. This is part 2 of my chat with the new all time record holder for a Canada Big Year, Bruce DiLabio.  As I type this, it’s a sunny spring day in late March and the excitement of migration season is just around the corner.  It’s what all birders crave after a long, cold winter in the northern US and Canada. However, for those in the southern US, migration gets going an about month earlier.  And one of the best places to be in April is Texas and specifically, High Island on the Gulf Coast, where spring storms can bring the holy grail of migration season, a Fall Out. Sue and I will be heading there the second weekend of April and fallout or not, it’s one of the best places to see southern migrants passing through on their way home to their breeding grounds.  I’ve experienced two fallouts. The first was at Fort DeSoto near Tampa Florida in April of 2012 and Sue and I enjoyed one in Rondeau Provincial Park in South Western Ontario in May of 2018.  On both occasions, warblers and other songbirds were sitting, exhausted, like Christmas ornaments on all the trees.  Not just a Kaleidoscope of color, but even carpeting the ground, forcing birders to gingerly step over and around them.  And for Big Year birders, it’s an event not to be missed.  I’ll be reporting live from Texas beginning April 10, and perhaps I’ll run into a birder or two doing their own Big Years. In Part One, I left you hanging, so we’ll pick up where we left off, with Bruce Di Labio heading out for his 53rd consecutive Ottawa Christmas Bird Count when things took a very unexpected turn. I hope you enjoy listening to Bruce’s stories of his amazing, record shattering Canada Big Year.  Having enjoyed many of the same adventures, including my own slip on the ice in Nova Scotia, that could have brought my Canada Big Year to a crashing end only 3 days into 2022, I can appreciate all Bruce went through in 2023. Congratulations Bruce.  And good luck to anyone attempting their own Canada Big Year in future.  Next month, we have a guest from out west.  Krissi Martin,(Sorry I said “Kristi” last month).  Krissi lives in Abbotsford British Columbia and is known on line as Momma Birder.  Krissi is very open about living life after a brain injury, and like many of us, has discovered that birding has had a very positive impact on her life.  We’ll talk about that and the Big Years she’s done in British Columbia and how birding in general and Big Years in particular can improve your well being and outlook on life.  Following my chat with Bruce, I’ll leave you with a brief excerpt from my conversation with Krissi Martin.  

Hello Birders, welcome back to The Big Year Podcast.  I am so excited to be back for a second season.  I wasn’t sure we’d get renewed but the birds tweeted their approval and desire to hear from even more Big Year birders, so here I am and boy do I have a great line up of guests ready to share their stories. Over the course of the spring and summer, you will get to hear form Lynn Barber, the one of the great ABA Big Year birders, and author of many books, including Extreme Birder: One Woman’s Big Year, the story of her 2008 ABA Big Year. Lynn was the first birder to break Sandy Komito’s record with 723 species. I’ll also be catching up with a couple of Ontario Big Year birders, including Andrew Keaveny, who was doing his Ontario Big Year when I was a newbie birder doing an ABA Big Year in 2012, and Brett Forsyth who did a self-powered Ontario Big Year, in 2022 when I was doing my Canada Big Year.  I will Never be doing a self-powered Big Year, I can tell you that right now. We’ll also be venturing out west to talk to Kristy Martin, who did a Big Year in British Columbia, and Danny Bernard who completed a Michigan Big Year a few years ago. But today we have Part One of my lengthy and wonderful chat with the new all time record holder for a Canada Big Year, Bruce Di Labio.   In 2022, I was only the third birder to ever top 457 species for Canada in a single year.  Hot on my tail during the second half of 2022 Bruce, who had already been birding and guiding for 50 years, pushed me until the final day of the year.  During 2022, though we birded in many of the same places, sometimes within hours or even a few miles of each other, we never actually met.  With Bruce breathing down my neck in New Brunswick near the end of the year, I was able to end up in top spot, with Bruce a close second, each of us only the third and forth birders to ever see over 450 species in one Canada calendar year. Finally in the spring of 2023, when he was trying to break the all time record,  we met at Point Pelee National Park during spring migration.  We talked about his spark bird on that occasion, and his expectations for his Big Year.  His initial hope was to hit at least 460 in 2023.  Knowing what I missed in 2022 and my lack of extensive coast to coast birding experience, not to mention his vast knowledge of the country and where and when to find the most species at the best times, I expected him to pass my record, easily.  Thanks to an amazing year for rarities in Canada, zoomed way past 460, setting a record that may stand for a very long time indeed.  I know records are made to be broken, I just never expected to be dethroned less than a year later.  I take solace in the fact that I was even able to get past 450, given my various physical and mental disabilities.  We all bird for our own reasons, and a Big Year is a personal journey.  The success you reap depends on the passion for birding that you sow.   So, as winter turns to spring and a birders fancy turns to migration and all the excitement of the return home of hundreds of snow “birds” from the south, let’s catch up with the birders of The Big Year.  Or words to that effect.   Go forth and enjoy the podcast and the birds.  Perhaps you’ll be inspired to take on your next adventure!    

