Category Archives: Big Year

Epic Florida Birding Adventure: Final Birds & Statistics—including Big Year numbers

We interrupt our New York adventures to bring you Braden’s final post on his and Nick’s epic Florida adventure. As you’ll see, it was a wild ride. Tomorrow we will resume New York with our visit to Central Park. You won’t want to miss it!

A loud bang shook the car as we sped along the highway through the worst rainstorm I’d ever experienced. I looked at Nick.

“Did you hear that?? That lightning bolt almost hit us!”

We’d been driving through this hurricane-level rain for about fifteen minutes by now, gripping the edges of our seats as Nick avoided large puddles and watched the lights of the cars in front of us. After reading about flash floods, I had my fingers crossed that our car wouldn’t get swept away. Thankfully, after about half an hour, the water stopped pouring from the sky just as suddenly as it had started, and we celebrated by driving north towards Alabama, with one last place to bird before the sun went down.

**Strike a Pose! Many of Florida’s Sandhill Cranes are unusual in that they a) are non-migratory and b) live in very urban areas. As you can see, this makes them a photographer’s best friends!**

That morning had been a rollercoaster of bird-related emotions. We awoke at dawn, saying goodbye to even more Chuck-wills-widows as we drove to a large pineywoods preserve in search of the specialty birds we’d missed on the drive down. While yet again the beauty of this southeastern pine forest dazzled us, we only got fleeting glimpses of a Bachman’s Sparrow, and left the preserve disappointed. Next, we sidled up to a cemetery, home to a wintering population of Henslow’s Sparrows. We stomped around in the thorns for roughly forty minutes, leaving with no sparrows and legs covered in scratches. In a last ditch effort to get a new species for the trip, we found a small park in Gainesville home to a population of Red-headed Woodpeckers. Thankfully, Nick spotted them, flying around a group of burned snags in the distance.

We grabbed McDonald’s in Gainesville and headed North, planning to stop at several more spots for Bachman’s Sparrow before booking it towards the Alabama border. As we left town, though, my dad called me.

“Hey guys, how’s it going? Have you guys been to Sweetwater Wetlands yet?”

“No,” I said, looking at Nick slightly confused, “What’s there?”

“Snail Kites! And a bunch of other cool things.”

“Wait, really?!” I said, quickly pulling the hotspot up on eBird. Sure enough, Snail Kites had been seen there yesterday, and seemed to consistently visit the park. Unfortunately, the wetlands were in the opposite direction of where we wanted to go. After a brief discussion, we decided to go anyway—after all, Snail Kites were still one of our biggest targets on the trip. We’d had no idea they could still be found this far north, but if we had one last shot at them, why not take it?

We pulled up at the wetlands, putting Dixie in Nick’s backpack and starting our speedrun of the hotspot. The area was a large, freshwater marsh, divided by gravel trails quickly warming up under the midday sun. We split up, trying to cover as much ground as possible. Soon, it became apparent to us that there were indeed birds here.

Warblers and vireos serenaded us from the massive live oaks standing in the entryway to the area, and water birds were everywhere. Many of these were fearless, too—I managed to get great photos of both Sandhill Cranes and Limpkins standing less than ten feet from me. The Limpkins signaled that there were snails around, and we kept careful eyes on the sky as we walked. Me and Nick met up after half an hour.

**Our last-minute visit to Sweetland Wetlands in Gainesville nabbed us our first good looks at Limpkins—and many other birds.**

“Any kites?”

“Well, there are some over there. But they’re Swallow-tailed, not Snail.”

“Me neither. I heard a King Rail over here, so we could probably play for that…wait. Are those harriers?”

Nick pointed behind me at three distant raptors soaring behind us over the marsh. I raised my binoculars. The birds were brown, with white rumps and slender wings, two features common to Northern Harriers. However, they were flying differently. The birds slowly drew nearer, and before long, we could see their striped faces, indicative of juvenile Snail Kites.

“Snail Kites!” Nick yelled, and we high-fived as we watched one of our top targets for the trip fly closer to us. While the kites never got as close as the Swallow-taileds on our first day, we still got decent views. We’d only seen these birds because my dad had been following our adventure and found us a reliable spot to look for them!

