The Big Year Podcast

• Season 3, Episode 8: Ellen and Jerry Horak's Big Years

  Welcome to another episode of The Big Year Podcast.  I’m  your host and guide to the world of Big Year birding, Robert Baumander.  It’s December 1, 2025 and you’re listening to the Season Three Finale. That’s right, l have been blathering on now for nearly three years.  When I began this podcast in January of 2023, with my big year birding mentor, Sandy Komito, I had no idea where this would lead. Actually, I’m not sure exactly where this has lead me, other than to accomplishing a desire since childhood to host my own talk show.  Back then I wanted to be the next Johnny Carson.  I could never have imagined that I’d end up a bird nerd talking to other bird nerds about their nerdy birding.  And I could have never done it without the wonderful community of birders I’ve met over the years.  I waited 51 years to finally find a group of people that I really felt comfortable around.  And that includes my family and work colleagues. There’s an old line, often attributed to Groucho Marx, saying he would never join a club who would have someone like him as a member.  I felt that way for most of my life.  But now I am grateful to be a member of this club.  November was another great month of chasing rarities here in southwestern Ontario.  October ended with a Western Cattle Egret, Gray Kingbird and Little Blue Heron.  And just as the calendar turned to November,  a Razorbill showed up near Tommy Thompson Park in Toronto.  I raced to Toronto the next day and joined a very large group of excited birders to see this rare visitor from the east coast. Next up were Cave Swallows.  These birds, who breed in Texas, have a weird migration route that brings them over Lakes Erie and Ontario.  We don’t see them every year, but they have been pretty dependable in the fall of late.  I drove to Point Pelee National Park to see them this year and were joined by Jerry and Ellen Horak, who needed them for their ongoing Canada Big Year.  Ellen will be joining me shortly, as her attempt at three consecutive Big Years is the subject of this episode.  A couple of weeks later another dependable fall rarity showed up, a Black-throated Gray Warbler. Easy on the west coast but only one or two show up here in Ontario each year.  This one was in Port Colborne near the shores of Lake Erie.  The next rarity was a Rufous Hummingbird.  Earlier in the month I had driven two hours north of my home in Brantford to see one coming to a back yard feeder, but was a day late and a tank of gas short, as there had been a winter storm the night before and it either left or didn’t survive the night.  Lucky for me, another one showed up closer to home, near Hamilton, and the homeowner was gracious enough to grant birders a visitation with their female Rufous Hummingbird.   November ended with a sighting of a Townsend's Warbler.  One had been seen in Norfolk in September and I was able to get a brief look at it, but no photos.  So the chance to see and photograph one was chirping to my ears.  With the help of local Brantford birders Bill and his daughter Sarah, we were able to find it and I got my photos.  The Townsend's Warbler was an Ontario Lifer, number 385.  And I added a Pacific Loon up in Barrie, to round off the month. As I mentioned last month, I had never been much of an Ontario lister each year, and had never seen more than 285 species, that being in 2022. So, though I am by no means doing an Ontario Big Year, I have been chasing quite a bit and with the rarities that have shown up this fall am at 297 in 2025.  So I think it will be a busy December for me, so I can hit at least 300 once in my life here in Ontario. A trip up to Algonquin Park later in the month might just get me there.  I’ll let you know next year.   So without any further ado, or even dipity doo, lets get on with the show and get to know one of my favorite Ontario birders, Ellen Horak, sans Jerry.       And that concludes part of one of the 3 year big year adventures of Ellen and Jerry. I met Jerry on January 1, 2021 in their front yard in Glen Morris Ontario.  I had just moved to Brant County and figured the best way to learn my new patch was to do a Brant County Big Year.  I was standing at the edge of their property, watching Evening Grosbeaks at their feeders.  It was a great bird for the county to start my big year.  Jerry came out and we had a nice conversation that morning and as the year went on Sue and I kept running into Ellen and Jerry any time we were chasing Brant County rarities.  Over the years we have become good friends, along with a number of other local birders.  I don’t have many friends, and am not much into socializing, but hanging out with birders is as close to therapy and friendship as one can get.  This podcast helps too.  And for that I am thankful.   I hope everyone has a great winter of birding, especially the winter listers.  I’ll be back in 2026 with Ellen and perhaps Jerry to look back on their Canada Big Year.  But the  first episode of season 4 will be a sequel of sorts, to my talk with Andrew Keaveny, and his 2012 Ontario Big Year.  He was in competition with another young birder, Josh Vandermeulan.  You’ve heard from Andrew but next season you’ll get to hear ”The Rest of the Story.”  