  Hello birders, and other non-feathered friends, and welcome to Episode 14 and the final episode of Season 1 of The Big Year Podcast.  I am thrilled to have Kelly-Sue O’Conner, who runs Birder Brains, who along with myself and many other birders, live with various mental health issues, including Attention Deficit-Hyperactive Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or Post-concussion Syndrome.  In my case all three plus a few other, including Social Anxiety Disorder.  Boy, do I hate the word "disorder" as a descriptive.   Anyway in this episode I did something very different. Because of the subject matter, I didn’t edit out anything, as I thought it important to hear us as we really are and not hide our pauses and such.  So, the idea was to not cut out the parts of the conversation that were challenging to us.  You'll even hear, in my opening monologue, that sometimes I have trouble getting the words out, because of different mental challenges I have.  So bear with us when we go off on tangents, and be patient where there might be some long pauses. We wanted to get that message out that if you do have your own cognitive and mental challenges, it’s okay talk about it, and if you need help, there's always people you can talk to and people that can definitely give you advice and help you feel more comfortable with what you’re going through.   I like to take some of these challenges like OCD and ADHD and put them to use in my everyday birding life.  So, sit back, relax,(unless you’re driving), and enjoy my chat with Kelly-Sue, live from the boardwalk in Rondeau Provincial Park.

We are back. Welcome once again to the show about birders and their Big Years. I had the pleasure of speaking with Tiffany a while back and in a previous episode we were discussing the life changing events that accidentally pushed her into doing a Big Year in the Lower 48 states.  And today as we continue with our discussion we shall see how life changing doing a Big Year was for Tiffany.  At a crossroads in her life, during the pandemic  and as a single, unemployed new home owner, she threw caution to the wind, and set out on an adventure that in the end, took her life into new directions that she may never have foreseen.  Join me once again as we talk about her amazing 2021, record breaking Lower 48 Big Year.

Welcome to Episode 12 of The Big Year Podcast.   For those of you here for the first time, my name is Robert Baumander, but I spent 41 years as Captain Video for the Toronto Blue Jays.  Along the way I performed as a magician and Escape Artist, managed the computer system for Pizza Pizza, volunteered in elementary schools and The Hospital for Sick children doing magic and story telling and science classes.  I have done a variety of Big Years in North America since I became a birder in 2012, and now spend my time, since my Canada Big Year in 2022, hosting this podcast and writing about my adventures in birding and my travels across Canada and North America. This is part one of my chat with Tiffany Kersten, who’s resume sounds like that of the Dos Equis guy. I’ll let her tell you about her many accomplishments and some of the other, shall we say, more eclectic endeavours that have kept her busy over the years.  Suffice it to say, my resume doesn’t even come close to stacking up against hers and I have been compared to the Dos Equis guy. We had such an enjoyable and wide ranging conversation that I have had to divide it into two episodes. Her 2021 Lower 48 Big Year, where she broke the all time record  with 726 species, took place in the midst of some challenging events in her life, as an unemployed single home owner during the Covid-19 pandemic, which lost her a spot on American Ninja Warriors.  Really. With all that being said, please enjoy Part One of my conversation with Texas birder Tiffany Kersten.

