ABA Blog

Contest Update - Big Year 200 Species

Last week I announced a contest for people to guess the date this year that I reach 200 species in my Pennington Co. (SD) big year, the prize for the closest guess being a signed copy of my book, Extreme Birder: One Woman's Big Year.

The response has been great.

Unfortunately I forgot to give a closing date for entries. I am remedying that now: the CLOSING DATE IS FRIDAY, MAY 5th. Entries after that date will be ignored. Also, if you have already entered and want to change your entry for any reason, please do so by May 5th.

Also, should there be tied winners, the first person to submit that guess will win the prize.

Thank you for your interest.

One of the new birds for my list seen on April 29th in my yard.

 

Bird Questions - and a Contest!

What is it about the number 100 that many people seem to think is noteworthy? Why is a list of 100 birds, or birding sites, or counties birded or anything, so much more likely to be mentioned than 99 or 101 of the same things?

Although I have been birding and listing bird species seen each year for much of my life, it never occurred to me to tally the number of bird species seen in each county until some of my fellow Carolina Bird Club members began to post their totals sometime in the 90’s., with a stated goal of trying to get 100 species per county. Although most of my relevant data are [Ted Floyd: please note the verb here] probably somewhere in my birding records and I could therefore figure this out for North Carolina, I have not done so (nor have I yet posted all that data to eBird). It’s too much fun to bird, and not so much fun to pore over my old bird notebooks.

When I moved to Texas, I began to keep records of my bird sightings by county as I now do in South Dakota. I figure that if I run out of birds to see in a particular state, I can concentrate on increasing my county lists there. I did not stay in Texas long enough (just about 10 ½ years), to run out of birds, however. New ones just keep arriving there.

This county listing effort requires that I carry a state map that shows the county lines and that every time I cross a county line, I need to restart my bird list for the day and write down everything all over again, even if I have just seen it in the previous county. In this county mode, when I bird with someone else, I am always making them help me keep track of which county we are in. It is a lot of work, but someone has to do it.

While I was in Texas I never spent much time trying to get 100 species in each Texas county, but I did try to maximize the number of birds in each county to whatever level I could bring it. The Texas Ornithological Society, however, has encouraged birders to get 100 species per county by establishing a Century Club, giving birders the goal of seeing 100 species in each of 100 counties (of the 254 counties in Texas). The Century Club web site currently indicates that two birders have reached that goal, one of whom has exceeded it, and another 5 have at least 100 species in each of over 75 counties. There are, however, a few counties in Texas where apparently it is not even possible to get 100 species, ever. The counties may be huge, but there is nothing in them to lure in most birds to winter or breed, and most birds seen are just passing through.

Although I thought the same might be true in at least some of the 67 counties of South Dakota, where I now live, from the records listed on the South Dakota Ornithologists’ Web Site, it appears that over 100 species are possible in even the unpopulated, very dry counties. I expect to keep working on seeing more species in more South Dakota counties. So far, since mid-2011, I have seen over 100 species in each of 10 South Dakota counties.

How does this all relate to big years? Most of my widespread Texas sightings and South Dakota sightings are due to the fact that I did big years in both states. Otherwise, it is unlikely that I would have done so much statewide travelling. It is much easier and less expensive to stay near home, which is what I am mostly doing this year, but it results in fewer county 100 records.

Just last Friday, I finally got to 100 species for the Pennington County big year that I am now doing. Reaching this goal got me wondering how long it took to get to 100 species in my other big years, so today I went back to my web site (www.lynnbarber.com) to do something I love to do – make a table - to compare my previous big years with each other and with this year.

