The Big Year Podcast

The year was 1969. I was a month shy of my ninth birthday. It was way past my bedtime, though it was only 10pm. In my memory of the event, it was the middle of the night. Along with my family, gathered around the black-and-white television in my parent's bedroom, we watched the broadcast of the Apollo 11 moon landing. At 10:56pm EDT time we witnessed, along with the rest of the world, a grainy, gray-scale image of Neil Armstrong stepping onto the lunar surface and say, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Neil left out a single syllable, word, “a”. He had meant to say “That’s one small step for A man.” That man being him. Still, it didn’t matter to anyone watching or listening at the time. The universe had changed. Humans from earth had stepped foot onto another world. Thousands of kids at the time wanted to become astronauts and join the space program. I wasn’t one of them. Yes, I loved all things space, watched Star Trek, and followed every NASA launch. I remember Skylab and Mir, the Space Shuttle and Hubble. I geek out on videos from the International Space Station and have followed the Artemis program for years, finally seeing Artemis II launch, orbit the moon and splash down safely this April, nearly 55 years after Apollo 17, splashed down in December of 1972, ending human missions to the moon for over half a century. My life took a different path in 1969, having watched the Miracle Mets win the World Series and see them celebrate on the field, on that same black-and-white television in my parents bedroom, a couple of months later. I chose to pursue a life that would eventually get me on the field at some nebulous future date, when a team I was involved with won a World Series. I made it to that dreamed of future from my childhood in October of 1992, as I ran onto the field when the Toronto Blue Jays won their first World Series. Today’s guest, on the other hand, did everything in her power to become an astronaut and earlier that same year, flew on the Space Shuttle Discovery, mission STS-42, as the first neurologist and Canadian woman in space. I even crossed paths with Roberta Bondar when she threw out the first pitch at a Toronto Blue Jays baseball game, soon after her shuttle flight. Two people from very different walks of life, with two very different goals, take different paths and end up in the same place all those years later. But it didn’t end there. In 2022, when I was up in Sault Ste. Marie, I discovered that Dr. Bondar was born there and they had celebrated her shuttle mission with a flower garden built into a scale model of the Space Shuttle Discovery. The following year I heard she was giving a talk about her new book, "A Space for Birds", and I knew I had to go. This time it was two birds, not Blue Jays, that brought us back into the same space. After the talk, I spoke to her agent and we made arrangements for this very podcast. I’ve come a long way from that kid who loved space but wanted to live a childhood dream of winning a World Series, and Dr. Bondar has travelled to exactly where she wanted to be. To fly in space. Each of us, in different ways, didn’t just wish and hope for these things to happen. We focused our lives and energies toward our goals. My mother used to say, “if wishes were horses, we would all ride.” That was an important lesson to learn as a kid. Don’t wish, do. In an era when young people think that “manifesting” a dream will just make it happen, the people who are successful at achieving their goals, like Dr. Bondar, put in the hard work. Me, I just got lucky. Stop the presses! In a wonderful bit of serendipity, just days before this episode was due to air, with Dr. Bondar on the podcast to talk about Whooping Cranes, an actual Whooping Crane showed up in Northern Ontario. The next morning I hopped in the car and drove 6 hours north to the small town of Bruce Mines, and along with a who’s-who of Ontario birders, w