**Our last shot at Snail Kites paid off big as we backtracked to Sweetwater Wetlands on a hot tip from my dad!**

Now, as the rain on the highway subsided, I began to reflect on the trip. It had been an absolute whirlwind of fun and disappointment, euphoria and frustration. Had it not been for Sweetwater Wetlands, we would have missed a significant chunk of our targets for the trip (including up-close Sandhill Crane and Limpkin). We’d chased many birds and came up short often, although we had a few successes with the flamingo at St. Marks and grassquit in the Keys. We’d driven hundreds of miles and dozens of hours, sacrificing sleep and food for the birds. And we’d seen so much of the country too, despite only truly getting to know one state. Florida had continued to amaze me, with its extensive saltmarshes and stunted mangrove forests, tacky fishing villages and five-star hotels. We’d birded in so many habitats I hadn’t even realized existed—Florida savannah scrub, Caribbean Pine Rockland, sawgrass glades and urban parks covered in animals from every continent.

**We can thank the abundance of Great Egrets and many other birds to the visionary conservation efforts of Teddy Roosevelt who, among other things, helped put a stop to plume-hunting for hats.** **We need similarly radical action today to save many of our planet’s species—including ourselves.**

As for the birds, we’d done pretty damn well. We’d found success on about half of our chases, missing stuff like the Smooth-billed Ani and Black-headed Gull finding other rarities like the Black-faced Grassquit in the Keys. Thanks to Sweetwater Wetlands, we had hit most of our targets, only missing the Mangrove Cuckoo (which, it turned out, it was the totally wrong season for) and several of the Miami specialties, plus Bachman’s Sparrow, which we still had a shot at. I’d obtained some of the best photos I’d ever gotten, including Prairie Warbler and Blue-headed Vireo, and really gotten to know several species that I’d had little to no experience with prior to the trip. The two species that topped my “Bird of the Trip” list were the aforementioned Prairie Warbler and Swallow-tailed Kite. I’d “discovered” an entirely new breeding population of the warblers, having had no idea that this species could thrive in coastal Floridian mangroves, and learned to recognize their buzzy, rising song every time Nick and I had set foot in that strange, coastal habitat. The kites had accompanied us everywhere we’d gone, and we’d seen them soaring above us almost every day of the trip, not discriminating between any certain habitat. Even after I returned to Maine the next day, it was hard to break the habit of scanning the skies for these sharp-looking black and white birds.

**As the sun set on our Florida adventure, one of our nemesis birds—Bachman’s Sparrow—finally put in a solid appearance, and in a place where my dad used to camp with *his* dad fifty years ago.**

As our car raced towards the Alabama border, Nick and I decided to make one last stop. We were driving past Pensacola, where I’d gone for Thanksgiving the previous fall, and we headed north, heading to Blackwater State Forest following a Google Maps pin that supposedly had Red-cockaded Woodpeckers. The Honda Pilot pulled over on a dirt road as the sun began to set, dangerously low on gas, and we jumped out, cameras and binoculars in hand. Dixie immediately took off into the tall grass, covering herself in the mud formed by the intense rainstorm that had just ended. The longleaf pines towered upwards around us—this was the healthiest patch of this habitat we had seen during the whole trip. Suddenly, as we began walking, a melodious song echoed across the pine savannah.

“Bachman’s Sparrow!” said Nick, whipping out his phone to play for the bird. Almost as soon as the song escaped the phone’s speakers, a small, brown sparrow zipped towards us, landing on the low branch of a tree. I raised my binoculars, and sure enough, there it was–a bird I’d searched for and missed half a dozen times in the last six months. The bird’s plumage was not particularly special, but the music it created stuck with me for hours after we left. Several more sparrows began singing from the grass as the sun set, and were joined by a chorus of Pine Warblers and Brown-headed Nuthatches. On our way back to the car, we suddenly heard some loud calls similar to that of a Hairy Woodpecker. We looked over in the trees just in time to see a family group of Red-cockaded Woodpeckers fly in, moving up and down the pines energetically. I walked off into the grass in an attempt to get some photos, and called my dad back.

**Despite the lousy photo, finding Red-cockaded Woodpeckers in a place my dad had spent his summers proved the perfect way to round up our epic adventure.**

“We got the woodpeckers…hell, we got everything!”

We’d ended the trip right where we’d started, in these strange, fire-dependent southeastern forests. Not everything had gone right, but Nick and I had gotten a great story out of it. We’d seen so many birds, and mammals, and plants, and reptiles and more, and as I boarded the plane from New Orleans the following morning, wearing clothes that hadn’t been washed in a week and clutching my camera and binoculars, I smiled. Florida had dragged me in, and I couldn’t wait to return to the land of the grass pines.

Trip Statistics!

