New Year, New Blog, New Adventures
Welcome to my blog! I’m new to this, so, please bear with me.
I’m starting the year with some Big News: I’m doing a Big Year! Now, don’t get too excited…I’m doing a Kerr County Big Year. I’m not a competitive person, but I don’t think that matters much, I doubt anyone else is doing the same thing.
For those of you not familiar with birding, let me tell you a bit about a big year. A “real” Big Year is a birding competition, the goal being to see as many bird species as possible in a year. In the 1930’s, thanks to the publication of the first modern field guide by Roger Tory Peterson, people began keeping better logs of the birds they were seeing. By the 50’s, serious birders were actively completing big years with numbers just shy of 600 species. That’s quite a feat for an era before the constant contact of cell phones and Rare Bird Alerts on Facebook! In 1969, the American Birding Association (ABA) set up some rules and defined the area for a North American Big Year. In 1998, three birders had a particularly grand big year, which prompted a book, The Big Year by Mark Obmascik, and then a movie starring Jack Black, Steve Martin, and Owen Wilson. For the record, the movie is very loosely based on the true events, but still a fun flick, and you don’t have to be a bird nerd to enjoy it. I also recommend the book. ANYWAY, spoiler alert, Sandy Komito broke his previous record of 722 that year with a whopping 745, later revised to 748! That record held until Neil Hayward had a total of 749 in 2013, and while I haven’t seen the offial counts for 2016, I already know that number has been beaten.
Of course, you don’t have to do the ABA area. State big years are much more manageable for many birders. Or if you want to go really big, you could do a world big year! In 2015 Noah Strycker (from the US) saw 6,042 birds worldwide, that is more than half of the known species. In 2016 Dutch birder Arjan Dwarshuis had beat that number by Nov 4, and went on to finish with 6,833. Whew.
Many birders add their own twist to their big year. In 2014 Dorian Anderson did his Biking for Birds big year, he cycled over 17,800 miles through 28 states while raising $50,000 for conservation efforts. He saw 617 species, all on bike, foot, or kayak. And I’m shamelessly throwing it out there, if you want to hear more about Mr Anderson’s impressive story, please join us at Wings Over the Hills (Fredericksburg TX) the last weekend of April, where he will be our keynote speaker, as well as leading field trips.
So, I’m keeping it fairly small this year (stay tuned for some very big travel news!), and focusing on Kerr County. We have some of the best birds Texas has to offer right here! EBird.org shows, historically, 304 species for the county. I’ve set my goal at 210. So that means I better get busy! I camped out on New Years Eve with some friends near Ingram, so I woke up and began birding right away on the first. I made it until 3:30 before the cedar pollen got the best of me. I ended up with 43 species for the day, a slow start, but still something!
Sorry, I’m not a great photographer, but you get the point!
Egyptian Goose, Lesser Scaup, Pied-billed Grebe, Double-crested Cormorant, Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, Black Vulture, Osprey, Sharp-shinned Hawk, Cooper’s Hawk, American Coot, Killdeer, Spotted Sandpiper, Eurasian Collared-Dove, White-winged Dove, Mourning Dove, Great Horned Owl, Belted Kingfisher, Green Kingfisher, Golden-fronted Woodpecker, American Kestrel, Eastern Phoebe, Carolina Chickadee, Black-crested Titmouse, Carolina Wren, Bewick’s Wren, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Eastern Bluebird, Northern Mockingbird, European Starling, Orange-crowned Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Song Sparrow, Lincoln’s Sparrow, Northern Cardinal, Red-winged Blackbird, Great-tailed Grackle, House Finch, Lesser Goldfinch, American Goldfinch, House Sparrow