The result, showing the date by which the number of species indicated was seen follows, should you be interested too, is:

Year/Area              Species:    100        200          300          400        500        600       700         TOTAL        100^th bird of year

2003/TX	1/1	1/13	3/22	5/16	n/a	n/a	n/a	485	Sandhill Crane
2005/TX	1/2	1/7	2/5	4/11	8/31	n/a	n/a	522	Green-br. Mango
2008/ABA	1/1	1/9	1/20	2/29	4/21	6/8	10/24	723	White-tailed Hawk
2012/SD	1/30	4/25	5/30	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	350	E. Screech-Owl
2013/Pennington County, SD	4/19	?						??	Lesser Yellowlegs

And now, the CONTEST: The next question for me is, WHEN will I reach 200 species this year in Pennington County? Or will I even get that many in Pennington County? I thought it might be interesting to see if anyone wanted to guess an answer to the first of these questions. In an attempt to motivate YOU to make a guess, I am now announcing a contest. To enter the contest, email me at dalybar AT aol.com your guess of the date on which I will get my 200^th species this year in Pennington County. Don’t post your guess here, but email it to me to keep it secret from others. You may think that you don’t have enough information to hazard such a guess, but you are not alone. I don’t have a clue either. If it turns out that birding is so bad that I don’t even get 200 species this year, the person who guesses the last date will be the winner.

The PRIZE? A signed copy of my book, Extreme Birder: One Woman’s Big Year, sent to you or to someone whom you designate.

Of course, if nobody enters my contest, I’ll get to keep the book, and just let you know the answer to the question of when I reach 200 species when 2013 is over. But it would be much more fun for me to be able to announce a winner. What do you have to lose?

Number 100 this year: LESSER YELLOWLEGS

 

Self-restraint

I’m guessing that most people who think about doing big years and about what big year birders do and who big year birders are rarely think about “restraint”. If the big year is a serious big year, it’s more likely that the only restraints that the big year birder allows or experiences relate to there only being 24 hours in a day, and there only being so many dollars in the bank and allowed to be charged on the credit cards.

Although it may not seem like it to someone watching me, I have noticed that between big years I tend to put self-restraints on my bird chases. Having maxed out my budget and my energy in a previous big year, I have found that I sometimes actually ignore the possibility of getting a new bird for the state, or even for the ABA area, when I am not doing a big year. Or, as also happens, I tell myself that I just won’t chase a particularly wonderful bird if I don’t “need” it for a big year, and then I give in and try for it, often to find that I waited too long. During a big year, of course, no matter where the bird is in my big year territory, I am driven to go for it, and must go for it if at all possible.

It can be a big relief to sit back and hear about others chasing a bird that I do not need to find for a big year. Others can tell about their all-night drives, or their failures at finding a bird that they chased, and I can relax and think back to the good old days of my chases. But no matter how relaxed I get, deep inside I feel that I really should get out there and go for it. An odd sort of guilt sets in, that I am not being as fanatic about bird-chasing as I believe that I should be.

Actually, though, I do think I’m mellowing a bit. A couple of weeks ago, someone in eastern South Dakota reported a Eurasian Wigeon, somewhere near Brookings. Brookings is probably only about 4 hours from where I live in Rapid City. But I almost did not even consider driving out there, even though I had the time and even though I have never seen a Eurasian Wigeon in South Dakota. Sometimes I wish I had gone, but it was in contemplating whether to go or not that I realized that I do sometimes impose restraint on my bird-chasing. I don’t drop everything every time I hear about a bird that I’d like to see. Sometimes I deliberately allow a bird to get away.

This is my first year of doing a county big year, so I can’t relax much when someone reports a bird in the county that I haven’t yet seen for the year in the county. Thus, I did do a couple of 100-mile loops this last weekend to try for the Sandhill Cranes that others had seen in the county, even though I had seen thousands of them a few weeks ago in Nebraska. Sandhill Cranes are not rare in the county, but they don’t stay long as they pass through in migration, so I did need to find some (or at least one) of them. This year I can have moments of self-restraint on bird-chasing for birds that are located anywhere in the South Dakota area or in the ABA area or in the world, except for birds that are in Pennington County.

Is this sometimes self-restraint just a sign of (finally) becoming more mature in my birding? Or is it a sign of getting older and more tired, or a sign that I am gathering my strength (and funds) to head off to a more extreme bird-chase? Or is it just a temporary aberration in a lifetime of growing bird-fanaticism? Only time will tell, I guess.