Miles Driven: 2,100

Hours Driven: 31

Bird Species: 197

States Driven Through: 4

Counties Driven Through: 43

Life Birds: 23

Year Birds: 143

Bird(s) of the Trip: Prairie Warbler, Swallow-tailed Kite and Bachman’s Sparrow

Birds to Date for Braden’s Big Year: 244 (at end of Florida trip)

Epic Florida Adventure Day 2: Merritt Island

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This is Braden’s second installment of his epic Florida adventure with our recent guest blogger, Nick Ramsey. In six days, the daring duo hoped to bird the entire length of Florida from N’Orleans to Key West and back—and see 200 species of birds in the process. Day 2 began well when all of a sudden, they were beset by an equipment malfunction. Would they push on? What about the mosquitoes? Read on to find out—and, as usual, please share this saga, which we hope will soon become a major Hollywood movie called “The Big Tear”.

A buzzy rising song, marked by short, evenly-spaced notes, echoed from a nearby mangrove. “Northern Parula?” I asked Nick as he walked up with his dog Dixie by his side.

“Prairie Warbler!” he said, holding up his phone to record the song and then playing it back at the bird. Sure enough, a bright yellow male, complete with eye stripes like a football player, hopped into view, singing its heart out as I snapped dozens of photos. We were at the Lighthouse Point Park and Jetty in New Smyrna Beach, approaching the Atlantic Ocean, a different body of water than the day before. Common Ground Doves called from the mangroves around us, and early-morning beachgoers strolled past as we scanned the dunes for Gopher Tortoises and Wilson’s Plovers. Our primary target this morning was a well-known bird of the Atlantic, although not one that was supposed to be this far south: Purple Sandpiper. I’d recently seen my United States lifer on a rocky shore in the Maine winter, and yet one had been reported consistently from this subtropical beach. Soon enough, we located the jetty where the bird had to be, passing a large flock of roosting Royal Terns with a ratty-looking Black Skimmer in their midst. Ruddy Turnstones wandered the beach and Forster’s Terns plunge-dived around us as we walked out on the rocks, scanning for a small, gray shorebird with a slightly curved bill. Right near the end, Nick shouted “I’ve got it!” and sure enough, there it was, acting exactly like every other “jetty bird” I’d ever seen: tame and fearless. With Purple Sandpiper and a Florida sunrise under our belts, we headed back to the car and our next destination: Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

**This may be the most co-operative Prairie Warbler ever!**

Merritt Island is well-known for its birds, but the island itself is more famous for something else. To the south of the refuge stand the tall, white towers of Cape Canaveral, the site of numerous rocket launches, positioned so that, in case of emergency, the rockets can be safely brought down into the ocean without harming anyone. I was more interested in the Florida scrub habitat of the wildlife refuge, however. Lone pines sprouted dozens of feet above the sea of palms and brambles, and Tree Swallows and Purple Martins flew overhead as we pulled into the parking lot of the Pine Flatwoods Trail. As soon as we got out of the car, we were met by Nick’s grandmother and her boyfriend Bud, whose cabin we had slept at the night before in New Smyrna Beach. I’d heard countless stories of the adventures Nick and his grandma had had, so it was great to finally meet her.

**Purple Sandpipers look almost identical to the West Coast’s Rock Sandpipers. Don’t believe me? Watch our video!**

The three of us began walking, with Bud staying behind to watch the car. As we did so, Nick’s grandma handed me a flyer starring a dark blue corvid with a long tail and a mischievous expression—our major target for this outing. The flyer informed me that Florida Scrub-Jays occurred only in roughly 51 locations across the state, threatened by habitat loss from the clearing of Florida scrub habitat. As Florida’s only endemic bird species—and one that is Federally Endangered—the scrub-jay’s remaining habitats would fortunately remain undeveloped for the foreseeable future. In no time, Nick pointed out the call of a scrub-jay, and we began scanning the brush intently. Suddenly, I spotted several long-tailed silhouettes flying in the distance. As they grew closer, their plumage matched the color of the blue sky above.

“There they are!” I yelled, and the three of us raised our binoculars to watch them alight on a nearby bush. Several more scrub-jays called from behind us, gradually increasing our total count to eleven, and given their conservation status, it was heartening to see so many of them.

**Florida Scrub-Jay is a species I’d been wanting to see since I started birding eight years ago. To see so many was a real treat.**

We high-fived, then headed back to the car to drive to our next spot. As we pulled out of the empty parking lot, however, Nick slammed on the brakes, pointing forward.

“Swallow-tailed Kite, incoming!”

