Season 4, Episode 3: Tobin Brown’s Nebraska Big Year, and a Whooping Craine update

Season 4, Episode 3: Tobin Brown’s Nebraska Big Year, and a Whooping Craine update

A hardy welcome to summer birding and the return, after a break for migration, of The Big Year Podcast.  Seems silly of me to tell you the title of the show, since you must have known it when you clicked on the podcast to begin with.    Today, we have two guests.  Our first guest is Tobin Brown, who did a Nebraska Big Year, and broke the previous record for birds seen in the state for a single year.  And our second guest, Brooke Showan will tell her story of having found, through serendipity, or just really good bird spotting skills, the Whooping Crane many of us drove to northern Ontario to see, just as I was finishing up the previous episode with Roberta Bondar, where we discussed her involvement with the Conservation efforts of the Whooping Cranes in North America.   As reported in my May 1 episode, I drove north to Bruce Mines to see the wayward bird, but did not have the chance to talk to the birder who initially found it, reported it to the International Crane Foundation, and became a bit of a local celebrity for her amazing discovery, less than an hour’s drive south of Dr. Bondar’s home in Sault Ste. Marie.  I was able to catch up with Brooke, early in May, and I think you’ll enjoy the story of her own Whooping Crane adventure.     I had a good migration season, beginning with a little cheeky movie parody of 50 Shades of Gray, called 31 Shades of Yellow, and shared some of my favourite yellowish warblers and vireos each day of May on Instagram.  But it was May 2 when we had the first highlight of migration, when a White-faced Ibis showed up in my local patch, right here in Brant County.  It was species number 245 for my county list and a bird I never expected to show up locally.  It was the second Brant County Lifer of the year, the first being a Ross’s Goose in March.   On May 7, I was fortunate enough to see a Bell’s Vireo, another very rare bird for Ontario, not far from home at Lakeside Park in Kitchener.  A couple of days later a Western Cattle Egret showed up in Norfolk County, not far from the Long Point Bird Observatory, another fine place for birding during migration season.  That same day the first of many Summer Tanagers reported in May, landed on Woodstock Avenue just around the corner from Long Point.   At Point Pelee one of the most coveted warblers of spring migration, a Worm Eating Warbler, made an appearance on the Sanctuary Trail at the north end of the park.  Worm Eating Warblers are never guaranteed during any given migration season in Ontario, and in fact I missed seeing one during my own 2022 Big Year.  Worm Eating Warblers nest south of the Great Lakes and any seen in Ontario are what birders call “overshoots,” likely due to weather or just plain old navigation errors.    What one might call the most unexpected bird of the season, was a Willow Ptarmigan that showed up at Rock Point Provincial Park. Too bad it, it being seen at Rock Point, that it wasn’t a Rock Ptarmigan, as I’ve never seen one of those. But for many of the people at Rock Point that day, it was either a Lifer or at least an Ontario Lifer.  For my friend, Andrew Keaveny, who has been on a previous episode, it was an Ontario Lifer.  He had been birding nearly all his life, had seen well over 400 species in Ontario, but was as excited for this bird as he was for the Whooping Crane.  And by the way, if you haven’t listened to Andrew’s episode, please load it up after this and have a listen.  Oh, and it would help a lot if you’d like, subscribe, leave glowing reviews and share this with your friends and family.     So, now that we’re all up to date, please have a listen to the stories of Tobin Brown and Brooke Showan.   Here’s a bonus section for you to enjoy. I enjoy listening to the music from the movie, The Big Year.  The soundtrack album is nice, but does not include all the songs that we heard in the movie.  I was able to put together a playlist, including all the orchestral pieces from the movie, by Theodore Shapiro and all the songs that I could download from Apple Music.  I even tried to put them in order of when they appeared in the movie, more or less.   Track 1:   The Code Writer Track 2:   Minor Swing performed by Django Reinhardt Track 3:   Carpe Annum Track 4:   Day One Track 5:   The Devil Never sleeps performed by Iron & Wine Track 6:   Bostick Sneaks a Peek/Bird Bait Track 7:   Fallout Track 8:   Let it Shine performed by Jeremy Fisher Track 9:   Pitkin County Turnaround performed by Steve Martin himself on banjo Track 10: The Shrike Track 11: Welcome to Attu Track 12: Rustic Bunting/Western Tanager Track 13: Viva la Vida performed by Cold Play Track 14: Attu/The Great Spotted Woodpecker Track 15: Come Fly Away performed by Jeremy Fisher Track 16: I like Birds by performed by the Eels Track 17: Snowcocks Track 18: Golden Plover/Ruby Alive/Freak Blizzard Track 19: Ultrasound Track 20: Great Gray Owl Track 21: Final Stretch Track 22: Face the Abyss Track 23: A Very Big Year Track 24: Coda Track 25: This Could All Be Yours performed by Guster Track 26: Ornithological Pursuits (Played over the final credits).   There are some incidental tracks throughout the movies that play mostly in the background, but are not a major part of the story, like Bing Crosby’s Silent Night or Auld Lang Syne performed by Guy Lombardo, plus some more obscure tracks that only an audiophile would be able to dig up.  You may also want to include Surfin’ Bird performed by The Trashmen.