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• Season 3, Episode 7: Liam Ragan’s Victoria Island, BC Big Year

  It’s a rainy day in Birderland. It’s October 30, 2025 and I am writing this on night before Halloween.  I won’t claim that this is going to be a spooky episode, but there are one or two scary birding stories from our guest Liam Ragan.  Liam broke the record for a Vancouver Island, British Columbia Big Year, but beyond that, he does a lot of fine conservation work out west, for the Rocky Point Bird Observatory.  His job gave him the freedom to travel around the island while also allowing him to go after his Vancouver Island Big Year record. But enough about Liam.  Time to get back to me. As you may have ascertained, I just love talking about birds and myself, not necessarily in that order.  If I didn’t cut out all of my personal stories, these podcasts would be twice as long, and nobody wants that.  That being said, and the reason for a two month gap between episodes, is that I have been on the road birding nearly every day since the end of August.  On August 29, I finally got my first Wilson’s Warbler of the year at Long Point and later that afternoon a Buff-breasted Sandpiper at in the sod fields of Brant County.  A week later I was back at the Long Point Field Staton for a very rare Townsend’s Warbler. That same afternoon I rushed to Staynor, Ontario for a Ruff. All the while I was planning my trip out west to see the Whooping Crane migration for the first time, in Saskatchewan.  That had been a dream trip of mine since beginning birding in 2012.  I had seen Whooping Cranes where they winter in Texas, in Wood Buffalo National Park, where they breed in Northern Alberta and in between, a couple of others in Florida and Michigan.   Finally, on September 30, 2025, after a four day drive, I saw my first flock of migrating Whooping Cranes in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, just north of Saskatoon.  I met up with my friend Gavin McKinnon and his birding group and we all got to enjoy these marvelous, but endangered birds.  I then headed down to Grasslands National Park, but made a stop in Swift Current for a Broad-billed Hummingbird that had been visiting feeders and Josie’s back yard.  This bird went north instead of south and was enjoying the cool autumn weather of southern Saskatchewan.  Alas, it’s fate is unknown, as it likely never found its way back to the southern United States.  The next morning I got to Grasslands National Park as the sun was coming up and after an hour found what might have been the last remaining Burrowing Owl in the park.  The rest had headed south for the winter.  Back in Ontario, I’ve been seeing fall specialties like Red Phalarope and Nelson’s Sparrow and chasing rarities like Purple Gallinule, Western Cattle-Egret and Little Blue Heron.     With those birds I surpassed my best Ontario species count ever.  We also had two super rare birds, a Graces Warbler, which I was a day late for in Algonquin Provincial Park and a Gray Kingbird in Chatham-Kent.  I wasted no time with that one and raced down the highway to see it.  A new Lifer for both my Ontario,(386) and Canada,(496) lists.   I am exhausted from all the driving, chasing and even just recounting of these stories, not to mention editing this very podcast.  So, it’s time to relax, clear your mind of birds and chases and lists and such and listen to Liam Ragan’s story of his Vancouver Island Big Year, where he will recount his stories of birds and chases and lists and such on this very podcast.  He even has a few scary tales from the west coast of Canada, as is fitting for a Halloween episode.  So, Happy Halloween, happy birding, and may the Ravens and crows stay away from your eyeballs, while you enjoy yet another episode of The Big Year Podcast. Links: https://friendsofmidway.org/explore/wildlife-plants/birds/albatrosses/laysan-albatross/wisdom-the-albatross/ https://www.birdability.org https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/06/21/that-time-the-us-almost-went-to-war-with-canada-218881/

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• Season 3, Episode 6: On the Road, Again