A “GOOD” BIRD

Yesterday I realized, once again, that what I think is a “good” bird often changes. I suspect that is true for many of us.

When we first became birders, any bird, even if we could not figure out what it was, was a good bird. The birds became even better when we could put a name to them. If we were listers, adding them to our list as a new birds was the best.

Now, when I haven’t been birding for a while, any bird is a good bird, with the possible exception of the untold numbers of pigeons and starlings and House Sparrows that frequent my yard. Sometimes, however, even among the relatively common birds, some of them are more welcome, and thus seem to be especially good birds. This weekend there were two Northern Flickers drilling and eating on my lawn where the snow had recently melted away. They were intent on their tasks and only interacted a couple of times. They were good birds just by being interesting, and close, and not all that common in my back yard, where there is only one tree, and that one is not a very large tree.

Most of the time, what makes a bird seem to be particularly good is whether the bird is doing something that is noteworthy and whether I get a close, clear view of it. If it is also an unusual bird for the area that I am in I am much more likely to be delighted by seeing it. In my undergraduate studies in zoology, my two favorite courses (other than ornithology) were the two animal behavior classes that I took during my senior year, one in the zoology department and one in the psychology department. If I could have figured out a way to make a living just watching what animals do, I probably would have done that.

Many times, however, my views of birds are brief and/or obscured by branches or distance. My excitement then tends to depend primarily on whether I can be certain of the bird’s identity and how rare the bird is. When it is rare, whether or not I’m doing a big year, it is a good bird, even if drab and sitting still, doing nothing and even if my view of it is not the best.

Everything changes when I am doing a big year. When I see a bird during a big year in my chosen big year area (e.g., Texas, the ABA area, South Dakota or Pennington County, SD) that I have not yet seen there during that year, it is by definition a “good” bird. That is true even if it is a common bird there. During a big year, however, there are different levels of “good”. The more rare that a bird is in that area, the better it is. As I am sure that most of you know, in the ABA area, every bird that has ever been seen there is assigned a code that is intended to correspond to the likelihood that that species will be seen in the ABA area. Code 6 birds are those believed extinct or extirpated from the area, so of course those birds would be even better than good – they would be miracles (think Ivory-billed Woodpecker). Code 5 birds are the rarest of those one might possibly find, and the lower numbers progressively identify the more common species. So, during an ABA big year, the very best birds are Code 4 and 5, and the biggest chases are after those birds. Of course, by the end of a big year, if you are missing any Code 1, 2 or 3 birds, you are likely to be very embarrassed by that fact. I was, and still am. 

Sometimes, even during a big year, a bird that has already been seen that year can still be a very good bird. That is particularly true when the first sighting of the year was brief or otherwise unsatisfying and if the later sighting is a very clear, well-seen sighting. That occurred yesterday for me. Earlier this year, a friend reported a White-winged Crossbill (rare in Pennington County) at his feeder in a small flock of Red Crossbills (less rare in the county). Two of us spent a morning scanning his feeders, waiting for crossbills. Finally, they arrived. But they were difficult to see, high in a tree over his house. Finally one of the birds was clearly seen to be pinker with light striping, a very different color than the other, redder crossbill males. We could not see its wing at all, however. I decided that it had to be a White-winged Crossbill, but was not happy with the sighting.

Yesterday, in our weekly Canyon Lake survey (in Pennington Co.), we found a small flock of crossbills, all White-winged! Although they stayed in the tops of the spruce trees, munching on the cones, we could see them well. Of course, due to the cold morning (about 8 degrees), I had left my camera back in my car, so I had to race back to get it and hope the birds would not leave in the meantime. They did stay, and although the view was not as good as earlier, I did get a couple of pictures. A very good bird!!

Taking a Big Year Break to Honduras

It will be a short blog post this time. As I mentioned I was going to do in my last blog post, I took a break from big year birding, and from U.S. birding for that matter, and I went to Honduras for just over a week. I returned home Monday (March 4), happy and tired.

