Jan 1, 2022 won’t be just any New Year’s day for me; it will be day one of a passion project more than three years in the making, my Ontario Big Year. A Big Year is where one attempts to see as many species of birds as possible in one calendar year in a specific area. In 2022, I’ll be shooting to break the current provincial Big Year record of 347 species. See my first blog post where I outline my early plans for the Big Year.
Seeing more than 347 species will be no easy feat. Seeing the regular species that show up every year in Ontario won’t cut it; I’ll need to knock off some seriously rare birds. Luckily, the province is currently hosting quite a few, including Razorbills and a long-staying Black-bellied Whistling-Duck in Niagara, a Mountain Bluebird in Wellington, and a Golden-crowned Sparrow in Toronto. There are also some semi-regular, noteworthy species hanging around, including a few Varied Thrushes in northern Ontario, two Townsend’s Solitaires, a Harris’s Sparrow, and others. Who knows if the Prairie Falcon in Durham and the Glaucous-winged Gull in Barrie are still around somewhere. This batch of birds should kick off my Big Year very nicely. Day one is a Niagara to Toronto blitz! You can follow along on my Instagram, where I’ll be posting a photo or sound recording of (hopefully) every new species I see throughout the year, updated as frequently as possible; I’m also going to update this Google Doc (feel free to bookmark it), which I’ll create a shortcut to on my homepage. I’ll be trying to update this blog on a biweekly basis, but no promises.
How You Can Help Before getting into the nitty gritty of how you can help me break the record, I'd like to propose something. After 2022, I'd love to make a video account of the Big Year. It might turn into something like an hour long documentary. I'd hugely appreciate it if you folks got video footage of birds this year that I could compile for the final edit a year from now. Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to take steady (use a tripod if you can) video footage of as many species of birds as possible in Ontario. Focus especially on the rare birds that are chased by masses. You could also take footage of birders birding or even conduct a little interview at "big birding moments" (make sure to keep it quite it on the interviewers end). Contribute as much or little as you want, but contributors will be credited in the final project which will be posted on YouTube, etc. It would be a collective project with the entire Ontario birding community. Contact me if you have questions or thoughts on this, or just let me know if you're interested. I need your help! The record is unattainable without the help of countless other birders, but luckily Ontario has a thriving, and rapidly growing, birding community. Thankfully, the best way to help me is very simple: go birding! Below are some Big Year specific birding tips, and I’m going to fire off a bunch more ideas I have for anyone who wants to help me out in the New Year. No pressure at all, but any help is appreciated!
As I was saying, rare birds are key, so do your best to find chasable rare birds. Some strategies for this include: birding under-birded spots (basically anywhere away from the GTA, Hamilton, Niagara, Pelee, Long Point, Rondeau, and Ottawa, but even these have places in them that don’t get nearly enough coverage); birding your 5-mile radius (see here for more info); birding in the off seasons (this winter and last summer have shown that it’s not just the spring and fall that’s productive for vagrants); and paying attention for weather systems that might bring in vagrant species.
Keep your ear to the ground for any unusual sightings that aren’t posted to the popular platforms for rare bird alerts (OntBirds, NWObirds, the Discord RBA server, or the main WhatsApp and Signal groups), and let me know ASAP if you notice any goodies (see my contact info here - texting me is the best way to get a hold of me). This fall, someone posted a photo of a Cassin’s Kingbird in Toronto to Flickr, but it wasn’t noticed until too late.
Rare birds are occasionally reported on eBird as common birds, and, because of this, fly under people’s radar. It can help to take a daily scan of all the new media that’s been uploaded to the Macaulay Library (follow this link) to see if any rares have been misidentified as common species. You can also refine one’s search by targeting specific species (for example, Semipalmated Plover photos looking for misID’d Common Ringed Plover, Peregrine Falcon for Gyrfalcon, etc.).
When you report a rare bird, report it promptly to a widely used rare bird alert platform, and be clear and specific in your description of its location. Providing an address or coordinates is ideal. Here is an example of a good report:
“Male Kentucky Warbler currently in the leaf litter at PPNP on Redbud Footpath ~50 m S of Woodland Nature Trail, W side of path
41.927597, -82.510572”
I cannot stress how helpful coordinates are. You can simply copy and paste them into your Google Maps or Waze app (please don’t use Apple Maps folks!), and you know exactly where the bird is within seconds. See a little video tutorial I made below if you don’t know how to get coordinates on Google Maps or Waze.
A bad version of the Kentucky Warbler report above would be as follows:
“Kentucky Warbler on Redbud Footpath right side of path”
It lacks specificity. And “right” facing what direction? Compass directions are always best when it comes to things like this.
Don’t be afraid to share a photo or description of a bird you can’t identify. Many are worried that they will get mocked for posting a bird they cannot ID. Sadly, this fear is not unfounded. Mockery only leads to discouragement, hurt feelings, anxiety, and rare birds not getting reported in a timely fashion, or, worse, not at all. Just know that if you make a mistake and people are poisonous about it, they are the problem, not you; don’t pay them any mind.
Submit eBird lists ASAP. This helps because if you’re in, say, Lambton, and you’re debating what sewage lagoons to check out in the area, you might want to see what sewage lagoons birders have explored earlier in the day. This is especially helpful if you are pressed for time and trying to decide what sewage lagoon is most worth your while for un-mined potential. Thus, submitting eBird checklist promptly is important.
If you have any theories about weather systems that might be bringing in certain rare species, or tips on anything else that’s relevant, I’d really love to hear from you!
Finally (and I really don’t want anyone to feel pressured, but I thought I’d throw it out there), I’ll be doing a lot of traveling, and spending over 100 nights sleeping in my vehicle when I’m not in Hamilton or Waterloo, so if you can offer a place for me to crash elsewhere in the province, I would hugely appreciate it. COVID safety of course would be number one priority (I am fully vaccinated). In the summer, I could even pitch a tent in your backyard if you’d be open to that.
I’d like to reiterate that I’m raising money for Birds Canada and the Haldimand Bird Observatory (follow this link to my fundraising page).
My goal of 348 species (let’s make it a nice round 350) is set. I’d also like to try to beat my record of four self-found OBRC review list species, and get at least five. Both difficult but doable tasks.
Happy New Year to all. Let’s make it a good one.