We’d been watching the skies all of yesterday and today looking for this neotropical migrant, a species with a population of only several thousand in the United States. I jumped out of the car, armed with my camera as two of the most beautiful birds I’d ever seen soared several feet above us, their white-and black plumage shimmering in the rising heat. They circled for a few moments, allowing me to snap some decent photos, then resumed their journey, long tails flowing behind them. The birds reminded me of oddly-proportioned, differently-colored Barn Swallows, which is indeed how they had gotten their name. My dad and I had seen this species while zip-lining through the cloud forest of Ecuador, but it had been five years since then and this was a much better look. As I got back into the car, Nick smiled. “They never give looks that good! Did you see their backs??? It’s impossible to see their backs!!”

**Though I’d seen Swallow-tailed Kites in Ecuador, nothing compared to the view we got on this morning!**

We spent most of the rest of the day at Merritt Island, driving loops and investigating the visitor center. Just like at St. Marks, the ducks that the refuge was famous for weren’t here in large numbers, though we did find one flock of American Wigeon and Northern Shoveler. However, White and Glossy Ibises, the three egrets, Little Blue, Green and Tricolored Herons, and Roseate Spoonbills put on spectacular shows, feeding in almost every habitat from lawns to roadside ditches to marshy lagoons. Many of the birds were in breeding plumage, sporting fun plumes and colors that I’d never seen before. These plumes were the exact feature that had led to the birds’ downfall a century earlier. Snowy and Great Egrets especially had gorgeous white feathers reminiscent of wedding dresses trailing from their wings that had attracted the lady’s hat industry in the nineteenth century. Millions of birds were slaughtered during this time, and the two species disappeared from much of their range. However, with the beginning of a conservation movement in the early twentieth century, these birds soon began to recover, once again becoming common across the southern United States.

**Anyone who gets bored with Roseate Spoonbills has lived too long—or should go bowling!**

Immediately after seeing the scrub-jays and kites, we drove to a small path overlooking a large lagoon. Manatees surfaced and at the visitor center Nick found two White Peacock butterflies, beautiful white insects with intricate orange details on their wings. And while looking for a previously-reported Eurasian Wigeon at the edge of the refuge, we came across a Prickly Pear Cactus fruiting! We both tried one of the magenta fruits after brushing off the spines, and they weren’t half bad!

**It’s hard for a mammal to compete with birds, but manatees come pretty close!**

When we got back in the car, Nick began rolling up the windows when we heard a click, followed by one of our back windows falling down into the door, its mechanism broken. Deciding to deal with the problem later, we taped a large yellow towel to the window with Nick’s emergency supply of duct tape, then followed Nick’s grandmother to a nearby Thai restaurant where she bought us a tasty lunch. We said our farewells to her, then drove to an Ace Hardware to look for solutions to our window problem. Eventually, we came up with a makeshift window of plastic wrap and duct tape, which Nick carefully applied while I fed Dixie and a daring, dog-food-snatching Boat-tailed Grackle. Back on the highway, we headed south towards our last spot for the day as a light rain started, testing Nick’s makeshift window. The plastic held, despite making loud smacking sounds, and we pulled into a shady-looking restaurant on the side of the highway called Doc’s Bait House. A Black-headed Gull, another northeastern vagrant, had been hanging out at this strange place, and we hoped to add it to Nick’s life list.

**It wasn’t perfect, but Nick’s window-repair job would get us through the rest of the trip!**

Unfortunately, as we walked around in the light rain and the setting sun’s light, no Black-headed Gull showed. The birds were active, though—Lesser Black-backed Gulls, Brown Pelicans, Forster’s Terns and other common coastal birds circled the harbor in impressive numbers, and a Wood Stork flew right over us on its way to its roost. It was a great way to end the birding part of day two, as Nick put another layer of plastic over the window and we headed south towards the outskirts of Miami. A long night lay ahead of us and little did we know that our birding luck was about to run out.

Braden’s & Nick’s Epic Florida Adventure: Day One

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From Sneed: Following our Accidental Big Year last year, Braden has set out to really smash his Big Year record of 335 birds in 2022, with a goal of at least 400 species. He and I got a great start in Montana on New Year’s Day, but that was nothing compared to the trip he just took with our recent guest blogger, Nick Ramsey. As soon as Spring Break began, he flew to New Orleans where Nick picked him up and they embarked on a break-neck marathon birding expedition the length of the state of Florida. Here is Braden’s first installment of this epic adventure.

I awoke at dawn, no more than five hours after I’d fallen asleep in the passenger seat of Nick Ramsey’s gray-gold Honda Pilot named Betsy, parked on a sandy road surrounded by Longleaf Pines in Apalachicola, Florida. Nick was already outside, overturning logs and branches in search of herps—reptiles and amphibians—and he greeted me as I climbed out of the car, as did his dog Dixie, a mutt the size of an obese squirrel, who marked my jeans with the first muddy smears of the trip.

