Episodes
![Episode 11: Kiah Jasper’s Record Breaking Ontario Big Year.](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/15773497/D3B5F3E1-5435-4E4B-8DDA-EED6D8869725_r6eh8i_300x300.jpeg)
Friday Oct 06, 2023
Episode 11: Kiah Jasper’s Record Breaking Ontario Big Year.
Friday Oct 06, 2023
Friday Oct 06, 2023
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.
![Episode X: Ezra Campanelli’s 2022 Ontario Big Year](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/15773497/D3B5F3E1-5435-4E4B-8DDA-EED6D8869725_r6eh8i_300x300.jpeg)
Friday Aug 18, 2023
Episode X: Ezra Campanelli’s 2022 Ontario Big Year
Friday Aug 18, 2023
Friday Aug 18, 2023
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.
![Episode 9: William Konze’s Ontario Big Year 2022](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/15773497/D3B5F3E1-5435-4E4B-8DDA-EED6D8869725_r6eh8i_300x300.jpeg)
Wednesday Aug 02, 2023
Episode 9: William Konze’s Ontario Big Year 2022
Wednesday Aug 02, 2023
Wednesday Aug 02, 2023
Welcome to Part 3 of my 5 episode series on the birders of the 2022 Ontario Big Year. Three birders broke the all time record, including William Konze, who didn't even set out to do a Big Year, let alone break the record. Though he didn't end up on top, his accomplishment is still a testament to his dedication and hard work.
Travel in Ontario, which is even bigger than Texas, can be exhausting, sometimes chasing birds hundreds of miles away, driving 6 to 8 hours and in severe winer weather. If you're planning on doing an Ontario Big Year in the coming years, hearing the stories of Susan, Andy, William, Ezra and Kiah will give you a sense of what it takes and how much you can learn while competing to be the top birder in the province.
So, sit back, relax and enjoy another episode of The Big Year Podcast. Unless you're driving. In that case, pay attention to the road and enjoy the show.
![Episode 8: Andy Nguyen’s Ontario Big Year, 2022](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/15773497/D3B5F3E1-5435-4E4B-8DDA-EED6D8869725_r6eh8i_300x300.jpeg)
Tuesday Jul 18, 2023
Episode 8: Andy Nguyen’s Ontario Big Year, 2022
Tuesday Jul 18, 2023
Tuesday Jul 18, 2023
A long time ago in an era known as the Covid-19 Lockdowns, I met Andy Nguyen on a berm above the Grand River in Brantford, Ontario. We were looking or a California Gull and before finding it, I ran off to look for a Yellow-browed Warbler in Oakville. Because Andy was wearing a mask, as it was back in Covid times, I did not recognize him the next time we met.
But after a while, we got to know each other and became good birding buddies here in Southwestern Ontario. We birded many weekends and even drove out together to see a Grove-billed Ani in Perth County, Ontario in the fall of 2021.
Since then we have both completed our own Big Years. Andy took the opportunity in 2022 to do his own Ontario Big Year and learned a lot about, not just birding, but himself in the process. Big Years are, of course, an adventure, but they also are a learning experience and can teach you a thing or two about yourself, in the process.
So join me as we step back in time, to late 2021 and the Andy's adventures as he planned and executed his own Big Year.
![Episode 7: Susan Nagy’s Ontario Big Year](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/15773497/D3B5F3E1-5435-4E4B-8DDA-EED6D8869725_r6eh8i_300x300.jpeg)
Sunday Jul 02, 2023
Episode 7: Susan Nagy’s Ontario Big Year
Sunday Jul 02, 2023
Sunday Jul 02, 2023
Welcome to another episode of the Big Year Podcast! My journey across North America to talk to and see what makes Big Year Birders Tick. It’s July 2, 2023 as I broadcast from my Secret Big Year recording location, deep in the basement of my Brantford home. It’s a rainy day so I am stuck indoors, not willing to brave the elements for anything but the rarest birds sighting. A far cry from what I or anyone else doing a big Year would do. Big Year birders brave the weather and more in quest of their goals.
This is Episode 7, if I am doing my math correctly and in previous episodes we have talked to ABA Big Year Birders, but beginning with this episode, we are going to focus on my home province of Ontario, Canada. In 2022, while I was galavanting all across Canada, a group of 5 intrepid birders had dedicated themselves to an Ontario Big Year.
Three of the top five birders, Ezra Campanelli, William Konze and Kiah Jasper each broke the all time Ontario Record. Two other birders, Susan Nagy and my local birding buddy Andy Nguyen were not that far behind. Though they did not break any records, their stories are just as interesting, as Big Years come in all shapes and sizes and are often as much a personal journey as they are attempts to break records.
Over the next 5 episodes, we’ll all get to know Kiah, William, Ezra and Andy. But today we have Susan Nagy from London, Ontario who recorded 335 species in Ontario, who’s Big Year began with a challenge from a friend to see which of them could see the most birds back in 2021. But rarities and the fun of competition turned what was just a friendly competition into her own 2022 Ontario Big Year and helped her finish in the top 5 in Ontario during what was one of the greatest provincial Big Years ever.