There is probably nothing better to take a big year birder’s mind off of a big year than to become immersed in a totally different world. Leaping from a cold, dry, bird-scarce South Dakota winter land to the hot, steamy birdy greenness of Honduras is a bird-world shock. I’ve gotten used to looking for birds across vast rolling treeless fields of winter brown with the arid cold wind howling straight down from the North Pole. All of a sudden I’m peering into impenetrable leafy vines trying to see a bird hidden in the darkness or I’m looking up into the very high treetops to try to discern which leaf-sized silhouette is a bird. I’m very, very hot. Completely unfamiliar squeals, chirps, and whistles are all around. I have no thoughts for big years and bird-chase planning at all. It is birding in the here and now, with birds everywhere. It may be hard to imagine making such a bird-jump if you too are in the midst of a North American winter.

Think going from Snowy Owl to Central American Pygmy-Owl,

Or from American Goldfinch to Gartered Trogon (formerly Violaceous Trogon),

Or from Dark-eyed Junco to Turquoise-browed Motmot.

It may be a difficult transition, but it can be, and was, wonderful fun!

 

Big Year Interruptions

When I am doing a serious BIG BIG year, I do not like non-big year interruptions. I very much begrudge the time I spend on events and duties that I just cannot avoid or feel that I must do. I don’t even like to take time to sleep or eat or other things that normal people deem to be essential.

Even birding outings that I would normally look forward to with eagerness are sometimes dreaded as cutting into my big year time. I love to do such things as Christmas bird counts, the Great Backyard Bird Count, and Breeding Bird Surveys, and I do them every year, whether or not I’m doing a big year. But during a big year, part of me is always thinking while I’m birding at the preordained site for a particular count, “I could have let someone else do this” or “I wonder what others are seeing while I’m stuck here birding where no new year birds are likely” or “What am I missing?”.

In my last blog post I discussed the advantages of doing a big year in a county as compared to big years in larger geographic areas. In this post, I would like to add one more reason to my list of reasons to like doing a COUNTY big year instead of a state or ABA big year – I’ve got time to do it all! I don’t feel the pressure, at least now in the mid-winter to be out getting birds for a county big year all the time. I happily participated in the early January Christmas Bird Counts because 2012 and my SD big year was over.

The Great Backyard Bird Count, of all my self-inflicted birding “chores”, is the best of them all for doing during a big year. Because the GBBC lets birders count anywhere as a “backyard”, I can go bird where I want to bird for my particular big year, and count the birds, some of which may actually be new for the year. Thus, on February 15^th, the first day of the GBBC this year, I added Bohemian Waxwing to my county big year list while putting together one of my lists for posting on the GBBC web site, and at the same time added it to my life list for Pennington County (SD). On February 16^th I added Ferruginous Hawk to my county big year list. After that (right now), due to the fact that a VERY big interruption is about to occur, I did not do much birding for the GBBC. As I write this post, I have tons of real interruptions to my birding, otherwise known as client deadlines that must be met before this very big interruption occurs.

What is this big interruption? When this blog post appears on the ABA blog, I will be birding in Honduras! Finally, after nearly 10 years of not feeling I could take the time (or spare the money after all those big years), I am interrupting my county big year and leaving the US to bird in a foreign land.

Maybe after I return, I’ll interrupt my blog posts about big year matters and talk about Honduras birding.

Short-eared Owl - one of my favorite county big year birds this year

BIG YEAR COUNTING IN A COUNTY

Surprise, surprise! Doing a county big year is a different thing than doing a state big year, and of course very different than an ABA big year. That is of course particularly true of a big year done in a county that is way up north, Pennington County in South Dakota. I’m not sure what the number of birds possible for a year is, because I do not have data on anyone else having done a big year in this county. I know, however, that the number of birds possible in one county, even a large county, in western South Dakota is much less than in all of the state, or in Texas, or in the ABA area.

On January 1st this year, two of us doing a fairly intense big day in Pennington County found considerably more than half of the likely winter birds in the county. Most of the birds that may be somewhere in the county right now that I have not already seen this year are probably here year round. In other words, there seems to be very little need to go birding right now to try to find the birds that are around but that I have not yet seen.

