The Big Year
Part 1: Finding Connection Through Birds
Note to my readers: This two-part piece is a labor of love and ebbs and flows like the year. The peaks and the valleys are equally as important and so I hope you will stick with it. Thank you to everyone that reads and comments. 2024 has been one heckuva a year.
2024 was a big year in so many ways.
Love, family, travel, nature, hurricanes, tragedy, and birds.
It was the first year of marriage to the love of my life.
My connection with my family deepened to levels previously unknown.
I spent 6 months traveling by RV around the eastern U.S. with my wife & son.
My family survived Hurricane Helene which devastated Western North Carolina.
One of my great spiritual mentors was murdered.
My wife and dog were in a major car accident.
I continued on my own journey of self-discovery.
I started this Substack.
And I deepened my connection to nature by following my passion for birds.
An Inspiring Note
One of my nature writing friends restacked a “A Year of Birds” by James Freitas from his excellent Substack, Rock & Hawk. In it, he posts pictures and notes from his Big Year. The photos, stories, and field notes are very inspiring.
For those not familiar with a Big Year, I highly recommend the movie of the same name starring Steve Martin, Owen Wilson and Jack Black. Basically, birding enthusiasts set out to see as many birds as they can in one year.
I immediately subscribed to Rock & Hawk, and the author’s thank you note included a suggestion to send an email about who I am and why I subscribed. I took that task seriously and told him about the version of a Big Year my son & I did this year, in which we aimed to see as many birds of the Carolinas (North & South) as we could based on a list sent to us by the Carolina Bird Club. We didn’t limit ourselves to only spotting them in the Carolinas since we spent over half of the year on the road.
As I shared some of my highlights, I got tingly all over. I realized that birding was a living embodiment of my deeper connection to nature. I spent more time in nature this year than any since I was a child. Searching for birds was more about tuning in, listening, and my inner state mirroring the outer. This is how we can live in harmony with nature and be reminded that we are a part of it. In other words, the exact thing I wanted to explore in my Substack.
And so, I am going to wrap up my big year by sharing some of my favorite bird encounters from the year.
Every Bird is Sacred
I think every single experience with birds is special in its own way.
This includes the year round residents and regular visitors at my house like Northern Cardinals, Tufted Titmice, Carolina Chickadees (life is always better with Chickadees), Mourning Doves, Carolina Wrens, Goldfinches, Song Sparrows, and so many more. It definitely includes the woodpeckers which are probably the closest thing I have to a totem animal. Every single one of them that reside in the mountains showed up at our house this year and a number remain in residence.
It also includes the surprise sightings that landed on trees in front of me, popped out of bushes or were in places they should not have been.
And definitely includes the ones we went hunting for whether we found them or not.
So where to begin? I believe I will follow the order in the Checklist of the Birds of the Carolinas by the Carolina Bird Club that inspired us to undertake our big year.
Ducks!
Watching Mallards, Eiders and American Black Ducks at play is always a highlight and especially exciting were those that we saw off the coast of far Northern Maine. We spent a very foggy and delightful week in Eastport, Maine. It may not have been the best weather for bird watching, but there was nothing more magical than seeing a raft of ducks emerging from the dense fog.
Even Doves Have Pride
Early in our adventures we invited the Grandkids down for a Florida adventure that included Universal Theme Park. The roller coasters were nice, but the real treat for me was visiting Cedar Key on the Gulf Coast so the kids could all swim in the ocean. While Tuck and Monte frolicked in the waves with Papa, I took it all in including some old ornery gulls, pelicans, starlings and a flock of Eurasian Collared-Doves that reminded me that even the most common of birds are delightful!
Widows in the Night
The calls of Night Jars are some of the most magical for anyone to witness whether you are a diehard birder or not. But because they are most active in the night it can be challenging to spot Whip-poor-wills, Common Nighthawks, and Chuck-will’s-widows. It seemed that for the whole month of April and May we were being haunted by Chuck-will’s-widows.
On an enchanted evening at Kiptopeke State Park in Virginia, I was taking a late night walk and heard one singing. I stayed quiet and patient and watched the general area I thought the call was coming from and then the dark shadow of a bird flew over my head and landed on a tree right above me. I held my breath and when it started singing again, my whole being lit up in joy at the sweet song of this haunting bird that had been with me for the last month and whom I finally set eyes upon.
All Ashore!
I am not a shorebird expert, but I sure do love to watch them play. I am enrapt when pipers and plovers run in and out of the waves feeding. I can’t help but giggle when they get surprised by a bigger than expected wave which happens to me all of the time. And watching those little legs moving so fast is pure pleasure. Darcy and I counted 15 different shorebirds over the year. The two that stood out for me were seeing Piping Plovers while in Cape Cod and magically stumbling upon Wilson’s Plovers in Georgia.
Piping Plovers always feel special to me because it is the first animal I head was an endangered species. Spotting one while at the coast is one of the factors that kept my birding flame burning from childhood through today. So seeing them amongst the marsh grasses in one of my favorite places on the planet was wonderful. And I had never seen a Wilson’s Plover in my life, so imagine my surprise that after watching a Roseate Spoonbill and Snowy Egret relaxing together, I ran into a few of these cuties feeding further up the beach.
All Aboard the Puffin Express
When we first arrived in Maine on our adventures, I was immediately drawn to the idea of seeing one of the Atlantic Puffin colonies that lay off the coast. It took us a whole month to make it happen, but we did. The two of us headed to Boothbay Harbor and went on a Puffin Watch. The staff was sweet and the boat’s naturalist was an avid birder with a great eye. So in addition to rafts of puffins (that is what they call a bunch of puffins), we spotted Black Guillemots, a variety of shearwaters (Cory’s, Sooty, Great and Manx), Roseate Terns and more Wilson’s Storm Petrels than you could dream of. All of these were life listers for us. It was such a special trip for the two of us and I will always cherish it.
