An Idea…

On New Year’s Day, I saw the then-famous White Wagtail of Door County. At the time, I thought it a portentous event: I could start a Wisconsin Big Year, or even a Milwaukee County Big Year, during which I would challenge myself to overcome my total from last year. I felt great! New year, new goals of birding set! New destinations, here I come!

Every thing was going well, until a deer decided to play chicken with my car…

Needless to say, that proved more momentous and traumatic. Now, six months on, whenever I see a deer by the side of the road, I am compelled to yell at it to stay out of the road. “You stay there, Deer! Go back home into the forest!” Driving at night in remote areas of the state have been difficult.

Since then, my birding has had fits and starts. I went to China and Korea in late winter, and Colorado in spring. (That adventure is described in more depth under “Birding Reports”.) Charleston is coming up. Florida and Texas are set for later this year. Costa Rica is a possibility towards the end of the year, but travel plans remain up in the air. On paper, at least, the rest of the year promises to hold more adventures and, just as important, birds.

Yet, I am in a funk. More of a malaise or laziness, I guess, but still a funk. I have wanted to maintain a blog on a regular basis and upload photos as soon I was done birding for the day. As I have the tendency to take more photos than I need to, I find myself not wanting to sort and process them. As I shoot in RAW, going through and, after post-possessing and editing, converting them to JPEG has been tiresome. I am still processing photos from my October, 2024, trip to Madagascar and South Africa.

On top of this, as I have cut back on birding this year, in comparison to last year, the continuous notifications or “pinging” of birding updates on social media (new sightings, rarities, chitchat, etc.) has been overwhelming. Birders can be a rather chatty and opinionated crowd.

Before starting this blog, I was more active on IG with frequent posts featuring photos and book reviews. I even tried to start a YouTube channel to upload some videos from birding excursions. Those platforms, too, have become tedious. I want to avoid blaming “algorithms”, but the cliche may be right. Most videos and photos follow hackneyed formulae which do not appeal to me.

On top of this, I have been trying to save for a house. I don’t need to go into detail on how exciting that process is in today’s market.

Writing this blog post now, I am not surprised that, considering all of these factors, I have been on a break. Self-imposed “birding exile” may be more apt. This has only been compounded with reducing outdoor time during the summer, a traditionally low-performance season, so to speak, for avian activity in southeastern Wisconsin.

While this may continue for the rest of the summer, however, I am optimistic.

Recently, we met some friends from our Madagascar trip to catch up. As we reminisced about our trip and latest updates, they discussed their upcoming plans to visit Brazil, particularly the Pantanal. I didn’t feel envious or jealous: I felt inspired. I have all of these places to go, but time and money will always elude me…at least for now.

After hearing their travel plans, I told them about my crazy idea for (hopefully) next year.

A Lower 48 Non-Chasing Big Year!

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To anyone who has read Mark Obmascik’s book “The Big Year”, or has at least seen the movie with Steve Martin, Owen Wilson, and Jack Black, one of the unwritten rules in birding is to not announce plans to do a Big Year. What if I don’t succeed in my goals? What if my competitors find out?

I certainly felt the same way when I first dreamed of doing a Big Year after learning about the challenge. It would be amazing to set a record and be forever memorialized on Wikipedia.

After much thought, I decided that was foolish. Who cares if someone knows if I’m doing a Big Year? Isn’t the point to push each other to not only see and notice birds, but to raise awareness and inspire others to protect them? At least, that’s what the naive, optimistic kid in me thinks.

I am not looking to break a record, as I am still working. I want to get out there and explore.

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What exactly is a “Lower 48 Non-Chasing Big Year”?

A Big Year is typically a self-imposed challenge to see as many birds within a set geographical location over a calendar year. (Some birders may wait for a Leap Year to get an extra day, but let’s be honest, will those additional 24 hours really help?) Many people in the USA, I would imagine, try to do a Big Year either within the American Birding Association (ABA) area, or in the contiguous forty-eight United States. To get the record, only those fortunate (foolish?) enough can drop everything at a drop of a hat and crisscross the country or continent to see or “list” an ABA Level 5 rarity in Maine, spend the next week in Hawaii, and, upon receiving word of another “mega” in an eBird email alert, Alaska, jet off to the Arctic Circle.