The lure right now after finding most of the likely regular winter county birds is the hypothetical wandering bird. That’s what gets me out into the snow and wind, sometimes. The problem is that South Dakota is not likely to get many wandering birds in the winter. The wandering Pacific birds (Brambling for example) or wandering Atlantic birds (Northern Lapwing) or wandering Mexican birds (like Brown Jays or Crimson-collared Grosbeaks) are not likely going to wander as far as South Dakota. What I can hope for as winter hangs around for a few more months are winter birds that are sometimes found in nearby counties but not in this one. Examples include Gray-crowned Rosy-finches that are found in most winters one county to the west (on a mountain top) or Common Ravens that are rarely found in the state but one was found last year to the north and west of Pennington County, or Pinyon Jays that in theory could wander to this county from other Black Hills counties.

Or maybe I could do the unexpected and relax about birding. I find that staring out my home office window at our bird feeding areas, watching the over two dozen wintering American Tree Sparrows, and photographing them, including short videos, is very satisfying. Sometimes I even forget for days on end that I am doing a big year. In fact I'm beginning to suspect that there will be very little that will be big about this year. Oddly enough, that does not particularly bother me. Of course when spring migration approaches, all that may change. I just cannot imagine being non-frenetic during warbler time.

In the meantime, I'm heading for Honduras in a couple of weeks. This will be my first international birding trip since I got hooked on doing these big years. It's not only that the big years drained all our funds away. They also did not allow me to look outside the U.S. Doing a county big year has given me freedom to expand my birding to non-big-year birding, and I can hardly wait!

One of the American Tree Sparrows in our yard

 

Open Mic: Reflections on a Big Year

 

At the Mic: Robert Ake

Ake, of Norfolk, Virginia, saw 731 species of birds in the ABA-Area in 2010.  He wrote about his Big Year at his blog, Bob's Birds and Things.

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   There’s no doubt that listing is or can become an obsessive behavior.  Getting new birds for a trip, day, year, or life is exciting; it makes the juices flow.  Doing a big year is perhaps the most obsessive of all, particularly if it’s for a large area such as the ABA region.  It comes at a cost both in money and in time.  If you choose to go all out and chase every rarity, it can consume all of your time and a large chunk of your money.  I think most people understand these consequences.

       Of course some birders feel anyone with enough resources can amass a big list and that no skill is really involved.   At the end of each talk I’ve given about my big year, there’s always an audible gasp when I relate the financial cost.  I’m sure those in the audience are thinking of better ways that they could have spent that money. But then we all don’t choose to spend our money and time the same way.

       On the matter of skill, very few of us are birding gurus, able to differentiate two similar species at the drop of a feather.  During a big year most of the rarities are found by others, then chased and added to the year’s list if the chase is successful.  Few birders actually find ultra-rarities during their pursuit.  And when it happens, as it did with me at Gambell when I found a Blyth’s Reed Warbler which would have been a first North American record had the Alaska committee accepted it, a group effort was involved in taking photos, haggling over details, and writing the manuscript.

      All of this listing and chasing is just plain fun.  As I said many times during my big year, “If I’m not having fun, I shouldn’t be doing it.”  I certainly do encourage taking good notes and photographs, working on bird identification skills, and teaching others good field techniques.  But in the end birding is such a broadly based activity that there’s plenty of room in it for everyone.  It’s really not necessary to force every birder into the same mold.  So let’s each of us enjoy our own compulsive behavior and allow other birders the same opportunity.

Open Mic: Why do a Big Year?

At the Mic: John Spahr

John Spahr, of Blue Grass, Virginia, is a member of the rarefied 700 Club, birders whose ABA-Area Big Years have topped 700 species in a calendar year.  John reached 704 species in 2010.  

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    This past December I had the opportunity to spend several delightful days in south Texas with most of the birders who have ever counted more than 700 birds while doing a North American “Big Year” -- notables like Benton Basham, Sandy Komito, John Vanderpoel, Bob Ake, Lynn Barber, Greg Miller, Dan Sanders, Al Levantin and Chris Hitt.  We socialized, shared anecdotes, viewed presentations, and birded many of the Rio Grande Valley “hotspots.” 