The Gullfather
A lifetime viewing seagulls through the lens of those pesky birds that always want your lunch at the beach or with the hope that one will breakthrough and learn how to be something more ala Jonathan Livingston Seagull can really color your perceptions of these fun, silly and full of being birds. For me the breakthrough came when realizing that there were more than a dozen to be discovered in our region and each new one helped me see more clearly the different peculiarities, personalities and quirks of these multifaceted birds.
Darcy and I found ourselves drawn to what was likely the largest of the gulls we saw this year - the Great Black-backed Gull. In one particularly vivid scene we were watching a large group of Ring-billed gulls that were being brought to order by a particularly large Great Black-backed. The more we watched the more it felt like he was the Godfather and all of the other gulls there were coming to express loyalty and kiss the ring of this large bird. We sat and watched the scene for a good twenty minutes enrapt both by the silliness of the story we were weaving in our heads and the growing likelihood that we were right.
That Bird is Making Me Hungry
Gulls aren’t the only common shore bird that is often overlooked. There are more than a dozen terns in the region and they too all have unique personalities. I love to watch terns race over the waves and squeal with delight, it makes my heart soar. And it is so fun to slowly but surely begin to be able to differentiate the sounds of calls. I don’t usually know which is which but I know it's something new to my ears and so I tune in.
Sometimes in our enthusiasm to get out and see birds in the new places we were visiting we remembered binoculars and cameras and books, but forgot other important trail necessities like food and water. On one of those mornings when we were on Jekyll Island in Georgia, we were getting deeper and deeper in and of course getting hungrier and hungrier. I think my stomach was almost growling loud enough to drown out the birds, but we both tuned into the call of what we knew was a new tern. Sure enough, Merlin let us know that we had discovered a new lifer. When we saw the name we both burst out laughing, it was a Sandwich Tern. In our tears of glee, we looked at each other, noticing a sign from the universe when it hit us over the head, and turned back to camp to eat, giggling the whole way home.
The Fairest of Them All?
While traveling, I often started my day with a short walk in nature to clear my head, contemplate and see what the local birds were up to. We spent a hot, sweaty, mosquito infested night parked next to a rail trail in the lakes region of New Hampshire. It is easy to be cranky, disconnected and irritable after those kinds of nights and so when I awoke feeling all of that and more, I decided to take a stroll on the rail trail.
Though the map seemed to indicate the trail would be the prettiest to the south, I had a strong buzz to go north. I followed my intuition and had no idea why as I continued to pass mostly derelict buildings and highway overpasses. That little voice in my head was urging me to turn around as I was having the age old fear of missing out, but I relaxed and got into a gentle walking meditation rhythm. I was lost in the world around me and as I rounded a bend and saw the most beautiful lake and heard the flap of wings as a bird landed on the water right in front of me. I was shocked to see a Common Loon (which I don’t really think is all that common). I stood still and watched him float and enjoy life on the lake. I was floating with him and spent what seemed like an eternity in this blissful oneness with this majestic bird. What a treasure and also what a beautiful reminder to really trust your intuition.
Sentinels Between Worlds
Cormorants are one of my favorites. I love to watch them in flight, swimming and diving, and especially to see them on a rock or post or dock with their wings spread out and drying in the sun. The way the light shimmers off the water droplets on their wings brings this beautiful, effervescent quality that is quite magical. It did not surprise me to discover that in Norse, Polynesian and other seafaring cultures lore, that cormorants were a sign of good omens and sentinels between the world of the living and dead.
In an earlier piece, Islands in the Stream, I wrote about the Hero’s Journey my family took in leaving the calm Eastern River in Maine to cross the wild and powerful Kennebec. It was an epic and enlivening journey. What I did not mention at the time, because it was submerged in my subconscious, was that the giant rocks that separated the two rivers were filled with a gulp (yup) of cormorants with wings spread sunning themselves. Taking in those magical birds gave me a sense of peace and a feeling of good omens ahead that likely provided the magic or confidence I needed to make the journey.
The Man and the Heron
Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli really nailed the personality of the Green Heron in his latest film, “The Boy and the Heron.” If you haven’t seen this film yet, I can’t recommend it highly enough, Miyazaki is an international treasure and his whole canon of films is worth a deep dive. The story follows a young boy at his old family estate trying to stay safe from the war and receiving messages from the spirit world delivered by a very strange heron.
I ventured out on an early morning bike ride to go birding and had a buzz to stop at an abandoned amphitheater in the woods on Jekyll Island. I followed 5 deer from the parking lot to the amphitheater and then deeper still to a pond. As I crept silently like the deer to the water I spotted a Green Heron. He was on a branch taking in his reflection in the water. I stepped on a stick as I inched closer and he made the wildest sounds I have ever heard as I watched him dive off the branch and deep down in the water. I was roaring with laughter as I tracked him in the water by the bubbles coming to the surface and then lost it when I saw his head emerge like the periscope on a submarine, do a 360, spotting me again, letting out another wail and then rushing away, finally escaping my watchful eye.
Still giggling to myself, I quietly walked around the small pond and was rewarded with a committee of Black vultures roosting in a tree. As I continued to walk quietly, like the deer, I then spotted a siege of Black-crowned Night-herons and then a couple of quiet Yellow-crowned Night-herons. It was truly magical. When I finished my loop and walked out to my bike, two of the fawns were there feeding and waiting for me to guide me out of the woods.
To be continued in part 2…
Really nice images Scot. I also saw "The Boy and the Heron," - great movie and story.
With apologies to the rolling stones, the raven rambler might be my power animal first sighted in mass at Raven Rock in Harnett County many yea in Eastern NC in my formative years