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

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

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

Happy Podcast day, one and all! Welcome to back to The Big Year Podcast. Thank you once again for joining me. It’s April 15, 2025 and spring migration is well underway here in southwestern Ontario. It’s actually a bit of a miracle that I finished this episode on time because the last 2 weeks have been very busy for me and my fellow birders. It started with a Western Grebe in Port Credit, a Black-headed Gull, at Port Colborne, followed by a Long-billed Dowitcher right here in Brant County. The fun continued with over 50 American White Pelicans at Holiday Beach and a female Harlequin Duck down in Chatham-Kent. I also go my first Ruffed Grouse and Common Loon for Brant County, but the real excitement was the chase for a Crested Caracara in Essex County, not too far from the Ontario/Michigan boarder, on April 7. Dozens of birders flocked to the small town of Amherstburg for a once in a lifetime look at this large falcon that lost its way. This bird should have been in Texas, and after a long day of searching seemed to have returned home. I had then tried for a Yellow-headed Blackbird back in Chatham, but near blizzard conditions sent me home to contemplate missed opportunities. However, on Wednesday the weather was nice again, so I decided to go back and look for the Yellow-headed Blackbird. To my complete surprise, before I even arrived at McGeachy Pond, I was alerted to the return of the caracara, not in Amherstburg, but right there in Chatham, only 15 minutes from where I was parked at the side of the road. Talk about being in the right place at the right time. I drove, I saw, I counted a new Canada Lifer! And I got to spend time with some of my favourite birding friends, including Kelly Sue, who you met on season one of the podcast. She lived only 5 minutes away. And yesterday we had another rare bird party as dozens of us migrated to Stoney Creek for a rare spring sighting of a Loggerhead Shrike. And all through that I was trying to find time to finish this podcast. Not only that, it’s the onset of allergy season and my head feels like it’s full of teddy bear stuffing. Today’s episode features Robert Gundy and Natasza Fontaine. Robert is a biologist and Natasza was the 2024 ABA Bird of the Year Artist, painting the Golden-winged Warbler. And they both completed a record setting (Covid)Florida Big Year in 2020.

It is December of 2024 and we’ve come to the end of another season of The Big Year Podcast. Welcome one and all as we look back on another year of birding or are looking forward to next year and possibly your own Big Year. If so, let me know and we can have a chat, sometime. I love to hear your stories, big or small. Today, we have a mixed bag of birding guests. Over the course of 2024 I've recorded a few short conversation with birders I’ve met during my travels and I’ll have a preview of some of the guests we will be meeting early in Season 3. But before we get to that… One birder's story we have yet to really get into, is today’s guest. I’ve been wanting to talk to him and let him tell his story in a bit more detail ever since I began this podcast, but he’s been busy birding and doing his own podcast and it’s been tough to get him to commit chatting with us. Part of the reason it’s been so hard is he’s me. Yes, today I get to talk to me, and find out a bit more about why he, I mean me, got into birding and learn little more about his, I mean my, Big Years. Later in the show we'll meet with Gavin from Alberta who recently passed 400 species for 2024, Jean Iron, one of Ontario's most illustrious birders, who taught me an important lesson way back in January 2012, and Robert and Natasha Fontaine, who did a Florida Big Year not too long ago. Natasha, has her own claim to fame, beyond Big Year Birding. Listen on to find out more. As always, I hope you enjoy and thanks to each and every one of you out there in Listening Land. Thanks for your support and until March of 2025, enjoy your birding wherever you are. Unless you're in Australia, then have a great summer. Thanks again, and hear me next year.

