Chasing Birds Across Texas: A Birding Big Year

This book was published in 2003 but I only recently came across it while browsing e-books for my Kindle. Yes, for those who love stumbling onto a book while crawling around the library stacks, you can browse electronic book shelves.

This is one man's account of his Big Year of birding. Mark T. Adams' day job  at the time was as an astronomer at McDonald Observatory in the Davis Mountains. In 2000, he had plenty of compensatory and vacation time so decided to take on a Big Year.  As birders know, a Big Year starts on January 1 at 12:00 a.m. and the birder works all year to find as many birds as possible in the wild within a defined area. The year ends on December 31 at  11:59 p.m. local time.

For some people their Big Year covers the entire United States and Canada but others limit their challenge to a region or state. While it is a personal challenge, there are rules: Each species counted must be on the ABA Checklist for the year of the challenge; you have to observe or hear the bird and positively be able to identify it for yourself. As Adams notes, it takes money, time, and stamina to successfully complete a Big Year. He estimates that he spent 1,050 hours over 174 days and made 32 trips away from his home turf, travelling 30,000 miles by car and 18,000 by airplane, to view 489 species in the year. According to his calculations, he saw more than 92% of the state's birds. Wow! I was exhausted just reading the book. Although Adams states that he did not set out to break the Texas record, established in 1995, his efforts ended up tying the record for a Texas Big Year (or any state or province, actually).

Painted Bunting, South Llano River SP

The book reads more like a diary rather than a story, with Adams highlighting the birds he observed, who birded with him or helped him find birds, and pointing out great birding locations across the state. Still, his chronicles fill the book with humor, as well as the drama of unproductive days, when he was outwitted by shy birds or just missed a rare bird that was only several feet away. Birding can be a lonely venture and Adams discusses hours spent sitting in swamps or near trees watching, or meticulously tracking and observing gull after gull to hopefully cull out the one that is different, allowing him to count another species. At the same time, he points out that birders are a friendly and welcoming group of individuals, many of whom invited Adams onto private property to find an elusive species or welcomed him into their homes after a day of birding. Adams also discusses his "nemisis" birds, those birds that everyone else finds but that elude you. For me, that bird was the Painted Bunting until I visited South Llano River State Park where they were in abundance.

Whooping Crane colt
Rockport

I don't claim to be even a middling-level birder, being much closer to novice than expert, so I was enthralled by the variety of species that he found, some easily and some that he truly had to chase. It was also interesting to have Adams chronicle his efforts to see birds that I consider fairly common to the area where I live. He had to make a special trip to Rockport, for example, to see the Whooping Cranes. Lesson being: you have to go where the birds are when they are there. Even more exciting was the list I've been able to make of places to bird that I was totally unaware of and now want to try. For example, a prime birding location is in the cane fields around the Zapata Library pond in Zapata. Apparently it is a well-known stop for seedeaters, those birds with conical shaped beaks. I don't think I've ever seen a White-collared Seedeater, the species that eluded Adams for quite some time. I would keep this book simply to refer to for the most likely places to see specific birds as well as the most likely times of the year to see them. The other fun thing was recognizing names of birders I know if only through Facebook bird groups and pages.

An appendix lists all of the birds he located in the state, providing a great checklist for anyone wanting to try a Big Year in Texas. Or, for me, a Big Decade as it will take me that long to find all of these birds. Adams also provides a detailed list of other species that were reliably reported in Texas during 2000 but not seen by him (and therefore not counted in his Big Year).

Black-throated Green Warbler
Warblers are especially hard to locate
and identify, being the ultimate "LBBs"
(little bitty birds)

While I've seen the movie, The Big Year, and read a couple of Big Year accounts, it was interesting to learn that Adams would go out to hunt a handful of specific birds. The movie makes it look almost random rather than well-planned. He planned his trips to catch migrants and other non-native birds when they would be in specific locations. He often drove and looked, then drove some more eighteen to twenty hours a day, staying in cheap motels to sleep for a few hours before getting up before dawn to chase more birds. Reading these accounts is the closest I'll will come to experiencing a Big Year!