Image 1:  Big Year 700 Club members at Quinta Mazatlan, McAllen TX

(from left: Dan Sanders, Greg Miller, Chris Hitt, Benton Basham, Al Levantin, Sandy Komito, John Vanderpoel, Lynn Barber, Bob Ake, John Spahr. (Photo by Jeff Gordon)

    On my flights back to Virginia I ruminated on this experience and came away with several conclusions.  First, I had to admit that these were all better birders than I am.  Secondly, their motivation for doing a Big Year was perhaps different than mine.  They loved the chase, challenge and competition of encountering as many birds as they could in one calendar year, and I commend them for that level of enthusiasm.  

    As for me, I’m neither very competitive (to which my high school athletic coaches would attest) nor much of a “chaser” for strays or vagrants.  I do keep a cumulative life list but do not strive for annual, state or regional totals.  Then, why did I do an ABA Big Year in 2010?  The simple answer is that I wanted to learn more about North American birds and become a better birder. 

     I started birding in my mid teens.  For the next 3 decades my birding was episodic and casual and my skills average.  I would blame this mediocrity on distractions like higher education, family, and employment.  Although I know many superb birders who were not limited by similar obligations, which left me with the realization that I simply did not put in the time and effort to excel in this avocation of mine.

     When I finally decided to ramp up my birding skills in my 40s I occasionally opted for extremes, like visiting multiple foreign countries and up to three continents in one year, or participating in the World Series of Birding for two years.  I also became more active in local bird clubs and my state’s ornithology society, which afforded opportunities to give presentations and lead field trips, both locally and internationally.  From these experiences I learned much about bird identification, avian biology, taxonomy, systematics, as well the habitats and haunts of birds.  As a consequence I’ve since become emboldened to try almost anything to continue this learning curve. 

     So, when Bob Ake told me in the fall of 2008 that he was planning to do a Big Year in 2009 I immediately asked him to consider postponing it for one year so that I could join him in my first year of retirement.  To my surprise and good fortune he agreed.  Bob is one of those superior veteran birders who I had known for a few years and with whom I had done some quality international and Virginia birding.  He has the right mix of dedication, knowledge, experience and compulsion to plan and pull off a great Big Year. 

    So, for much of the first 9 months of 2010 I tagged along with Bob as we birded in our home state of Virginia, drove to and from Texas twice -- once via Florida, flew to Arizona, California and Alaska twice, chased “chicken birds” in Colorado, joined multiple pelagic trips off both coasts, and many places in between.  

Image 2:  Bob Ake and Florida Scrub Jay. Oscar Scherer State Park, near Osprey, FL

     Unfortunately, I had to disengage for several days each month to visit elderly and ailing parents and I also spent two weeks abroad in March.  Consequently, Bob’s list grew at a faster pace than mine.  By the time I left Gambell, Alaska, on September 8 my total was 683.  Bob remained three more days and left with 700.   The balance of the year our travel schedules intersected rarely as our goals diverged.  Bob decided to go for broke and ended 2010 with 731 species, while I was burning out and wanted more time at home.

    Were it not for my wife I would have been content finishing the year six birds shy of 700.  However, thanks to Nancy’s urging (shaming?) I made a final foray in December, a solo 8-day swing through South Dakota (Ross’s Gull), Arizona (Baikal Teal, Streak-backed Oriole), California (bean goose, Thayer’s Gull, Brown Shrike {#700}, Tufted Duck) and Calgary, Alberta, where I finished with White-winged Crossbills, Gray Partridges and a Snowy Owl for a final total of 704.

     Of course I was thrilled to exceed 700 species in one year, but this was neither my goal nor my reason for doing a Big Year.  As I stated, I simply wanted to become a better birder and learn more about NA birds.  I feel that I’ve attained those goals.  I became a better birder, in part, by simply birding day after day in both familiar and unfamiliar areas.  I also learned much from Bob’s accumulated experience, birding acumen and knowledge. 