As one would guess, time and money are limiting factors here. For those of us who are not retired, work is an obstacle. The environmental impact from fossil fuels is a real consideration in the age of Climate Change.

Hence, I will focus on the “Lower 48” for my 2026 challenge.

My plan would be to emphasize seeing and documenting those birds seen within the boundaries of the Lower 48 on a yearly basis. If a “mega” or an ABA Level 5 rarity makes an appearance near where I am at that time, I may go and see it. If it’s on the other side of the country or in a remote area, I will defer. Birds are fickle; no one can predict if it’ll stay one hour or one week. Why should I gratuitously expend resources?

As I am thinking aloud here, I do want to travel to Hawaii and Alaska next year, so I may need to rethink my geographical designation. There may be some places in Canada to visit, such as Newfoundland and Labrador, where the Steller’s Sea-Eagle had been residing. For now, I will tentatively plan to stay relatively local on the continent.

That said, I will focus primarily on my home state of Wisconsin, where I can expect to see 250-300 birds. I may chase within Milwaukee County, but even then, I would like to do it responsibly and not drive myself crazy.

For transportation, I will look into different modes, but I can predict that it’ll be done by car and airplane. Using fuel-efficient and more environmentally-friendly methods would be helpful, but those options may be in short supply in some areas.

This would all be done while I am balancing my hobby with work. It’ll be hard, but it’s possible.

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I decided to write this out for two reasons.

1) I want to become more engaged with other birders in the ABA area and around the world.

When I started birding during the Pandemic in Philadelphia, I went alone. In my little 2012 Mini Cooper, I traveled around Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey. Though I am not a fan of the East Coast for various reasons, I enjoyed the nature outside the urban areas. Bombay Hook, Forsyth, Cape May, John Heinz, Rehoboth Beach—even now, I can visualize these locations and remember many of the birds I saw.

For me, birding is at once a solitary pursuit and a social event. Although this may seem contradictory, it’s a reality many of us birders recognize. I like to go into the woods or the lakefront and watch the birds by myself, but I am happy to see others on the trail and strike up a friendly conversation. In some situations, especially when there are large groups of people, does the enjoyment of birding become compromised, but those events are rare. I really do enjoy learning from others, and hopefully others would enjoy the same from me.

2) I want people to reconsider what a Big Year means.

In writing out my plan, I am not exposing some secret. We have all thought about doing this at some point, so why not talk about it? It’s not like we’re going to win huge endorsements from the leading bird-seed companies (I borrowed that line from “The Big Year”) or sign lucrative contract to guide birders on international trips. Those would be nice perks, but the vast majority of us want to get outdoors, connect with other birders, and, most importantly, see birds. If someone else is inspired to do something similar to what I have proposed, I’m happy. (At least, please give me some credit, haha.)

One aspect of a Big Year that is problematic, at least to me, is “listing”. Ask any birder, and they will at some point tell you his or her life list. While this is a great tool in tracking observations and remembering trips—Oh, I saw the Malagasy Sacred Ibis in the river delta outside of Mahajanga, Madagascar—the action of listing, unfortunately, reduces the bird to an object to be checked off. Listing also places emphasis on a piece of paper or digital screen. I can say I identified and added the bird to my list, but what did I learn about it?

I don’t want to do that. I propose saying I’ve “documented” a bird rather than “checked off a box”. I want to emphasize the bird as a living animal than a checkmark. I would like to learn about its natural history and role in the environment. I want to actually see and observe the bird.

These are lofty but achievable goals.

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For now, this “Lower-48 Non-chasing Big Year” is still an idea. As the year proceeds past the halfway mark, I will work out details and strategize travel plans.

In expressing this proposal, I also hope to meet some of you, my fellow birders or bird-curious readers, along the way. Please feel to shoot me a message about your thoughts and suggestions. I’d love to hear back from you.

And, yes, I promise to be more diligent in my blogging.

As always, good birding!