A Big Year

Since I started birding, Jim keeps asking me if I plan to do a Big Year. Like every hobby, sport, or avocation birding has its own vocabulary and competitions. For birders the ultimate extreme sport is a Big Year. Casual birders and non-birders may have never heard this term, or even considered that birding could be a competitive sport--but it is.

During a Big Year, birders compete to see who can spot the most species of birds in North America during a yearlong quest that starts on January 1. The concept started in the 1930s and, while there are a few rules, the only referee is the ABA checklist (although there are often arguments among birders). Birders compete using the honor system and, according to some sources, can spend around $10,000 a month getting to birding locations to add species to their lists. This is different from life lists, the very noncompetitive activity where birders keep track of species they encounter over a lifetime.

With only 675 or so indigenous species of birds in North America, beating the record requires chasing rarities and vagrants--birds that show up where they don't belong or normally wouldn't be found. In the movie The Big Year, which stars Steve Martin, Owen Wilson, and Jack Black (and first brought the concept of extreme birding to a wider audience), it was said that winning was possible primarily because of a strong El Niño weather pattern that pushed birds off course from Asia, Europe, and South America. However it gets here, once the bird is in North America, it counts! 

Because of the weather pattern, and the fierce competition of 1998, some birders thought Sandy Komito's record of 745 species would be impossible to break, but don't tell that the the 2013 competitors. Birds have to be listed on the American Birding Association's checklist of 976 accepted birds (Sandy Komito claims his record is 748 because he also recorded 3 birds that were not, at the time, on the ABA checklist but now are). The list includes species that breed in North America, regularly visit here, stray here from other regions, and introduced species that are now part of the avifauna of North America. In the ever-changing world of birds, some species have been split and a couple of species have been added to the North American lists. 2013 competitor Neil Hayward recorded 746 birds plus 3 provisional birds as of December 29. He's waiting for a definitive ruling on his Big Year but regardless of how the ABA counts, it sounds to me like he broke a 15 year record! This is a big deal in the birding world.

Amazon Kingfisher
(Photo used under Creative Commons license.)

Not having the money, time, or "fire in the belly" to do a Big Year, I do still admit to feeling the lure of an exotic species that has shown up when I see posts on the Rare Bird Alert sites (see below). Could I rush down to the Rio Grande Valley to see the Amazon Kingfisher reported to be hanging out at a rest stop? It would only be a four hour drive each way. Gas up the car, Jim!

Then again, it's probably easier (and less expensive) to experience a Big Year vicariously by reading (or viewing) about other people's experiences. In addition to the film, a few good books include:

• The Big Year stars Owen Wilson as the all-time Big Year champ who sets out to beat his own record. A retired CEO (Steve Martin) and a "everyman" techie-type (Jack Black) are just as determined to kick him out of the nest. The movie is based on The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession by Mark Obmascik.

• Wild America: The Record of a 30,000 Mile Journey Around the Continent by a Distinguished Naturalist and His British Colleague by Roger Tory Peterson is not, per se, a Big Year story but it may have started the challenge. During a 100-day tour of America's wildlife refugees in 1953, Peterson and a friend observed 572 species. Three years later an Englishman broke that record following the same route and the competition began. 

• Kingbird Highway; The Story of a Natural Obsession That Got a Little Out of Hand  is Kenn Kaufamn's story of his Big Year. In 1973, at the age of 19, he headed out hitchhiking around the country to try and break a birding record that had stood for 15 years.

Two Grackles at Central Park, Austin

• Lynn E. Barber did a big year totally in the state of Texas and was able to count 522 bird species. In Extreme Birder: One Woman's Big Year she tells the story of doing the full Big Year and finding 723 species. 

A Big Year starts on January 1 and birders generally try to start the year with an exotic or hard to find bird so that you are off to a good start. No one wants to start their Big Year with a grackle. Me? I'm off to see Whooping Cranes and Sandhill Cranes to start my Big New Year. Happy New Year to all!

Note: Rare birds are reported on www.narba.orgwww.narba.org. A sub-site tracks rare birds in Texas http://www.narba.org/default.aspx/MenuItemID/105/MenuGroup/Home.htm.