So enjoy Part One of my salute to the birders of the 2022 Ontario Big Year!
![Episode 6: What Was Your Spark Bird?](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/15773497/D3B5F3E1-5435-4E4B-8DDA-EED6D8869725_r6eh8i_300x300.jpeg)
Friday Jun 02, 2023
Episode 6: What Was Your Spark Bird?
Friday Jun 02, 2023
Friday Jun 02, 2023
The month of May in Southwestern Ontario is all about songbird migration and seeing as many warblers as possible. I knew I wasn't going to have time to edit previous podcasts and, naturally, no birders were going to have time to do sit down interviews that may cost them a Big Year Bird or Lifer, or just a skulking Mourning or Worm Eating Warbler.
So, instead, I took my recording device on the road to Point Pelee National Park, Long Point and Rondeau Provincial Parks and City View Park in Burlington, Ontario. I walked up to birders I have never met and birders I have known or at least seen on the trails and asked them what lit the fuse that sparked their burning passion into birding.
For me, the event For some it was seeing the movie "The Big Year" and the spark birds were the Nutting's Flycatcher and The Pink-footed Goose that bookended the movie. I saw both over the next 12 months in 2012.
For some people, it was an event and for others it was a specific bird. Join me for this special episode, where we will meet birders who found their passion because of some descendants of the dinosaurs evolved into the birds we see and love today.
Sit back, relax and perhaps you will have fond memories of the bird that sparked your interest in birding.
![Episode 5: Laura Keene 2016 Record Breaking Photographic Big Year](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/15773497/D3B5F3E1-5435-4E4B-8DDA-EED6D8869725_r6eh8i_300x300.jpeg)
Monday May 01, 2023
Episode 5: Laura Keene 2016 Record Breaking Photographic Big Year
Monday May 01, 2023
Monday May 01, 2023
Today is May 1, 2023 and it is the official start of Spring Migration here in Southern Ontario. Birders from far and wide, some doing their own Big Years, are beginning their own migration to Canada’s spring birding hotspot, Point Pelee National Park to welcome the songbirds home. Down in Ohio, many birders will be making their way to The Biggest Week in American Birding. Sue and I had to cancel our last trip there, as the Covid Pandemic Lockdowns were just being felt in the spring of 2020.
Down in Texas, the “winged” migration begins a little earlier, and in fact, my guest today, Laura Keene, had just seen her first Golden-cheeked Warbler of the year just before we spoke in early April , a beautiful song bird that sadly will likely never make it’s way up north. Of course, who knows during migration season. We just had White Wagtail here in Ontario, we can always hope.
In 2016, inspired by a close friends battle with cancer, Laura began her own journey across North America, doing a photographic Big Year, recording a record breaking 763 species in the Continental US, and adding more birds in Hawaii to finished with 815 species, the vast majority of which she photographed, an achievement in itself.
Laura’s story of doing a Big Year is as inspiring as it is exciting, and listening to her I'm sure you might just want to rush out and do your own Big Year. I’m certainly inspired to do anther one. Maybe, it being May 1, perhaps a Big Migration Month.
Laura, even 6 years after her Big Year ,is still 4th all time for the Continental US and 7th, one behind Yve Morrel. But it’s not where you are in the standings or how many birds you’ve seen, but as Laura has said, the places you’ve been and the birders you’ve met along the way that really adds meaning to the lists we make on our Big Year Journeys.
![Episode 4: Karen Miller 2017 New Brunswick](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/15773497/D3B5F3E1-5435-4E4B-8DDA-EED6D8869725_r6eh8i_300x300.jpeg)
Monday Apr 03, 2023
Episode 4: Karen Miller 2017 New Brunswick
Monday Apr 03, 2023
Monday Apr 03, 2023
I met Karen Miller on Canada Day in 2022. I was running out of options to get close enough to Bill's Island, off of Grand Manan, New Brunswick, so I could see American Oystercatchers. If the ferry had not been late, I'd have never met Karen and her husband Bill, who had been ferrying birders out to the island all day, to see these rare visitors to Canada.
Then, on December 21 I was given an early Christmas present, in the form of a Green-tailed Towhee, another crazy-rare bird to show up in New Brunswick,(all that on top of the Stellar's Sea Eagle, just three weeks earlier). It was there in Sackville, that I ran into Karen and Bill again, at first not realizing they were the friendly birders who took me out on their boat.
Another friend, Mitch Doucet, told me she had the record for New Brunswick Big Years. We chatted a bit that December afternoon, after seeing the towhee, and I wanted to get to know more about her life in birding and her amazing, record setting New Brunswick Big Year.
Recently she joined me for an afternoon of conversation about birds and fond memories of her Big Year.
Enjoy!
![Image](https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/s83gak/17592A77-68D8-419B-8CA2-89D7F12A477C.jpeg)
Big Year Birding