    Before 2010 most of my North American birding was in the eastern U.S.  In doing the Big Year I gained extensive exposure to the west, including my first Pacific pelagic trips and my first visits to Alaska.  This let me encounter many birds with which I had little or no prior experience.  In fact, I added over 100 “lifers” during this year.  These new birds were more than a tick on a trip list.  They were all special experiences, many of which remain encoded as long-term memories.

    For example, my first Smith’s Longspurs in January at Stuttgart Municipal Airport, Arkansas, taught me about the limited winter range of this species.  As we flushed a small flock we were able to appreciate the buff bellies and diagnostic white lesser coverts.  Three weeks later in the San Rafael Grasslands of southeast Arizona I added another “lifer” with an even more limited winter range in the US, the Baird’s Sparrow.  A single bird furtively sneaking through the snow-dusted short grass prairie paused long enough to afford good looks.  I made sure to note the short streaks of the upper breast and the face pattern that distinguishes this from the only other Ammodramus sparrow here, the Grasshopper Sparrow.

Image 3:  Snow dusted San-Rafael Grasslands, AZ

     Speaking of Ammodramus sparrows, we had a humbling experience a few weeks earlier back in Texas.  An experienced birder friend led us to some grassy fields near Galveston, where we searched specifically for Le Conte’s Sparrow.  When a likely candidate popped up for a brief view we all exclaimed success.  Bob was even able to take a good photo that he posted on his daily blog.  Several experienced birders who later viewed that photo suggested (or exclaimed) that we blew the ID.  We reviewed the image and were chagrined to admit that our bird was not a Le Conte’s Sparrow but a Nelson’s Sparrow.  Fortunately, only four days later (and, for me, additional field guide study) we found several real Le Conte’s Sparrows at Estero Llano Grande State Park near Weslaco.  This time I made sure I noticed the white crown stripe and streaked nape of yet another “lifer.”  From this experience I learned that diligent observation must always trump expectation.  

     Alaska alone gave me 23 “lifers” and let me experience some fascinating ecosystems.  Ecosystems like the cliffs of St. Paul Island with its clinging colonies of alcids, puffins, kittiwakes and cormorants.  Or the Yupik village of Gambell on St. Lawrence Island, literally within sight of Russia, where I saw Asian vagrants like Stonechat, Rustic Bunting and Common Rosefinch.  For me the most impressive avian spectacle here was the flights of birds that skirted the pea gravel shores.  In one day we saw all four eiders, both guillemots, both puffins, both murres, all the jaegers, a few Ivory and Sabine’s Gulls and thousands (if not millions) of auklets with their rapid constant wing beats.  I learned that most of these birds are here because of the abundant phytoplankton that blossom in the nutrient-rich coastal waters under the prolonged sunshine, and that this in turn feeds the zooplankton eaten by the smaller auklets and by the small fish.  The puffins, murres and larger alcids then consume these fish.  A fascinating ecosystem, indeed.

Image 4:  Murres and Kittiwakes on the cliffs of St. Paul Island, Alaska

     Although not a total landlubber, prior to 2010 I had only a handful of pelagic trips under my belt.  By doing a dozen Big Year pelagics I got much more of an appreciation for yet another ecosystem, the open oceans.  Of course, I added more “lifers.”  However, what really impressed me was that these larids, tubenoses, alcids and phalaropes survive and thrive in a habitat of waves and wind.  I was awed learning that millions of least auklets, the size of house sparrows, can survive violent open ocean storms.  And, I learned that the name of the order Procellariformes comes from a Latin word procella, which means violent storm or tempest, a fit name for these families of albatrosses, petrels, and shearwaters.

