Strategic Planning

Success for my Biggest Year will require skill, time and financial resources (and perhaps a little luck). Skill in bird finding and bird identification I have. These are skills I have honed over fifty years of avidly birding. A great way to learn bird identification is to teach it, and I have been teaching others through leading bird walks for local bird clubs since I was 12 years old (Brookline Bird Club, Needham Bird Club, Fort Collins Audubon Society, Colorado Field Ornithologists (CFO), Western Field Ornithologists). More recently I have taught gull identification workshops for CFO, Denver Field Ornithologists and Denver Audubon Society. I will also need skill in logistics and planning. These skills I have developed through my side business operating birding tours through Quetzal Tours. I have time to dedicate to this venture as I recently retired from my job as a biologist. Parental duties are minimal now that my kids are in their late twenties/early thirties. Spousal duties are …well, negotiable. Fortunately Maribel is supporting me, at least for now. Financial resources are a limiting factor as federal agency biologists don’t have large salaries. My small retirement nest egg needs to last for decades so I do not want to deplete it all at once. These factors led me to develop a plan. I will subsidize the cost of my travel to multiple birding destinations by offering tours. This will slow me down somewhat but having multiple sets of eyes searching for target species should offset the hindrance of excessive bathroom and meal stops. So if you are a birder and would like to share this experience with me, please sign up for a tour or two. The tours are designed to see most of the species of the USA and its territories. Destinations include California, Texas, Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, Puerto Rico, Maine, Alaska, Hawaii, and the South Pacific. There are additional trips planned to chase specific targets, or take pelagic boat trips. The next available tour will be to south Texas Jan 19-26, and will be co-led by John Vanderpoel, a veteran big year birder. He tallied 744 species in the ABA area in 2011, achieving second place all time at the time. He chronicled his achievement in a book published by Buteo Books in 2021 titled “Full Chase Mode.” Current Biggest Year total - 80 species

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