Christian Hagenlocher: 2016 Big Year on a Budget

 I was fortunate enough to meet Christian back in 2016, during my Birders and Blue Jays Big Year.  I had driven down to the US to search for a Barnacle Goose.  Christian had driven out to see it as well.  My memory is vague on the timing and location, other than it was in the middle of nowhere, amongst the agricultural roads, while we searched the farm fields for a single odd duck, ahm, goose, amongst hundreds of Canada Geese.  It was also cold and the wind was whipping across the empty fields, making the search anything but fun. 

(Update: I checked my eBird list for 2016 and discovered it was in New York State on October 30, 2016 in Herkimer County. We had also been at the Zenaida Dove location in Florida at their same time in February, but only crossed paths without an introduction.)

The Big Year Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts  Spotify and anywhere else you listen to your favorite Podcasts, including Amazon/Audible and Podbean 

We chatted briefly about his Big Year and The Birding Project he was using as the impetuous for his Big Year.  At the age of 26, inspired by Kenn Kaufman, and his book, Kingbird Highway, he wanted to see what a Big Year on a budget would be like in the twenty-first century.  As it turned out, he was able to count 752 species, and became the youngest birder ever to pass 750.

So, join Christian and me as we talk about his grand 2016 Big Year Adventurer!

                                                      Birders Nearby: The Rare Bird Alert

Episode 2: Yve Morrell and her 2017 Big Year

Pictured above, Yve holding a picture of the final bird of 2017, a Loggerhead Kingbird

The Big Year Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts  Spotify and anywhere else you listen to your favorite Podcasts, including Amazon/Audible and Podbean 

I first met Yve Morrell in 2017 during her Big Year.  I had flown down to Texas to search for a Jabiru.  A bunch of us, including Yve, searched in vain for it for most of the day.  Many of us did get a Black Rail that day, so it wasn’t a total loss for ether of us.  

Above: Searching for the Northern Jacana

What we didn’t know at the time is we were both booked on a pelagic with Debbie Shearwater and met again on the boat.  The highlight of the trip, for me, was a Blue-footed Booby.

Photo by Yve Morrell

My other reason for going to California, after Texas, was to finally see the California Condor.  I had looked for it in 2012 at what was then Pinnacles National Monument, but had no luck that day.  I mentioned to Yve that I was going and she met me there for the long hike up the mountain at the newly renamed, Pinnacles National Park, to find them.  

Three and a half hours later we had our first, distant look at 4 California Condors:

Yve continued on with her Big Year and eventually saw species 816, the Loggerhead Kingbird in Florida, giving her top spot for the 2017 Big Year.  

Pictured below is Yve with Lynn Barber, the first woman birder to top 700 species in a Continental ABA Area Big Year, when she broke Sandy Komito’s 1987 record with 723 species in 2008.

Join me on February 15, 2023 as Yve and I reminisce about her 2017 Big Year on The Big Year Podcast!

The Big Year Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts  Spotify and anywhere else you listen to your favorite Podcasts, including Amazon/Audible and Podbean 

The Big Year Podcast Begins! Episode 1: Sandy Komito

 Welcome to the Big Year Podcast  

I just completed a Canada Big Year in 2022, seeing and hearing 456 species over the course of birding 365 days straight. I travelled back and forth across the country all year and visited the most incredible birding locations Canada has to offer. 

In our debut episode of The Big Year Podcast, we will be talking to one of the first kings of Big Year birding, Sandy Komito.  He did his first Big Year in 1987 and was only the second birder to ever see more that 700 species in the ABA Area in a single year, breaking the previous record.  In 1998 he decided to use his experience from the first Big Year and attempt a second Big Year, which at the time, no one had ever done. 

That year, in competition with Greg Miller and Al Levantin, he broke his own record with 748 species that stood until 2013, when Neil Hayward counted a new record 749.  However, Sandy set his records in an era when rare bird alerts were very limited, there was no GPS, cell phones and the internet were still in their early stages and there were 100 fewer countable birds on the ABA List.

The Big Year Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts  Spotify and anywhere else you listen to your favorite Podcasts, including Amazon/Audible and  Podbean