The Big Year Podcast

Episode 7: Susan Nagy’s Ontario Big Year

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?

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

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

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!

Episode 3: Christian Hagenlocher 2016 ABA Big Year

On today's episode we talk to Christian Hagenlocher.  At the age of 26 he did his 21st century version of a Big Year on a budget,(a tight budget), and saw 752 species. He was the youngest birder to ever pass 750, making it an even greater accomplishment. 

Christian is creator of The Birding Project and author of the book, Falcon Freeway: A Big Year of Birding on a Budget. You can find it on Amazon,(link below).  He is now a middle school teacher in Washington State and recently returned from an Antarctic adventure. 

Christian and I met on a wild goose chase for a Barnacle Goose in the winter of 2016, and were also at the scene of a Zenaida Dove in Florida, but didn't know the other was there.

Join me as we reminisce about our adventure in 2016, each doing our own Big Years.

Next episode, we will delve into Ontario Big Years with my guest, Kiah Jasper, whose episode is delayed because I screwed up.  Sorrr about that.

 

https://www.amazon.ca/Falcon-Freeway-Year-Birding-Budget/dp/1543985033

Episode 2: Yve Morrell 2017 ABA Big Year

Episode 2 of the Big Year Podcast features Yve Morrell.

I first met Yve Morrell in 2017 during her Big Year.  I had flown down to Texas to search for a Jabiru.  A bunch of us, including Yve, searched in vain for it for most of the day.  Many of us did get a Black Rail that day, so it wasn’t a total loss for ether of us.  

What we didn’t know at the time is we were both booked on a pelagic with Debbie Shearwater in Californian and met again on the boat.  The highlight of the trip, for me, was a Blue-footed Booby.

My other reason for going to California, after Texas, was to finally see the California Condor.  I had looked for it in 2012 at what was then Pinnacles National Monument, but had no luck that day.  I mentioned to Yve that I was going and she met me there for the long hike up the mountain at the newly renamed, Pinnacles National Park, to find them.  

Yve continued on with her Big Year and eventually saw species 816, the Loggerhead Kingbird in Florida, giving her top spot for the 2017 ABA Big Year. 

You can find Yve at her website thedancingbirder.com

Season 1, Episode 1: Sandy Komito’s Record Breaking Big Years

Episode 1 of The Big Year Podcast features Sandy Komito, who twice broke the ABA Big Year birding records in 1987 and again in 1998.  

 

The Big Year Podcast Preview

The Big Year Podcast, begins January 30, 2023.

Having just completed a Canada Big Year in 2022, birding across the country for 365 days and seeing 456 species, I am now putting my obsessions, ahm, efforts into talking to the birders of the Big Year.

Birders who have had the same commitment,(some should be committed according to their spouses), to see as many birds as possible in a local county, Provence, State, country, or the biggest of Big Years, in the ABA,(American Birding Association), Area.