Season 4, Episode 2: Canadian Astronaut Roberta Bondar, and A Space for Birds

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, waited until sunset to see this intrepid young female.  She was born of wild parents at the International Crane Foundation in Wisconsin. After being released, Sinclair,(yes they get names and band codes), she joined a group of adults who migrated to Florida for the winter.  Her spring migration home to Wisconsin went slightly of course and she has joined a flock of Sandhill Cranes in Northern Ontario.  I was lucky enough to share the experience with many of my birding friends who also made the trek to see this intrepid traveller, who will hopefully contribute to the future of this endangered species.    So join me, along with Doctor Roberta Bondar, as I live my life long dream to talk to a real, live astronaut about space, birds and A Space for Birds.         Extro.

Season 4, Episode 1: Josh van der Meulen’s 2012 Ontario Big Year

The Big Year Podcast April 1, 2026   It is April 1, 2026, I’m Robert Baumander and welcome to season 4 of The Big Year Podcast.  My 4th season?  Really?  So glad to be back again.  Miss me?  It’s been an exciting journey and this season promises to be the best ever.  Maybe. Or not.  I’ll let you be the judge, when it’s all said and done, but boy am I looking forward to some of the guests I’ve already lined up.  In addition to Big Year birders, you’ll get to hear from a real live astronaut, who is involved in bird conservation and a paleontologist who will educate us on which of the dinosaurs that survived the great meteor impact became the birds we know and love today. Last time you heard my voice, I was settling in for winter, and beginning work on my book, The Trans-Canada Jay Highway.  I was planning to stay local for the winter, focus my ADHD brain on just writing, and this podcast, but word of an amazing rarity in Montreal Quebec hit the birding world in January.  It was a very unlikely visitor from across the pond, a European Robin.  Wowzers.  That was a bird I wanted to see.  I waited a few days; one, to make sure it was sticking around and more importantly, for a good weather forecast that wouldn’t have me driving through a blizzard or looking for the bird in minus 40 temperatures.    After a seven hour drive, including a slow trek through Montreal construction traffic in the rain, I arrived at a quiet, snow covered neighborhood, to find a small group of excited birders who had just found the robin.  Everyone in the neighborhood was welcoming to all of us who came to see their celebrity bird, including one woman who was putting seed out for the weary traveller.  When another birder showed up shortly after I arrived we both looked at each other, with the merest glimmer of recognition, but couldn’t quite place from where.  It was Josh Gant who figured it out.  Josh was a guest on this very podcast, talking about his New Jersey state Big Year.  He also drove 7 hours to get to Montreal.  We arrived within minutes of each other and got to celebrate this amazing once in a lifetime bird, together and with other birders who had made the trek to Montreal.  None of us, however, had travelled as far as the European Robin.   European Robins are not related in any way to our American Robins.  European Robins, I discovered, are in the Old World Flycatcher family and American Robins are thrushes. Our robin’s name was given only because of their similar red breast.  Many birds that are known as robins also sport this feature.  A better name for our robin would be Red-breasted Thrush.  So, the European Robin is not a thrush and the American Robin is a thrush.  And don’t get me started on all the other “robins”. Moving on.   Today is not just an exciting day for bird lovers, and lovers of birding podcasts, but also space exploration.  Artemis II is on the launchpad, with four astronauts, including  Canadian Jeremy Hansen, and is scheduled to blast off at 6:24pm this April 1.  As someone who is old enough to have watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon and is nerdy enough to build NASA Lego sets, including the Artemis, this is an exciting day.  As for this episode, my guest is Josh van der Meulen.  You might know him, might have birded with him, but may not know his Big Year story.  If you remember back to last season,(and if not, why not?   I urge you to go back and take listen), I spent an hour or so talking to Andrew Keaveny.  Back in 2012, Andrew and Josh were doing Ontario Big Years.  I was a birdy-eyed beginner doing an ABA Big Year.  I relied on both of them to help me find birds when I was birding in Ontario, while they competed for Ontario Big Year supremacy.  I likened their competition to that of Kenn Kaufman and Floyd Murdoch’s 1973 Big Years.   Though it was a competition, Andrew and Josh kept things civil between them and even birded together and helped each other along the way.  I was on the scene when Andrew missed the Townsend’s Solitaire and found the only Red Knot of my Big Year, thanks to Josh.  14 years later, both of them are good birding buddies, who I’m always glad to run into, usually when stalking a rare bird.    So, now that we’re all caught up, let’s once again travel back in time to 2012, which seems to be the nexus of modern Big Year birding, and get on with the show.

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.”

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://friendsofmidway.org/explore/wildlife-plants/birds/albatrosses/laysan-albatross/wisdom-the-albatross/] https://www.birdability.org [https://www.birdability.org] https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/06/21/that-time-the-us-almost-went-to-war-with-canada-218881/ [https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/06/21/that-time-the-us-almost-went-to-war-with-canada-218881/]