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Musing on Alaska Birds, Birding Goals, and Big Years
I am now NOT doing a big year (as I keep telling myself and everyone else) even though I am in Alaska and could have begun an Anchorage big year and/or an Alaskan big year in January. When I am not doing a big year, I try to be a more normal birder, so I am just birding locally in the Anchorage area (mostly), and I am trying very hard not to do much bird chasing. You might ask, “How is that working for you?”
My answer depends on the day, the weather, my mood, and what birds are around. Take this past weekend when an Anchorage Audubon field trip to Seward was scheduled. I was very much looking forward to the trip, having not gone down to Seward or much of anywhere else outside of Anchorage since we moved here in September, but the weather forecast for freezing rain stopped me cold. During my ABA big year and my other big years, such things mostly did not stop me – I had places to go and birds to see and I went. But on Saturday, instead of joining the other birders, I birded from the house as the rain came down outside and froze on the roads and everything else. I was mostly content at not going on the trip – until I heard that the trip did indeed happen and that many participants saw many good birds. Oh well.
When rare birds appear in Anchorage, I do allow myself to chase them, and to try to find them. Thus, I have gone to a local hotspot many times to look for, and sometimes see, a Purple Finch and a Cassin’s Finch that are serious rarities here, but for some reason have arrived this winter and have stayed around. I drove south of Anchorage numerous times to try to find one of the reported Townsend’s Solitaires, and was delighted to learn of and then find one that has been wintering in town. I have also looked for another local rarity, a Chipping Sparrow in north Anchorage, and hopefully will eventually find it, but not so far. If these were birds “needed” in a big year, I would be extremely disappointed if I did not find them. As it is, it is mainly irritating that I just can’t find a bird that I am looking for. It becomes a challenge but not so much an obsession.
I have definitely not taken the very long road and ferry trip to Unalaska to look for the Eurasian Siskin that has been around for months, even though I have never seen one on this continent. If I were doing a big year in Alaska or the ABA area, that would have been one of my first chases this year, and if I had not seen it on my first trip, I undoubtedly would have been back to try again.
Somehow, I think that my usual mindset of just loving to go out and look for and find birds shifts into a much higher gear when my brain realizes that I am doing a big year. Then, I MUST find them, and am driven to try to do so. Rare birds all of a sudden become super-attractive to me and so much “better” and more desirable to see than are the day-to-day birds. When I am not doing a big year, I am, as this year, (almost always) as happy watching and hand-feeding my beautiful backyard Steller’s Jays, watching the Black-capped Chickadees carry away seeds one at a time, and marveling at the crossed bill of the White-winged Crossbills and at the huge numbers of Bohemian Waxwings all over Anchorage. I certainly am happier seeing these regular birds than I am driving and driving and driving for a rarity, a rarity that I might not even find.
Sometimes I think that during years when I am not doing a big year, I am just resting, gathering strength and preparing myself for the rigors of upcoming big years (and of course, saving money by doing less traveling for birds). That may have been true in the past, but there is a very real likelihood that I will not do any more big years. It turns out that I am more addicted to birding itself than I am to big years. Right now, it’s just all about finding and seeing birds that I love. And hidden behind all that is the very certain feeling that by NOT doing a big year, by NOT chasing birds, by not driving anywhere near as much as I have done during a big year, I am being less destructive of our environment, the bird’s environment. That not only is not a rationalization for not doing a big year (I love those triple negatives), but it is a reason not to do a big year, or at least not my normal type of big year. In the throes of my big years, and in justifying to myself the doing of another big year, I have tried in vain to repress the guilty feeling caused by all the miles that I have driven.
But, that’s enough for now. I need to go back upstairs and see if the Steller’s Jays are back at our feeders.
Join the American Birding Association at www.aba.org!
Source: http://blog.aba.org/2015/02/musing-on-alaska-birds-birding-goals-and-big-years.html
