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It’s my birthday and I’ll bird if I want to bird if I want to. You would bird too – if it was you.
Welcome to the birthday edition of the Big Year Podcast. Well, the only thing that makes it a birthday edition is, well, because it’s my birthday. I’m Robert Baumander and I’m 66 years old today. Do you like numbers? Of course, we all do. So, here’s a little birthday math for you. I was born on the 16th in 1960, and 1+9+6+0 is 16. How about that. Hey, it’s my birthday, and I’ll add if I want. As birders, how do you celebrate your birthday? Me, I watch the backyard birds while sipping a morning coffee, then hope that my birthday wish of a rare bird alert comes true. So far, not so much.
Any hoo I’ve spent much of the dog days of summer birding in my back yard and building a mini green house and rock garden. And lots of baby birds are fledging from the trees. Just this week, there was a baby Downy Woodpecker, baby Common Grackles, and House Sparrows. I’ve seen young Baltimore Orioles, Northern Cardinals, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks and even a recently fledged Black-capped Chickadee.
Out in the wilds of Southwestern Ontario there are still moments of excitement to be found, as a couple of rarities dropped in for a visit during the past few weeks. In Hamilton Harbour, along with a group of excited birders, I was able to enjoy watching a Brown Pelican. Very rare sighting for Ontario, and in fact I only saw my very first one last year along the Niagara River in Fort Erie. Perhaps this is the very same bird. The other great find was even more personal, a Eurasian Collared-Dove, right here in Brantford. Again, I had only ever seen one in Ontario, way back in 2018. That’s how rare they are in these here parts. A couple of weeks ago our very own Eurasian Collared-Dove showed up in a local back yard and the homeowner was gracious enough to allow visitors to come see it.
So, what have we learned over the years from The Big Year Podcast? Well, the life of a birder seems to be long drives followed by brief but beautiful experiences in the middle of nowhere looking for a bird that might not be where you hoped it would be or might not show up at all. Someone once said, birding is not always about the birds you see, but often the places where the birds take you. The places you might never have seen if not for the birds.
Yes, there is more to birding than Big Year Birding. Yes, there is something to be said about the thrill of the chase and the discovery of one of the rarest birds you’ve ever seen. But then, once the Big Year is over, there is the return to the purest form of birding. Just you, your binoculars and the birds, somewhere in the woods or a park or even, where I sit right now, in your own backyard. Well, I’m not actually in your backyard, but you get the idea.
For me, and many others,(especially those of us with ADHD), birding quiets the mind,(when not chasing rarities), and lets you take a step back from the noise and chaos of life. The quiet of the woods, only broken by birdsong is what makes birding truly special. It’s not the bird, it’s the journey. Well, sometimes it is the bird.
So, was that too much? I mean, really, that just sounded a little too sentimental for me. I was trying to end on a lighter note and I just sounded like I was trying to be profound. Well, maybe I wasn’t trying to sound profound, so I hope it didn’t seem over the top. I think I really did from the heart. Well, the brain. Certainly not the heart. The heart can’t do anything more than pump blood and get clogged arteries. It’s the brain where thoughts and words come from. Sorry for waxing a bit philosophical, but hey, it’s my birthday and I’ll wax if I want to.
And with that as I sit here, enjoying my backyard birds, about to head out to go birthday birding with Sue, then for a free birthday latte at Starbucks, let’s meet our guest for today’s episode:
Tarik Shahzad is a Chicago birder who broke the Cook County Big Year record in back to back years. We recently spoke about his Big Years and birding along the shores of Lake Michigan.
Enjoy!