Big Year 101

Who?

• Me, Liam, 26 year old, he/him

What?

• An attempt to see 275 species of birds

Where?

• Vancouver Island and its surrounding waters

When?

• 2024, January to December, Midnight to Midnight

Why?

• To raise money for Rocky Point Bird Observatory

• To highlight the biodiversity of this island and the folks dedicated to preserving it

• Because it rocks and I want to

How?

• Bird like a madman

• Rely on the birding community

• Plan, plan, plan some more

In 2015 Ann Nightingale threw down the gauntlet, going all out and recording 269 species on Vancouver Island over the course of the year. In doing so she set a glowing example of what was possible; one island, bounded by the Pacific, home to hundreds of species varying from year-round, life-long residents to fleeting stragglers seeking shelter amidst oceanic storms and following continent-spanning air currents. She interacted with hundreds of birders and inspired at least as many more, all the while raising funds for an organization seeking to better understand and conserve the species she sought to count, Rocky Point Bird Observatory.

Ann's photo of a Redwing, her 269th and final bird of her record setting 2015 Big Year

Almost a decade later I'm following in the footsteps of Ann to test myself against the benchmark she set. My goal; to see 275 species in 2024, to fundraise $10,000 for Rocky Point, and to raise awareness of the innumerable charities, clubs, volunteers, and communities on this island and beyond who have dedicated themselves to ensuring each and every one of the species we arbitrarily tally are unquestionably preserved for future generations and for the ecological communities to which they are integral.

Why now? Why not. Though I didn't start this year intending to do a big year it increasingly became hard not. For a multitude of reasons ranging from multi-year weather patterns to shifting fire regimes to pure dumb luck and the fortuity of strangers sharing the oddities that landed in their patches, we started the year strong with a multitude of rare birds. These ranged from a Tufted Duck, a wanderer from presumably Siberia who has found his way to the same section of the same pipe of the same sewage treatment pond of Duncan for 4 years in a row; to a second ever for the island, first-in-a-decade, fiery-red Summer Tanager which for all intents and purposes should be in Chiapas but is instead decimating the local wasps of Saanich; to an unlikely troop of Nuthatches (a few Pygmy and a White-breasted, to compliment our local Red-breasted) which have foregone their interior mountain ranges to take up residence in the Ross Bay Cemetary, the former part of the first ever group of its species to be recorded on the island.

From left to right: Summer Tanager, Hooded Oriole, White-breasted Nuthatch

Ironically the species that cinched it was not one of these remarkably lost birds, but rather a resident of the island at risk of being lost from it, a Western Screech-Owl. Once so numerous that members of the birding oldgaurd can recount nights of 30 singing individuals right here in town, in the last few decades their numbers have dwindled. Today they are so rare that until this January I had yet to see one on the island, despite conservatively 100 hours of searching. That's why when one miraculously came down from its mountainous enclave to take residence in a duck box, whether or not to undertake the 2 hour roundtrip to see it wasn't a question of if so much as how soon could I possibly go. Watching that owl as the sun set on Cowichan, I reflected on the magnitude of the birds I'd already seen this year. I also thought about the groups I've had the fortune to work with who were responsible for preserving the wetlands I was in and for researching the owl I hope beyond hope doesn't blink out of existence. The notion of a big year no longer felt so big (or at least, big enough).

Western Screech-Owl at a duck box in Cowichan

If you've made it to this paragraph then I have to assume something in the above resonated with you, and I thank you. I am going to give this thing my all, and I plan to document that all here on this site. I will ramble, I will exhalt, I will share, and I will do my best to stay positive as I inevitably make mistakes, miss birds, and from time-to-time simply f**k up. I will work with anyone and everyone with a stake in the birds of this island who will have me, and I will share the work they're doing in the hopes of linking them with other likeminded supports. I will do my utmost to directly raise funds for Rocky Point Bird Observatory to support the continuation of their legacy of 30 years of bird conservation. Last but certainly not least, I will see a lot of birds (final number to be determined).