Welcome, birders and non birders who have to put up with the birders in their lives, to the Big Year Podcast, with me, the one, the only,(thankfully), Robert Baumander. As I sit and type this introduction, it is August 1, 2024 and the unofficial start of The Dog Days of Summer. Actually, for birders in Ontario, at least, the birding really begins to slow down near the beginning of July. But even so, there have been a few rare birds to chase, including a Brown Booby and a Ruff. Boobies are quite rare in Ontario, but I’ve seen a few over the years. Of course, if you want to really see boobies in their natural habitat you just need to visit south Florida in the spring. And what’s a Ruff? My research has found that it is named for the feathers it displays with its tufts, or ruff extended. The Ruff is a medium sized sandpiper and on its breeding grounds the males put on the most spectacular displays worthy of any fashion show catwalk. Alas, though I have seen plenty of boobies, I have never seen a Ruff display. For that you need to visit a Lek in Northwestern Alaska. Now, to get to today’s episode. We are returning, once again to Ontario and will meet a young man, who in 2023, after watching so many of his fellow birders do Big Years the previous year, decided that he would enjoy trying one himself. Marcus Legzdins was in his final year of high school, and was birding in the Oakville area when, in December of 2022, decided to do an HSA Big Year. What’s the HSA you ask? I had heard of it, but just thought it was where birders who lived in Hamilton reported their sightings. But it has exact boundaries and strict rules for reporting species for official records. It is a circle, 25 miles,(about 40 kilometres) centred on downtown Hamilton. Yes, we birders are sticklers for details. If you see the bird on the wrong side of the road, well, you haven’t really seen it in the HSA until it crosses that invisible boundary. I wonder if it’s bad form to coax the bird over the line with calls or sunflower seeds? You don’t have to be crazy to do a Big Year, as Marcus showed me during our chat, but it doesn’t hurt either. A common theme I have found is, even if it’s not to the level of my obsessiveness, a desire to make sense of the world, whether it’s making bird lists, or traveling to exotic places to see things you’ve never seen before, and in some cases, never imagined seeing. It’s the desire to collect, not just things, but memories, and stories of adventures you can share with the world. Many birders love taking photographs but a lot do not. To them it’s the experience that makes it rewarding. Though I’m not sure I ever met a Big Year birder who wasn’t also a photo buff. Exotic locals and photo memories are not necessary to enjoy many aspects of a Big Year, or birding in general. Marcus birded in a pretty good patch, but as he told me, anywhere you live, you can find that one spot where you’ll almost always have good birding. Big Years can be really small or really big. And can be in any patch you find. Anyway, Marcus was perfectly located in Oakville to begin his year long quest. So sit back, relax, since August birding is so slow anyway, and enjoy…

Brett Forsyth joins me to talk about his 2022 Self-powered Ontario Big Year

Hello there everybody, Welcome back to The Big Year Podcast. This is part 2 of my chat with the new all time record holder for a Canada Big Year, Bruce DiLabio. As I type this, it’s a sunny spring day in late March and the excitement of migration season is just around the corner. It’s what all birders crave after a long, cold winter in the northern US and Canada. However, for those in the southern US, migration gets going an about month earlier. And one of the best places to be in April is Texas and specifically, High Island on the Gulf Coast, where spring storms can bring the holy grail of migration season, a Fall Out. Sue and I will be heading there the second weekend of April and fallout or not, it’s one of the best places to see southern migrants passing through on their way home to their breeding grounds. I’ve experienced two fallouts. The first was at Fort DeSoto near Tampa Florida in April of 2012 and Sue and I enjoyed one in Rondeau Provincial Park in South Western Ontario in May of 2018. On both occasions, warblers and other songbirds were sitting, exhausted, like Christmas ornaments on all the trees. Not just a Kaleidoscope of color, but even carpeting the ground, forcing birders to gingerly step over and around them. And for Big Year birders, it’s an event not to be missed. I’ll be reporting live from Texas beginning April 10, and perhaps I’ll run into a birder or two doing their own Big Years. In Part One, I left you hanging, so we’ll pick up where we left off, with Bruce Di Labio heading out for his 53rd consecutive Ottawa Christmas Bird Count when things took a very unexpected turn. I hope you enjoy listening to Bruce’s stories of his amazing, record shattering Canada Big Year. Having enjoyed many of the same adventures, including my own slip on the ice in Nova Scotia, that could have brought my Canada Big Year to a crashing end only 3 days into 2022, I can appreciate all Bruce went through in 2023. Congratulations Bruce. And good luck to anyone attempting their own Canada Big Year in future. Next month, we have a guest from out west. Krissi Martin,(Sorry I said “Kristi” last month). Krissi lives in Abbotsford British Columbia and is known on line as Momma Birder. Krissi is very open about living life after a brain injury, and like many of us, has discovered that birding has had a very positive impact on her life. We’ll talk about that and the Big Years she’s done in British Columbia and how birding in general and Big Years in particular can improve your well being and outlook on life. Following my chat with Bruce, I’ll leave you with a brief excerpt from my conversation with Krissi Martin.

