The Big Year Podcast

Well, it's Friday, November 7, 2024.

I'm now five weeks late for my latest podcast, this episode with Joshua Gant, which was supposed to have appeared on October 1st.

Well, I got busy in October, actually in September as well, and I started a project that kept me pretty busy.

Not only was I building a set of cat shelves in the living room for the cats to play on this winter, I was building a dream project of mine.

I was born in 196...

Well, it’s September 1, 2024, the Dog Days of Birding are behind us and fall migration is underway, signalling the end of the summer breeding season and birds booking their flights south for the winter.  Happily for birders, there are no direct flights from the breeding grounds in the north to the wintering grounds in the south, which means we are graced by the presence of southern migrants.  When the wind is just right, shorebirds...

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 bi...

Today’s episode, features a trailblazer, who was the first woman to do a full out ABA Big Year and has been an inspiration to women in the birding world ever since she saw 723 species in 2008, one more than Sandy Komito’s first Big Year in 1986.  Lynn Barber is an author and artists and had done two Texas Big Years prior to her ABA Big Year and has since done Alaska and Wisconsin Big Years,  Her first Book, Extreme Birder is a must...

Well, happy birding to everyone who has chosen to join me here today. It is Saturday, June 1st, 2024, as I type.  I'm Robert Baumander and this is The Big Year Podcast.  My guest is Brett Forsyth, who, in 2022, did a self-powered Big Year, which means he never got in the car to go to see any bird, only walking or cycling from home. So that was a grind of a Big Year because he cycled nearly every day, in every type of weather, somet...

Welcome back to The Big Year Podcast.  Sorry to have been gone so long, but birding seemed to drag me away from editing more often than not in April.  Not to mention that I was recovering from a severe hand injury, when I fell after seeing both Ross’s and Snow Geese in Burlington in March.  I hyper extended all the fingers on my right hand, using it to brace myself and protect my camera as tripped over a rock and fell to the ground...

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 ab...

Hello Birders, welcome back to The Big Year Podcast.  I am so excited to be back for a second season.  I wasn’t sure we’d get renewed but the birds tweeted their approval and desire to hear from even more Big Year birders, so here I am and boy do I have a great line up of guests ready to share their stories.

Over the course of the spring and summer, you will get to hear form Lynn Barber, the one of the great ABA Big Year birders, a...

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 othe...

We are back. Welcome once again to the show about birders and their Big Years. I had the pleasure of speaking with Tiffany a while back and in a previous episode we were discussing the life changing events that accidentally pushed her into doing a Big Year in the Lower 48 states.  And today as we continue with our discussion we shall see how life changing doing a Big Year was for Tiffany.  At a crossroads in her life, during the pa...

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...

And a hearty welcome to episode 11 of the Big Year Podcast. I'm Robert. Baumander, and I'm your guide to the life of the big year birding experience. Late in the year 2011, which seems like a lifetime ago, I saw a little movie called, not surprisingly, The Big Year.

     One of my favorite actors, Steve Martin, was starring in it. I was also a fan of Jack Black and remembered him from way back when I saw High Fidelity. And who does...

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 thi...

Welcome to Part 3 of my 5 episode series on the birders of the 2022 Ontario Big Year.  Three birders broke the all time record, including William Konze, who didn't even set out to do a Big Year, let alone break the record.  Though he didn't end up on top, his accomplishment is still a testament to his dedication and hard work.

Travel in Ontario, which is even bigger than Texas, can be exhausting, sometimes chasing birds hundreds of...

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 b...

Welcome to another episode of the Big Year Podcast!  My journey across North America to talk to and see what makes Big Year Birders Tick.  It’s July 2, 2023 as I broadcast from my Secret Big Year recording location, deep in the basement of my Brantford home.  It’s a rainy day so I am stuck indoors, not willing to brave the elements for anything but the rarest birds sighting.  A far cry from what I or anyone else doing a big Year wo...

The month of May in Southwestern Ontario is all about songbird migration and seeing as many warblers as possible.  I knew I wasn't going to have time to edit previous podcasts and, naturally, no birders were going to have time to do sit down interviews that may cost them a Big Year Bird or Lifer, or just a skulking Mourning or Worm Eating Warbler.

So, instead, I took my recording device on the road to Point Pelee National Park, Lon...

Today is May 1, 2023 and it is the official start of Spring Migration here in Southern Ontario.  Birders from far and wide, some doing their own Big Years, are beginning their own migration to Canada’s spring birding hotspot, Point Pelee National Park to welcome the songbirds home.  Down in Ohio, many birders will be making their way to The Biggest Week in American Birding.  Sue and I had to cancel our last trip there, as the Covid...

I met Karen Miller on Canada Day in 2022.  I was running out of options to get close enough to Bill's Island, off of Grand Manan, New Brunswick, so I could see American Oystercatchers.  If the ferry had not been late, I'd have never met Karen and her husband Bill, who had been ferrying birders out to the island all day, to see these rare visitors to Canada.

Then, on December 21 I was given an early Christmas present, in the form of...