“We’re not that far from the pin,” said Nick, his binoculars and camera slung across one shoulder. “If we just walk along this road and then bushwhack a little, it should be pretty easy to find.”

We set off along the sandy road, and birds I hadn’t seen or heard in years belted out melodies: Pine Warblers, Northern Parulas, Carolina Wrens and Tufted Titmice. While this trip’s main goal was to seek out birds, it doubled as a general nature expedition, and right now we were on the hunt for salamanders. Following directions Nick’s friend had sent him, we walked through oaks and pines until coming across a small seep in the forest. Nick immediately stepped into the water, his sneakers sinking up to his shins, and began overturning logs.

“I got one!” he soon shouted, shoving his hand into the muck and pulling out a small, dark gray amphibian. It was the threatened Apalachicola Dusky Salamander, a creature whose range was almost entirely confined to this small part of Florida and a nearby part of Georgia. This had been Nick’s main amphibian target of the day, meaning that we’d already achieved one of many goals we had talked about for the trip.

**Although our expedition was bird-focused, that didn’t mean we could ignore other great Florida flora and fauna—including endangered Dusky Salamanders!**

Birdwise, I’d compiled a list of about a dozen or so species that I wanted to see while I was down here. For this Pineywoods section of the state, my main targets were Red-cockaded Woodpecker, Bachman’s Sparrow and Brown-headed Nuthatch, a bird that had eluded me several times already. Unfortunately, while the area surrounding the salamanders’ habitat was indeed filled with Longleaf Pine—which all three of these species needed—there were neither mature-enough trees nor grassy-enough ground for any of them. Further south, though, we hoped to see the endemic Florida Scrub-Jay, as well as Snail Kites and Limpkins, two species well-known for their dependence on apple snails. White-crowned Pigeon was a goal in the Florida Keys, as was my number one target for the trip: the notoriously difficult Mangrove Cuckoo. I also wanted good looks at Burrowing Owls and Sandhill Cranes while, as a veteran Florida birder, Nick’s goals oriented more towards Miami exotic species, specifically White-winged Parakeet, Red-whiskered Bulbul and Spot-breasted Oriole. Besides this, we just hoped to see as many birds as possible—and we’d already made a good start.

After picking me up from the New Orleans airport the day before, Nick had driven us to the largest, ugliest lake in Louisiana in search of a Brown Booby someone had reported on Facebook just minutes earlier. Lake Pontchartrain had all of the color and none of the appeal of chocolate milk, stretching out of view so that it looked just like the Gulf of Mexico. The Brown Booby, a species that lived in the Gulf, had thought so too, and we’d found the bird surrounded with Brown Pelicans and Double-crested Cormorants perched on some sort of piping running into the water. After this early success, we had gone to a bar where I tried Cajun food for the first time. All I can say is that, if there were boudin balls in Maine, I would never eat another dining hall meal again.

This uncommon Brown Booby on Lake Ponchatrain kicked off our epic adventure in style.

After spending our first of many nights in Nick’s car in Apalachicola, we woke to the Dusky Salamanders, and also discovered a Southern Toad under a small log. Then we drove to our next pin, a pull-off on the side of the highway where we were rewarded with pitcher plants, sundews, and introduced Venus flytraps. The rest of the day we devoted to birding. As we cruised the entrance road to St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge, Nick called out the songs of White-eyed Vireos, which sounded like those of the Cassin’s I knew quite well mixed with random “chuck” calls, as they emanated from the forest. We pulled into the Visitor Center Parking Lot, finding ourselves in classic old-growth Longleaf forest. Here, large patches of palmetto and young pines stuck out from the scrubby understory, and Nick immediately began overturning dead fronds to look for Pygmy Rattlesnakes. The young Longleaf Pines looked just like tall, extra-green tufts of grass, a really strange feature unique to this conifer.

**White-eyed Vireos would provide a new and pleasant serenade for me on many parts of our adventure.**

With few birds at the Visitor Center, we drove to Helipad Landing. Red-cockaded Woodpeckers had been reported here, and a large field of brambles served as a wintering site for Henslow’s Sparrows, LeConte’s Sparrows, and sometimes, Yellow Rails. In true Nick Ramsey fashion, Nick set off across the field in hopes of flushing one of these species while I stayed on the road with Dixie. Again, we didn’t find much.

“Don’t worry,” said Nick as we walked back to the car, “Wait until we reach the ponds. We’ll see so many birds that we won’t know what to do with them.”

Always-impressive Anhingas would keep us company for much of our trip to the Keys and back.