    From Bob, I learned the value of persistence, the first time by doing three repeated hikes up Florida Wash in the Santa Rita Mountains of Arizona over several days in search of Rufous-capped Warbler.  We finally scored the third try.  A second example was the repeated two-mile hike up to Island Lake in the Ruby Mountains of Nevada in an attempt to locate Himalayan Snowcock, found nowhere else in the US but these mountains.  Both treks began in the predawn cold and darkness, the first on June 21 when, upon arrival, we stood at the margin of the snow-covered lake for nearly 3 hours without hearing or seeing a single snowcock.  August 17 we returned and repeated the ascent in slightly warmer temperatures (low 50’s).  Shortly after dawn we heard a distant long-billed curlew-like howl from the ridge to our east, almost certainly our target bird.  Nevertheless, we remained and continued to listen and watch, and were soon rewarded with two birds flying about 100 feet in front of us at eye level. 

        Other learning experiences include attempting to distinguish Hammond’s and Dusky Flycatcher by their songs, call notes and subtle field marks.  For me this required multiple attempts plus study with digital recordings and field guides.  

     In marathon ventures of this sort there will be a few counted birds to be identified by song/call only without sighting them, which is OK by ABA rules.  For me, two notable examples were the rapid staccato hoots of a distant boreal owl on Cameron Pass in the dark, freezing mid-April Colorado cold, and the hollow hoots of a flammulated owl on Mosquito Ridge near Foresthill, CA two months later.  Although I was pleased to add these distinct vocalizations to my list of “heard only birds” I now have the future challenge to return for visual confirmation before I count them as true “lifers.”  With this hobby of birding there’s always more study and learning to anticipate, which I heartily welcome.  

NEVERMORE

When I see the word “nevermore”, I immediately think of ravens, and as this year drew to an end, every time I thought of the Common Ravens that others had seen in South Dakota but I could not find, I increasingly thought “nevermore”. I assume that someday I’ll see one where they are normally found but ravens are usually not found in South Dakota. This year, however, in December there were sightings by knowledgeable people of individual ravens in the Pierre area in the central part of the state along the Missouri River, in the south-central part of the state along the river, and in the Black Hills. Dutifully I tried for each of these birds, in fact multiple times for each of them.  Nothing.  At least on a couple of the trips I had big black birds, but they were indisputably just crows. My last birding trip of the year, on December 31st, was yet another (my third) trip to look for the raven that was/is in the Black Hills. A lovely blue-sky day, with the fields and the spruce and pine forests blanketed with bright white snow, so not a lost day at all. Just no raven.

And so my South Dakota big year has ended. The previous record was 332 species for one year. This year, all four of us doing a serious big year here went over the previous record. It’s my understanding that the two top big year birders, two men who live in Pierre, got 352 species this year or possibly a few more. My final total was 350 species (my last bird of the year was a Lesser Black-backed Gull a couple of days ago), and I believe that the other birder got 334 species for the year. It has been a great year. Just like the other big years that I have done, I am so glad that I did it. Like the other years, I learned so much about the birds in my chosen geographic area, about the best birding areas of the chosen geographic area, and about the helpful birders in that area. While as in my other big years there were definite moments that I was not having fun, the fun and the adventure of the year greatly outweighed anything else.

So, looking ahead to 2013 and beyond, does the word “nevermore” apply to me and doing big years? I’m pretty sure I’ll never do another ABA big year, given the time and money and effort it took. I don’t have any plans to try again in South Dakota. But…I believe that I’m going to try my first county big year in 2013 in Pennington County, the county that includes Rapid City where I live and that extends out into the prairie to the east and westward across the Black Hills to Wyoming. It will be quite a change from my other bigger area big years of course. I’ll be able to come home each night that I go out birding during my county big year. I’ll be able to zip out in the early mornings to look for birds and return home the same day to work on client work, buy groceries, etc. It probably won’t be as challenging as my other big years. I plan to take time to paint birds again, for which I’ve had little time during my other big years. In other words, I’ll have more of a “normal” life.

I hope some of you that read this blog are planning to do a big year this year. If you are, I would love to get an email from you telling me some of your adventures ([email protected]). And if you are willing, I’d love to share your adventures with others on this blog.

Whatever you do in 2013, whether you call it a “big year” or whether you just give yourself some quality time to go birding, I wish each of you the birdiest and best new year!

(American Tree Sparrow - probably one of the birds I'll see very early in my new big year, probably in my yard)