  It was the perfect way to begin The Big Year Podcast On the Road, Again, with discovery of a very rare bird, right here in my backyard, near Cambridge, Ontario.  A young birder by the name of Nathan Hood found a Spotted Redshank, a rare visitor lost on its way back from Eurasia.  Almost every birder I know in Ontario, from within 2 to 3 hours drive, has shown up to see this amazing rarity.  It’s September 1, 2025 and I t's hard to believe summer's nearly over and that fall migration is really underway.  It certainly got started in a big way with this Spotted Redshank.  While I was there, I talked to a couple of birders, including Nathan Hood, who found the bird and a local Waterloo birder who lives close by.  He told me he’s not a chaser but couldn't pass up seeing an incredible rarity, so close to home.  This is only the third or forth sighting of this bird in Ontario.  It was also a big deal for those birders doing doing Big years, including Ellen and Jerry Horak doing their Canada Big Year and Jude Szabo, on his Ontario Big Year.  They were there early in the morning, long before I arrived.  I was glad to have made it by late morning and get to see, photograph, record videos, and talk about this amazing bird with many of my birder friends.  But, before we head back out on the road, just a quick update on me.  And no, it’s not about the bloody Wilson’s Warbler.  I finally saw a juvenile at the Long Point Field Station on August 29, so we can finally put that one to rest.  However, about a week ago I was set upon by an angry, vicious mob of… Yellowjacket Wasps. These wasps are a predatory social species of wasps, recognized by their small size and black and yellow striped abdomen and painful venomous sting. The morning began, innocently enough.  Our neighbors were replacing their fence and Sue asked me to remove a birdhouse before the workers tore it down.  I trotted out with a screwdriver bit on my drill and proceeded to take the retched old bird house off the fence.  As I removed the second screw, the birdhouse fell to the ground.  What I didn’t know was that instead of birds nesting in the house, it had become a Yellowjacket home.  They were not happy.  When I reached down to pick up the old bird house the enraged wasps attacked me.  I began yelping for help as my hands were repeatedly stung.  Wasps, unlike bees do not leave their barbed stinger in your skin, so they can sting you multiple times.  Once the first wasp stings you it releases a pheromone, alerting other wasps to engage in the attack.  I tried to run away from them, screaming, “Why are they after me?” as Sue tried to calm me, but I was, as the old saying goes, “running around like a chicken with its head cut off.”  Now the wasps were stinging my ankles through my socks as I was desperately trying to swat them off.  I probably got a bonus sting on my hand from that maneuver.  Finally, the wasps had made their point and went back to regroup with the others and find a new base of operations from which to strike.  I quickly took two Benadryl, and lay down, hoping that would work and I’d be better in a few hours.  No such luck.  Fifteen  years ago, I was bit by an ant in Florida and went into anaphylactic shock.  When returned home my doctor prescribed an EpiPen.  I’ve had to carry it with me at all times since then, getting a new one every 18 months or so.  And I had never needed to use it.   Many people, over time, forget to get fresh EpiPens or just figure if they haven’t needed it in a decade, why bother with the expense.  My wasp attack is why.  Around 15 minutes after the battle ended, I started to feel swelling in my mouth.  Not good!  My throat felt like I had just eaten a big spoonful of peanut butter.  I reported my condition to Sue and she rightly said, “That’s not good.”  It was time.   I was getting pretty agitated, as was the case first time this happened.  I warned Sue I was going to be a bit crazy.  Well, relative to how crazy I normally am.  I sent Sue to grab my EpiPen and she handed it to me.  I held it near my leg and froze.  I gently as possible told Sue she had better do it.  She did it.  After a sharp sting, no worse than anything the wasps did to me, the magical elixir began pumping through my veins and Sue went off to call the ambulance, with me chattering at her, impatiently from the other room. The fire department arrived first, followed by the paramedics.  They shot me full of Benadryl and off we went to Brantford General Hospital. After a brief assessment, I was brought quickly into a treatment room, since they would rather I not suffocate in their triage department in front of multiple witnesses.  I was taken care of by a very nice nurse, whom I assume worked their way through college waiting tables at Red Lobster, since every time I answered a question, they responded with “perfect,” as though I had picked the chef’s favorite dish from the menu.  After a doctor was consulted, off screen, I was given the obligatory steroid injection,(lucky for me I am not scheduled to be competing in any sanctioned sporting event), and spent the rest of the day in my hospital bed, trying to sleep, but was continuously annoyed by one guy who was watching a video on his phone, with the volume loud enough to be heard throughout the room, another guy talking loudly on his phone right next to me, and the moaning guy on the other side, who screamed every time they tried to stick a needle in his arm. Suffice it to say, I survived yet another medical ordeal,(I have a standing reservation at the Brantford General Hospital emergency room), and I am slowly recovering.  The itchy, scratchy rash has finally gone away, and now its a matter of time before the wounds heal.   Enough about me.  So, let’s now head out on the road, again.  Presented in no specific order, sit back, relax, don’t let the wasps bite and enjoy the stories of some of the birders who were kind enough to let me distract them from the serious game of spot the warbler, during, mostly, Spring Migration.