As we rounded a corner towards one of the ponds, however, we were met with an unexpected sight: save for a few Pied-billed Grebes, the water was almost completely deserted. We saw not a single duck, much less the huge wintering flocks St. Marks was known for. Apparently, this year was not the first year that winter waterfowl numbers had been low in Northern Florida. Climate change had rendered conditions more suitable for ducks to winter further north, and thus, the ducks had no need to continue their southward migration. We did spot a few more birds that I hadn’t seen for years at this spot, called the Stoney Bayou, including Anhingas, Little Blue Herons and a Boat-tailed Grackle, but felt a bit disappointed. Thankfully, as we continued to drive things began to pick up.

Nick abruptly stopped the car as we were driving around a pond. “I can’t tell if that’s the call of a Prairie Warbler or a Hooded Warbler. Do you wanna get out and look for it?”

I did, camera-ready, given that Prairie Warbler would be a lifer while Hooded would be flagged for the area. An Eastern Phoebe sat on a snag underneath an Anhinga sunning itself, and I scanned the bushes behind them for yellow birds that might be skulking there.

“Oh crap, it’s both!” shouted Nick from the car behind me.

I hadn’t seen a Hooded Warbler since my Dad and I did our Big Year in 2016.

Sure enough, a bright male Prairie Warbler hopped into view above the phoebe—my first lifer of the trip! And below it, a beautiful male Hooded Warbler hopped onto a log floating in the water, chasing insects around as it dodged and wove between overhanging branches.

The birds continued to multiply as the road reached the ocean at a place called Lighthouse Pond, and we walked around it, tallying waders and seabirds as they flew over our heads. St. Marks was well-known as the wintering site for a single American Flamingo, and we spotted it way out in the bay with its head tucked into its feathers, resembling a pink lollipop sticking out of the ocean. At Lighthouse Pond I also spotted our first American Alligator, floating suspiciously near a Tricolored Heron, and I decided that I would keep a running tally of these cool critters. Back at the Visitor Center, we ran into a mixed flock of warblers, gnatcatchers and vireos foraging in the pines above us. There I spotted my lifer Yellow-throated Warbler alongside parulas and Black-and-White Warblers, and Nick pointed out our first target bird of the trip, a Brown-headed Nuthatch squeaking as it climbed up a nearby tree.

Two for lunch? I hope these waders (Tricolored & Little Blue Heron) know what they’re doing.

At the Panacea Unit of the Wildlife Refuge, known for its old-growth pine forest and extensive saltmarsh, we struck out on Red-cockaded Woodpecker and Bachman’s Sparrow, arriving at the saltmarsh just as the sun began to set. We did spot three Wood Storks, and heard were the raucous calls of Clapper Rails, both species I’d never observed before! Soon enough, Nick waded out into the marsh, flushing up both Seaside and Nelson’s Sparrows for brief looks. An American Bittern lifted out of the marsh as the light grew gray, and we feasted on celebratory sandwiches as we drove through the night towards the Atlantic Coast of Florida, where we’d be crashing at Nick’s grandmother’s vacation home. Despite it not being a particularly lucky day, we’d observed almost 100 species at St. Marks alone, setting a great tone for the rest of the trip. However, we had no idea what was to come in the next five days as we planned to traverse the entire length of Florida and back.

Brown-headed Nuthatches were a lifer for me—and far from the last for this trip!

Our Accidental Big Year: Final Tally, Part 2

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Happy New Year Everyone! Thanks for reading, and may the birds be with all of us in 2022!

After zooming past my former Big Year record, as highlighted in our last post, Braden and I woke the next morning with the promise of a mostly rainless day—and therefore a chance to bird some exciting new places we’d never birded before. Armed with recommendations Braden had gleaned from Oregon native Miles Scheuering (see “When Montana Birders Collide”), we first hit a place just north of Cannon Beach called Seaside Cove, hoping to see Braden’s Number One Target Bird for the entire trip: Rock Sandpiper.

I didn’t know much about Rock Sandpipers except that they breed in far north Alaska and the Aleutians, with a similar coastal distribution in eastern Asia. They can be found in small numbers along the West Coast to Northern California on rocky shores, and are basically the West Coast equivalent of Purple Sandpiper. Unfortunately, they are decidedly uncommon, and when we pulled up to Seaside Cove we saw nothing but a few surfers braving the roaring, messy waves. We walked along the beach anyway, though, and began scanning the rocks, and soon movement caught our eyes: a couple of dozen Surfbirds scattered along the shore, together with a Black Turnstone here and there. As we were walking back toward the car, though, Braden suddenly shouted, “I’ve got him!” Sure enough, next to a Black Turnstone, a bird that looked a lot like a Surfbird—but with a longer, curved bill similar to that of a Dunlin—picked barnacles off the rocks!

