The Big Year Podcast

Season 3, Episode 6: On the Road, Again

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 am.  I sent Sue to grab my EpiPen and she handed it to me.  I held it near my leg and froze.  I gently as possible told Sue she had better do it.  She did it.  After a sharp sting, no worse than anything the wasps did to me, the magical elixir began pumping through my veins and Sue went off to call the ambulance, with me chattering at her, impatiently from the other room.

The fire department arrived first, followed by the paramedics.  They shot me full of Benadryl and off we went to Brantford General Hospital. After a brief assessment, I was brought quickly into a treatment room, since they would rather I not suffocate in their triage department in front of multiple witnesses.  I was taken care of by a very nice nurse, whom I assume worked their way through college waiting tables at Red Lobster, since every time I answered a question, they responded with “perfect,” as though I had picked the chef’s favorite dish from the menu.  After a doctor was consulted, off screen, I was given the obligatory steroid injection,(lucky for me I am not scheduled to be competing in any sanctioned sporting event), and spent the rest of the day in my hospital bed, trying to sleep, but was continuously annoyed by one guy who was watching a video on his phone, with the volume loud enough to be heard throughout the room, another guy talking loudly on his phone right next to me, and the moaning guy on the other side, who screamed every time they tried to stick a needle in his arm.

Suffice it to say, I survived yet another medical ordeal,(I have a standing reservation at the Brantford General Hospital emergency room), and I am slowly recovering.  The itchy, scratchy rash has finally gone away, and now its a matter of time before the wounds heal.  

Enough about me.  So, let’s now head out on the road, again.  Presented in no specific order, sit back, relax, don’t let the wasps bite and enjoy the stories of some of the birders who were kind enough to let me distract them from the serious game of spot the warbler, during, mostly, Spring Migration.

Season 3, Episode 5: 2012 Ontario Big Year with Andrew Keaveny

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 for the park and I am just behind him in forth place with 242.  Okay, yes, we’re all counting.

So back to the long and winding road to this episode.  In February of this year, I messaged Andrew, tail firmly between my legs, microphone in hand, to ask him to please, please rerecord the episode.  Unfortunately, he was under the weather at the time, and I never did get back to him about my podcast Mulligan.  Again, fluff and dust for brains.  I'd be right at home at a teddy bear's picnic, if you get my meaning.

But, I digress.  Fast forward to July of 2025.  Well, actually May, when out of the blue, he, Andrew himself, messaged me asking for a donation to his Bird-a-Thon.  I said I was happy to do it, but in exchange, we had to finally complete what we had started over two years earlier.  Andrew was game, and this episode is the result.  It's certainly more timely and up to date than if I had just found and presented the nearly two and a half year old recording to y'all.  Anyway, I think the episode turned out much better than the original, as parts of it were going stale.  Not that the original was a stinker, by any means, but I certainly enjoyed catching up with Andrew and reliving some fun memories from the past and talking about birding in the present. 

So as they say in the south, y'all just kick back, grab yourself a Long Island iced tea, sit a spell, take your shoes off, and enjoy The Big Year Podcast with me and Andrew Keaveny.

 

 

Season 3, Episode 4: Ingrid and Ethan Whitaker's Lower 48 Big Year

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 hear his story.

     Once again, I wish I could thank everyone personally for listening.  You could do me a big favour by following, subscribing, liking and commenting, wherever it is you listen to my voice over the ethereal land of podcasts.  Also, please tell all your birding friends and family to come have a listen.  Won’t you?

 

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.