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• Season 3, Episode 5: 2012 Ontario Big Year with Andrew Keaveny

  Welcome all to The Big Year Podcast.  I’m Robert Baumander and you’re, well, you.  It’s the end of July, 2025, and you know what that means?  Certainly an all new episode of the Big Year podcast, naturally, but mostly, we’re smack-dab in the heat of the summer and the lack-of-birds blues.  In July and August, it's more about the butterflies and bees than the birds in the trees.   It's hot, humid, and clammy.  You get soaked with sweat and barely see or hear any birds.  Nothing makes you look forward to fall migration more than the heat of July and the dog days of August.  However, butterflies, bees, fireflies, and dragonflies abound.  So slow down, look down, and you'll see there are many tiny creatures all around. And before you can learn what all of them are, it will be time for the shorebirds and warblers to return, fall migration will be in full swing and you can't forget all about those sting-y, bite-y bother-y bugs. Now, that is not to say I didn’t seen any new birds in July.  The first week or so was pretty good, as I finally got to see that Brown Pelican.  Last month I was grousing about the fact that I had missed it in Niagara-on-the Lake.  But, wouldn't you know it, a week later it showed up on the shores of Lake Erie.  I raced down there the next morning, and within an hour, I finally got to see, photograph and enjoy my first Brown Pelican in Canada. A rarity indeed. That same day in Chatham Kent, I got to see a Lark Bunting.  Not unheard of in Ontario, but still pretty rare in any given year.  A few days later, I went to see a Short-billed Dowitcher and a Stilt Sandpiper in London, Ontario.  But since July 11th, no new birds have shown up and I can now just sit, wait and hope for those fall migrants, including that dastardly, fancy yellow warbler with the black cap called the Wilson's Warbler.  Maybe it should be called the Black-capped Warbler, or the How-the-heck-did-I-not-see-that-Warbler in the Spring Warbler. Anyway. Enough griping. This month's episode has been a long time coming and it is dedicated to my birding pal, Andrew Keaveny.  Oh, Andrew, Andrew, Andrew.  Why the lament?  Because according to my iMessage history, Andrew and I actually recorded this episode back in late February, or early March of 2023.  Sometime afterward, as I was going through podcast recordings to edit, I couldn't find that specific recording.  So I went on to other projects, recorded new ones,(didn't lose any of those), and occasionally searched my hard drives, iPads, iPhones, and sound recorder apps, looking for the original recording. After a while, I just forgot all about it, as you do.  Sorry, Andrew.  Then, late last year, someone asked me about Andrew's episode that was already over a year overdue, and I went back to searching, thinking that it had to be somewhere, right?  Once again, I was searching old iPhones, hard drives, my sock drawer, and under the bed where I found only fluff and dust, which, I'm told, my brain is mostly filled with. Again, no original recordings.  Again, sorry, Andrew.  Oh, and who is this Andrew Keaveny, you ask?  Most Ontario birders will have heard of him, but you haven't had the pleasure, Andrew is a long time Ontario birder, world traveler and guide, one of the most knowledgeable birders I know, an all-round swell guy, and a good birding friend of mine, whom I met way back in 2012. I was doing my ABA Big Year, and Andrew was doing his Ontario big year.  The first time we met, I learned that he knew Sue from when he was just knee high to a Canada Goose, birding with his parents at Colonel Samuel Smith Park in Toronto.  Well, maybe he wasn't that young.  Since then, we have run into each other often while out birding or at rare bird sightings all over Ontario.  As well as at Colonel Samuel Smith Park in Toronto, where we always try to show up for new park species to add to our coveted Sam Smith Park list.  Not that anyone’s counting, but Andrew sits second all time with 256 species for the park and I am just behind him in forth place with 242.  Okay, yes, we’re all counting. So back to the long and winding road to this episode.  In February of this year, I messaged Andrew, tail firmly between my legs, microphone in hand, to ask him to please, please rerecord the episode.  Unfortunately, he was under the weather at the time, and I never did get back to him about my podcast Mulligan.  Again, fluff and dust for brains.  I'd be right at home at a teddy bear's picnic, if you get my meaning. But, I digress.  Fast forward to July of 2025.  Well, actually May, when out of the blue, he, Andrew himself, messaged me asking for a donation to his Bird-a-Thon.  I said I was happy to do it, but in exchange, we had to finally complete what we had started over two years earlier.  Andrew was game, and this episode is the result.  It's certainly more timely and up to date than if I had just found and presented the nearly two and a half year old recording to y'all.  Anyway, I think the episode turned out much better than the original, as parts of it were going stale.  Not that the original was a stinker, by any means, but I certainly enjoyed catching up with Andrew and reliving some fun memories from the past and talking about birding in the present.  So as they say in the south, y'all just kick back, grab yourself a Long Island iced tea, sit a spell, take your shoes off, and enjoy The Big Year Podcast with me and Andrew Keaveny.    