This Rock Sandpiper proved to be the “Bird of the Trip” for Braden and me—and just happened to be my 500th All-time ABA Life Bird, a milestone Braden passed earlier in the year. Note the larger, darker—and equally handsome—Black Turnstone behind the sandpiper. **Watch the video here!**

Thrilled, we watched the ROSA for a good fifteen minutes, just enjoying this rare bird that we were unlikely to see again anytime soon. After finding this Lifer for both of us, we climbed back into the trusty minivan feeling like the rest of the day would be gravy. And what gravy it turned out to be!

NOTE: To watch a live-action video of our Rock Sandpiper discovery, check out our YouTube video here: https://youtu.be/oFaNC3aR8CQ

After a couple of stops at Necanicum River Estuary to look at distant Dunlins and Sanderlings, and less distant Surf Scoters, we drove Del Rey Beach in an unsuccessful bid for endangered Snowy Plovers, though we may have run over six or ten while speeding along the sand. Oh well.

**Though our beach drive in search of Snowy Plovers proved a bust—our only miss of the day—nearby Necanicum River Estuary gave us the trip’s closest look at Surf Scoters.**

Then, we moved on to Sunset Beach Recreation Area. Starting down the trail, I didn’t expect much, but soon, WHOA! Songbirds started popping up everywhere: Fox Sparrows (hard to observe in Montana), Yellow-rumped Warblers, Spotted Towhees, Black-capped and Chestnut-backed Chickadees—even a Bewick’s Wren made an appearance. Two species were stars of the show: at least ten spectacularly-plumed Varied Thrushes that flew and perched around us, and a pair of Wrentits, birds that had been high on my target list, but seemed like an uncertain possibility. Both species are some of our favorite birds, and this was by far our best, most intimate look at the thrushes, and one of the best of the Wrentits, which were noticeably darker than those we’d observed in California. Incredibly, our day was far from finished!

Varied Thrushes are not only some of our favorite ABA birds, they are without a doubt some of the most stunning visually!

As the morning zoomed on, we continued to pick up species, grabbing Braden’s FOY (First Of Year) Cackling Geese, and breaking another of his trip goals, exceeding 100 species on his Oregon Life List. BOO-YA! Minutes later, at another spot Miles had recommended, Wireless Rd. near Astoria, we found more than 60 Short-billed (formerly Mew) Gulls in a cow pasture, along with yet ANOTHER ABA LIFER, Lesser Black-backed Gull. Then, looking the other direction, Braden watched a large flock of American Wigeon take off and shouted, “I think I see orange!” We spun the scope around, and sure enough, located a Eurasian Wigeon and an American-Eurasian Wigeon hybrid.

**Not until we posted this uncommon West Coast visitor, a Lesser Black-backed Gull, did Braden and I realize that we had also seen them in Israel right before the pandemic.** **Note the dainty Short-billed Gulls (formerly Mew Gulls) and, perhaps, a large juvenile Western Gull surrounding it in this cow pasture.**

The rest of our trip, we added County, State, and Year Birds, reaching almost every goal that we had set for ourselves. For Braden that included seeing the Rock Sandpiper, breaking 100 in Oregon, and yes, ALSO breaking his Big Year Record, coming in at 335 species! For myself, I shattered every expectation, reaching 352 Accidental Big Year Birds, nudging Oregon past Idaho into the fifth spot of states with my highest totals, and scoring two unlikely Lifers, Black-legged Kittiwake and Rock Sandpiper. In fact, Rock Sandpiper, proved special for another reason. It became my 500th ABA Life Bird, a milestone long in the making.

Of course, you all know the best part of the whole deal: getting to bird with Braden again after a three-month absence. As 2022 kicks in, we look forward to a lot more birding together and apart, and wish you all wonderful, satisfying birding in the company of those you love. Sneed and Braden

Our Accidental Big Year: Final Tally, Part 1

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Request: with the year’s end at hand, please support the groups that depend on your help to protect our precious avian wildlife. If you need ideas, here are the groups we have given to so far this year: Houston Audubon, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Montana Audubon, Five Valleys Audubon (our local group), National Audubon, BirdLife International (Braden’s favorite group), the American Birding Association, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Center for Biological Diversity, Conservation International, the Montana Natural History Center and the Rainforest Alliance. Please share this list, and let us know if you have questions about any of them. If you want to donate to several of them at once, you can simplify the process by giving via Charity Navigator. You can also learn more about the groups there.