And a hearty welcome to episode 11 of the Big Year Podcast. I'm Robert. Baumander, and I'm your guide to the life of the big year birding experience. Late in the year 2011, which seems like a lifetime ago, I saw a little movie called, not surprisingly, The Big Year.      One of my favorite actors, Steve Martin, was starring in it. I was also a fan of Jack Black and remembered him from way back when I saw High Fidelity. And who doesn't love Owen Wilson? So I told Sue that I'd like to see it and from the previews I just thought it was a buddy movie.      Sue didn't let on that it was actually about birding or I may not have gone. But we did go, and I, like my guest, Kiah Jasper, was drawn into the prospect of doing a Big Year. Keep in mind, at the time, I was not a birder and had only ever used binoculars at the racetrack.  By the time the credits rolled with photos of all the birds and the Guster song, “This could all be yours someday,” I was pretty much hooked. I remembered that Sue had the book, The Big Year, by Mark Obmascik, from the library, and I really hadn't given it a second thought. Now, I had to read the book. Well, listen to the audiobook. Even while listening to the book, I was secretly planning a Big Year.      Not a full out ABA plus Attu, but a smaller Big Year, birding wherever I traveled across North America. I had a full time job with the Toronto Blue Jays,(oddly appropriate), that took up the majority of my year and my days. What could it hurt to do a little birding along the way? And maybe see, oh I don't know, 300 or so species as I learned how to bird and what it took to become a birder.      The trouble was, and I really didn't acknowledge it at the time, I was suffering, or perhaps gifted with, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. On a January trip to California, my guide Eddie Bartley told me that if I really wanted to call it a Big Year, I had to go to Arizona, the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and Alaska. How could I possibly do that while working full time and I really had zero spare dollars in my bank account?      Well, it turns out if you are obsessive and determined enough, you can make a good stab at it. At the end of 2012 I was thousands of dollars in debt but had seen 600 species. Last year I completed a Canada big year. I counted 457 species tying the all-time record.  And if that darn Limpkin had just flown far enough across the Niagara River into Canadian airspace, I would have had the all time record. Woe is me. But if “Ifs and buts…” as my mother used to say.  However, in Ontario in 2022, one young man did break a record.     Kiah Jasper, at the age of just 20 - I'm 63, so yeah, just 20 - broke the all time record for an Ontario big year. He traveled thousands of miles, sometimes in terrible weather and on roads no birder had ever been to in the farther northern regions of Ontario, which put it into perspective, has a larger area than Texas.      When it was all said and done, Kiah had seen 359 species, blowing by the previous record of 343 species set in 2017. So, it's not a coincidence that Kyah is the final guest on my five part series on the Birders of the Ontario 2022 Big Year.  I am grateful to Kiah for re-recording this episode after a couple of glitchy recordings, early in the year, made it nearly impossible to hear.  My fault entirely and perhaps I should have fired myself on the spot.  But, now it is finally finshed and this is the result of all that hard work and perseverance, just like, well, doing a Big Year.      Please.  Finally.  Enjoy. 

Welcome to Part 4 of my 5 part series on the Birders of the Ontario 2022 Big Year. Today I will be talking to Ezra Campanelli who was one of the 3 birders that broke the all time record for species in an Ontario Big Year with 357 species seen.  He is one of a crop of young birders who are taking Ontario and the birding world by storm.  These young birders are so knowledgeable that they are teaching some of the veteran birders a thing or two along the way.  I hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as I enjoyed talking to Ezra.  We became friends over the course of 2022 meeting often at different rare bird sightings and more often at Point Peele in the spring of that year. But now I have to run off because a Roseate Spoonbill has been seen along the Grand River in Brant County and what an exciting bird to chase, especially for anyone doing a Big Year in 2023.