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• Season 3, Episode 4: Ingrid and Ethan Whitaker's Lower 48 Big Year

  Happy Canada Jay Day.  It’s July 1, 2025 and for most people it’s a holiday and a chance to  barbecue, picnic, get away from the house and watch or set off fireworks after dark.  For birders,(those poor souls that have to work for a living during the week), it’s a day to celebrate birds and go birding with friends, family, or just get away on your own and and listen to the summer breeding birds in a quiet forest, park or glen.  As I write this, I’m sitting on a quiet bench in Long Point, Ontario at the Long Point Bird Banding Demonstration Station at what they call the Old Cut.          Since last we visited, a lot has gone on in the birding world here in Southwestern Ontario.  I still have yet to see a Wilson’s Warbler, but hopefully fall migration will bring one my way.  Aside from that, the last month has been good to me.  I saw a Laughing Gull in Toronto and Sue and I found, and listened to an Acadian Flycatcher in the oddly named Skunk’s Misery.  The other amazing happening, has been an eruption of American White Pelicans that have refused to fly north and west to their breeding grounds.  They’ve been spotted all over southwestern Ontario.  The big news for the local birders, was that 9 of those pelicans are visiting us where I live in Brantford.  They first appeared on the Grand River at Waterworks Park, only minutes from home. And happily, this batch of, perhaps bachelor pelicans, has stuck around and may, verily, spend the summer with us on The Grand.      I only added 11 birds to my year list in June, many of those I should have seen during migration.  But not that sinker, the Willson’s Warbler.  Look, I can understand missing a Worm Eating Warbler,(and yes,I confess I missed that one too), but for Audubon’s sake, really, one of the easiest spring warblers, the bright yellow bird with the black yarmulka, described by American ornithologist Alexander Wilson in 1811!  And it’s a bird that seems to have little fear of peoples as it hunts bugs and such in the outsides of branches, like dogwoods, in the spring.  So yeah, am I bitter?  Heck yeah!       Okay, take a deep breath. Center yourself.  Breath. It’s just one bird.  Not like I missed a Brown Pelican.  Oh yeah, a Brown Pelican showed up in the Niagara region this past Monday. I raced to Niagara-on-the Lake, searched the buoy it had been on, but the heat haze made it impossible to be sure I was looking at it, maybe it was there, maybe it wasn’t. By the time I was able to see the  buoy clearly in the afternoon, it was long gone.  But missed opportunities lead to future celebrations when you finally do see the bird you’ve been searching for all year.  Your patience,(and mine),may one day be rewarded.      Now on to the show.  My guests are a birding couple from Maine, Ingrid and Ethan Whitaker.  Ethan set the record,(since broken), for a Maine Big Year on his own and then Ingrid got into the Big Year spirit so they could see the country, maybe see 600 species of birds, and, for some reason, a giant ball of twine.  They weren’t chasing any records, but were more successful than they ever imagined when they set out on their Lower 48 Big Year.  Please enjoy as Ethan and Ingrid Whitaker tell the rest of the story.      Next month, we’ll be venturing back in time to the year 2012 and returning to Ontario.  At the beginning of that year I was a 51 yr old, less than novice birder and had started an ABA Big Year on a wing and a prayer.  My guest, however, not even half my age at the time, was an experienced and knowledgeable birder and was setting out on his Ontario Big Year.  It ended up being a battle worth of Kenn Kauffman and Floyd Murdoch back in 1973.  Suffice it to say, my guest, Andrew Keaveny, played the part of Kenn Kauffman.  During the course of 2012 I got to know Andrew very well, and often I was able to follow up on his finds and get birds I may not have seen otherwise.  We have become good birding friends over the years and it will be nice to finally hear his story.      Once again, I wish I could thank everyone personally for listening.  You could do me a big favour by following, subscribing, liking and commenting, wherever it is you listen to my voice over the ethereal land of podcasts.  Also, please tell all your birding friends and family to come have a listen.  Won’t you?  

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