Dear Gentle Birders, Braden and I would like to wish you a Very Birdy 2022, with hopes that in the coming year you enjoy birding and helping birds more than ever. To wrap up the year, we have some very (choose one) a) exciting b) surprising c) alarming birding tales to share with you. Many of you read our post My Accidental Big Year, which highlighted how, quite by accident, I (Sneed) was closing in on my all-time Big Year record of 336 species. Thanks to unanticipated trips to New England, Texas, Washington—even Utah—I found myself creeping tantalizingly close to breaking the record thanks, in great part, to many of you helping me track down birds that I needed! Alas, with six species to go, my momentum ground to a halt in Montana as I unsuccessfully searched for Surf Scoter, Rusty Blackbird, and other rarities that might nudge me closer. Fortunately, I had one more “accidental” ace up my sleeve: our family Christmas trip to Oregon.

**This rather blasé Western Gull on the roof of “Mo’s Chowdah” kicked off our final pushes to break both of our Big Year records!**

After wrapping up his semester at UMaine, Braden flew home to Missoula early on December 16th, and the next day—thanks to Andy Boyce—we got him his 300th Montana Lifer: Anna’s Hummingbird! I mean, WOW! A couple days later, we headed West on I-90, encountering harrowing conditions that included snow, ice, rain, and a jack-knifed truck on the ascent to Idaho. Even worse, it looked like we would be hitting solid rain and snow in Oregon—potentially kyboshing my aspirations not only to reach 337 species, but push beyond it to 350, something I optimistically thought might be possible if I hit every Oregon target in the vicinity. We arrived at Cannon Beach at about noon on Monday and, since it was raining, and too early to check into our AirBnB, decided to stop at Mo’s for clam chowdah and then tool on down to Tillamook to gorge on cheese curds.

As we pulled into the Mo’s parking lot, Braden pointed to the roof and said, “Well, there’s the first of your six birds!” I laughed, spotting a Western Gull sitting in the rain. Half hour later, as we masticated mediocre chowdah, a Surf Scoter flew by the window. 2 down. 4 to go! Still, as we continued driving down the coast, I wondered if we’d see any other Year Birds in this weather. At Nehalem Bay, however, we pulled over to scout a flotilla of 50 Surf Scoters, and spotted a Red-breasted Merganser for Year Bird number 334. Then, before Tillamook, Braden instructed me to pull over at a place called Barview Jetty where we might find a number of birds high on my needs list. I should have known we were in for a treat when even before the car stopped, Braden exclaimed, “There’s a pair of Harlequin Ducks!” I eagerly jumped out to see my favorite ducks, ducks I had missed in Montana this past summer.

**After missing breeding Harlequin Ducks in Montana last summer, I was thrilled to see a pair wintering on the Oregon coast—the only pair we would see during two intensive days of birding!**

Within moments, though, other birds sent my head spinning. Five Black Oystercatchers were sitting out on the jetty. Then, through our new Vortex scope, we ID’ed my RECORD BREAKER: Brandt’s Cormorant! The thing? I hardly had time to appreciate it because, driving to another part of the jetty, we saw even MORE great birds. In the parking lot, we got Glaucous-winged Gull, and only a few yards from the car, Black Turnstones. Walking out onto the jetty, we saw Pelagic Cormorants, Dunlins and more turnstones—only to realize that they were another of our favorite birds, Surfbirds!

Braden and I ‘oohed’ and ‘ahed’ over these adorable Barview Jetty Surfbirds, birds that have long placed high on our Favorite Birds list. I especially love the rain bouncing off of their feathers in this photo!

As if that wasn’t enough, as we were walking back to the car, a group of gulls lifted off nearby and Braden studied them for possible Glaucous-winged Gulls. As he did so, I saw a bird that looked a lot like a winter Bonaparte’s Gull. “Oh, there! There! There!” I shouted, not sure what I was seeing. Braden, quickly spotted the bird and said, “Oh my god! That’s a Black Kittiwake!” Neither of us could believe it. It was a bird I never even imagined I’d see on this trip, and it pushed my Accidental Big Year total to a shocking 343 birds, smashing my previous record.

**Braden had fallen in love with Black-legged Kittiwakes in Svalbard (Norway) and Iceland, but I never dreamed I’d see my first one right here in the U.S. of A.!**

Would I tick off even more birds? Could I tempt that almost magical total of 350? Was it possible Braden would break his own Big Year record??? I’d tell you, but I am craving a chocolate chip cookie. Come back next time to find out!

Our Barview Jetty eBird list: https://ebird.org/checklist/S99200064

FatherSonBirding

Sharing the Passion of Birds and Birding