Nick Komar’s “Biggest Year” in USA Birding - 2023

Five years ago Sue Riffe nominated me for a position on the Board of Directors of the Colorado Field Ornithologists (CFO), a volunteer-run organization dedicated to the advancement of birds and birding in Colorado. A year later, CFO faced a leadership crisis. President David Gillilan was burnt out after his first two-year term of volunteering as President. His Vice-president, Christian Nunes had just become a father and announced his retirement from the board after 6 years of service. The new president was required to be someone with board experience or a past president. It seemed as though no one wanted this thankless job. At first I did not want it either. The last thing I needed was an additional source of stress. My full time job at CDC was stressful enough. But then I thought about the impact I could have as president so I changed my mind. The board was thrilled at my decision. Crisis averted. But they were also nervous about my running for President. Never in CFO’s 50-year histor

The main target of this road trip was the Colima Warbler which extends its nesting range over the border from Mexico only at Big Bend National Park. On the return I planned to stray to the east several hours in order to visit the western edge of the Edward’s Plateau where I could add Golden-cheeked Warbler and Black-capped Vireo. Two days before the trip three people sent me a copy of Todd Easterla’s checklist from Big Bend. While he was watching Colima Warbler, he discovered a stray from Mexico: Crescent-chested Warbler! This would be just the second record for Texas. I thought this trip would be more popular but only one person registered for it, my buddy Phil Cafaro. Phil is a tenured professor of Philosophy and a specialist on environmental ethics. He is fascinated by the big issues that face the world such as overpopulation and immigration problems. When I ask him “why?” he always has a profound answer no matter what the topic. In contrast, if you ask me “why?”, I reply “why not?”

I returned to Fort Collins with one day before my next scheduled trip to West Texas, beginning May 14, 2023. May 13 is prime spring migration in north-central Colorado and it was Global Migratory Bird Day, so of course I had to go birding.   The GroupMe text chain for Larimer County sounded early. A Kentucky Warbler from a few days earlier had been relocated at Prospect Ponds Natural Area. I had seen a couple of these along the Texas coast but I was still hoping to get a photo of one. Cliff Hendrick agreed to meet me there early in the afternoon. When I arrived to the parking area, a small flock of Clay-colored Sparrow (643) were singing. A few minutes later I heard the unique song of the Western Wood-pewee (644). After three hours searching, I never did see the Kentucky Warbler. Another rarity announcement text led me to a cooperative Field Sparrow (645). Later in the day, I followed another GroupMe alert to the Nix Natural Area where a Gray Flycatcher had been spotted.    Not new but

Florida plays a big role in any Big Year strategy. There are three elements to its importance. First, because of its geography it serves as a bottleneck for bird migration along the Atlantic Flyway. Second, it hosts numerous wind-blown vagrants from the Bahamas and Cuba. Third, an extraordinary number of exotic species have become naturalized and count towards official ABA list totals. A much greater number are counted in eBird list totals. I began my Florida adventure with 623 Big Year species (571 observed in the ABA Area), accompanied by Cliff Hendrick and Irene Fortune, two familiar Quetzal Tours customers from Colorado. Both had already participated in my Biggest Year project, Irene in South Texas, Cliff in Puerto Rico. I arrived a couple hours earlier than they on the afternoon of May 6, 2023. After renting a vehicle I picked them up at Miami’s International Airport at 5 PM. With only a few hours of daylight left, we decided to track down one of South Florida’s introduced species

As a birder, I find myself constantly on alert for observing birds around me. When I walk out my front door I am immediately aware of the birds around me. When I would drive my car, I am making mental notes of any bird I see.     However, these mental notes serve no one but me. With the advent of eBird, any bird sighting can be useful for researchers or conservationists. EBird collects the data in the form of a checklist and processes the data to create population bar charts for the region of the checklist. These data are publicly available for scientists to use to evaluate avian population shifts and relative abundance estimates for all bird species. Several years ago I decided I would make submitting a checklist to eBird a daily ritual. In this way, I turned my birding hobby into a lifestyle. EBird keeps track of contributors daily streak for submitting checklists. My streak is currently 2333 days, which is almost 7 years long. So when I returned home from the Texas coast In the wee

For my second trip to Texas this year, I  flew with Maribel directly from Vancouver, British Columbia to Houston at the conclusion of the repositioning cruise on the morning of April 28, 2023. My son, Nick Jr., picked us up at Bush Intercontinental Airport at about 6 PM  that afternoon after driving several hours from his home in Austin. We headed east towards Louisiana. At dusk we stopped in good habitat for nightjars. We were hoping for Eastern Whip-poor-will or Chuck Will’s Widow, but settled for a distant nighthawk species and a distant view of Barred Owl, which had been skillfully spotted by Nick’s young eyes.  April 29   Our targets this first morning in East Texas were mainly birds of the piney woods. But migrants were also plentiful, as we found ourselves in the heart of the Central Flyway at the peak of spring migration. Some of these species I had seen in Puerto Rico in late January/early February. By reencountering them in Texas I could count them for my lower 48 and ABA Are