Hello birders, and other non-feathered friends, and welcome to Episode 14 and the final episode of Season 1 of The Big Year Podcast. I am thrilled to have Kelly-Sue O’Conner, who runs Birder Brains, who along with myself and many other birders, live with various mental health issues, including Attention Deficit-Hyperactive Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or Post-concussion Syndrome. In my case all three plus a few other, including Social Anxiety Disorder. Boy, do I hate the word "disorder" as a descriptive. Anyway in this episode I did something very different. Because of the subject matter, I didn’t edit out anything, as I thought it important to hear us as we really are and not hide our pauses and such. So, the idea was to not cut out the parts of the conversation that were challenging to us. You'll even hear, in my opening monologue, that sometimes I have trouble getting the words out, because of different mental challenges I have. So bear with us when we go off on tangents, and be patient where there might be some long pauses. We wanted to get that message out that if you do have your own cognitive and mental challenges, it’s okay talk about it, and if you need help, there's always people you can talk to and people that can definitely give you advice and help you feel more comfortable with what you’re going through. I like to take some of these challenges like OCD and ADHD and put them to use in my everyday birding life. So, sit back, relax,(unless you’re driving), and enjoy my chat with Kelly-Sue, live from the boardwalk in Rondeau Provincial Park.

Welcome to Episode 12 of The Big Year Podcast. For those of you here for the first time, my name is Robert Baumander, but I spent 41 years as Captain Video for the Toronto Blue Jays. Along the way I performed as a magician and Escape Artist, managed the computer system for Pizza Pizza, volunteered in elementary schools and The Hospital for Sick children doing magic and story telling and science classes. I have done a variety of Big Years in North America since I became a birder in 2012, and now spend my time, since my Canada Big Year in 2022, hosting this podcast and writing about my adventures in birding and my travels across Canada and North America. This is part one of my chat with Tiffany Kersten, who’s resume sounds like that of the Dos Equis guy. I’ll let her tell you about her many accomplishments and some of the other, shall we say, more eclectic endeavours that have kept her busy over the years. Suffice it to say, my resume doesn’t even come close to stacking up against hers and I have been compared to the Dos Equis guy. We had such an enjoyable and wide ranging conversation that I have had to divide it into two episodes. Her 2021 Lower 48 Big Year, where she broke the all time record with 726 species, took place in the midst of some challenging events in her life, as an unemployed single home owner during the Covid-19 pandemic, which lost her a spot on American Ninja Warriors. Really. With all that being said, please enjoy Part One of my conversation with Texas birder Tiffany Kersten.

Welcome to Part 4 of my 5 part series on the Birders of the Ontario 2022 Big Year. Today I will be talking to Ezra Campanelli who was one of the 3 birders that broke the all time record for species in an Ontario Big Year with 357 species seen. He is one of a crop of young birders who are taking Ontario and the birding world by storm. These young birders are so knowledgeable that they are teaching some of the veteran birders a thing or two along the way. I hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as I enjoyed talking to Ezra. We became friends over the course of 2022 meeting often at different rare bird sightings and more often at Point Peele in the spring of that year. But now I have to run off because a Roseate Spoonbill has been seen along the Grand River in Brant County and what an exciting bird to chase, especially for anyone doing a Big Year in 2023.

A long time ago in an era known as the Covid-19 Lockdowns, I met Andy Nguyen on a berm above the Grand River in Brantford, Ontario. We were looking or a California Gull and before finding it, I ran off to look for a Yellow-browed Warbler in Oakville. Because Andy was wearing a mask, as it was back in Covid times, I did not recognize him the next time we met. But after a while, we got to know each other and became good birding buddies here in Southwestern Ontario. We birded many weekends and even drove out together to see a Grove-billed Ani in Perth County, Ontario in the fall of 2021. Since then we have both completed our own Big Years. Andy took the opportunity in 2022 to do his own Ontario Big Year and learned a lot about, not just birding, but himself in the process. Big Years are, of course, an adventure, but they also are a learning experience and can teach you a thing or two about yourself, in the process. So join me as we step back in time, to late 2021 and the Andy's adventures as he planned and executed his own Big Year.