The Big Year Podcast

Season 3, Episode 3: Alberta Bider and Guide, Gavin McKinnon

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.

 

Season 3, Episode 2: Natasza Fontaine and Robert Gundy Florida Big Year and Artist of the

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. 

 

Season 3, Episode 1: Jean Iron

Yes, The Big Year Podcast is back.

And after a long, cold, snowy winter, the temperatures are finally on the rise and the birds are finally on migration.

It’s March 15, 2025 as I sit down to write this, I’m looking out my front window, here Brantford, Ontario to bright blue skies and hearing Northern Cardinals in full song, a sure sign of spring and the migration season to come.

I hope you are all in the spring migration spirit, shedding those layers and putting on your fancy spring birding plumage.  As for me, I just switch from fleece lined cargo pants to regular cargo pants, and of course, my biggest plumage change is from a winter fur fedora to a straw, summer fedora.

So, welcome to the first episode of Season 3.  Being an Ontario birder myself, I figured there’s no better place to start than with one of Ontario's most respected birders, Jean Iron. Many of you have met Jean at a hawk watch at Lynn shores in the fall, out at Niagara, looking for gulls in the winter or at Point Peel National Park in the spring.

You may have met her, but now you'll get a chance to know her.

I first ran into Jean early in January 2012 on one of my first rare bird chases to see a King Eider, and she taught me a valuable lesson that I have taken to heart ever since, and it was a lesson she also learned early in her birding life.

Thanks for taking the time come visit and enjoy the show.

 

Oh, while you’re here, I'd like to ask you to please check out my new book, “Have you a Seagull?” on Apple Books, for C$4.99

https://books.apple.com/us/book/have-you-seen-a-seagull/id6742723612

It's a great book to read with your kids teach them about the wide variety of birds many of us call “seagulls,” and perhaps spark their journey into birding.

As of this recording, it's only available on Apple books, but will be available on other digital platforms soon and hopefully in print before too long.  50% of all digital sales will go to bird conservation efforts, so, if not for me, get it for the birds and for the next generation of birders.

Thanks again.

 

Season 2, Episode 9: The Season Finale

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.

Season 2, Episode 8: Josh Gant, 2020 Ocean County, NJ Big 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.

Season 2 Episode 7: Danny Bernard and his Accidental Michigan Big Year

Well, it’s September 1, 2024, the Dog Days of Birding are behind us and fall migration is underway, signalling the end of the summer breeding season and birds booking their flights south for the winter.  Happily for birders, there are no direct flights from the breeding grounds in the north to the wintering grounds in the south, which means we are graced by the presence of southern migrants.  When the wind is just right, shorebirds and seabirds pass through, many of them stopping to refuel at various mudflats. rivers, lakes and ponds, where they fill their bellies with enough food to get them through the next stage of their journey. Some birds, like jaegers and southern migrating gulls, like the Sabine’s, don’t always stop as they pass over the lake.  In that case, birders who want to count such birds as Long-tailed Jaeger, Parasitic Jaeger or any other rarity that happens to be blown off course, head to the beaches and cliff edges for the annual lake and sea watches. This is especially important if you’re doing a Big Year. 

In the case of today’s guest, and myself in 2022, we were lake watching on opposite sides of Lake Huron.  Danny Bernard was looking for jaegers and other rarities for his Michigan State Big Year and I was scanning the waters for a Long-tailed Jaeger to complete my jaeger trifecta for my Canada Big Year,(Long-tailed, Parasitic and Pomarine).  Luckily for me, birders like Danny were communicating from the US side whenever they had a sighting and that helped me get to see my only Long-tailed Jaeger of the year.  I should have had them up in The Yukon in the summer, but that’s another story, for another show.  Suffice it to say, we both got our bird and celebrated in style.  Pie for Danny and a steak dinner for me.  Though we didn’t know it, we were destined to cross paths again, this time, instead of across the lake, we met over the internet.  

And as we were talking about alternative Big Years, that got both of us thinking. There are so many ways to do a Big Year.  Who says it has to be a state or county or even start on January 1st?  Well, the record keepers for the ABA area might have a thing or two to say about it, if you want an official title, but what the heck.  If you want your Big Year to start on your birthday, go for it, or perhaps your wedding anniversary.  In that case, be prepared for it to be your last anniversary.  Unless, of course, your spouse is as rabid a Big Year birder as you, in that case, have at it.  More and more, couples or brothers or even best friends are teaming up to do Big Years.  4 eyes and ears are better than two of each, and you get to split the driving and hotels bills.  Which reminds me that a future episode will feature local Brant County birders Ellen and Jerry Horak, who as of this date, are 3/4 of the way through their Ontario Big Year.  In 2023 they did a Brant county Big Year, and  in 2025 will be heading out across the country together to see if they can count over 400 species during their Canada Big Year.  I’ll look forward to hearing how easy or perhaps hard it is to bird everywhere, every day together. 

So, since I need to wrap up this introduction, without further blather from me, let’s log into our Teams meeting and check in with Danny Bernard and his record breaking 2022 Michigan Big Year.

Season 2, Episode 6: Marcus Legzdins and his 2023 HSA Big Year

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…

 

 

Season 2, Episode 5: Trailblazing Extreme Birder Lynn Barber

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.