2013 Big Year?

If I had been starting a 2013 Big Year with more freedom to travel and more money to spend, I would have started in south Florida.  Before the first week was up you would have had, with almost no trouble at all, a Western Spindalis, LaSagra's Flycatcher and a Bananaquit, all within near spitting distance of each other down in Miami-Dade.  You'd probably have been able to get, with a little time and patience, the Nanday and perhaps even the White-winged Parakeet as well.  It also seems like a boat trip out to Snake Bight would have netted you an American Flamingo, and if you got to enough McDonald's and Wal-Mart parking lots you'd have picked up a Common Myna in Florida City, just south of Homestead.

You'd be on your way up north by January 7th to get the Northern Lapwing, Tufted Duck, Barnacle and Pink-footed Geese, Black-headed Gull and Common Pochard,(if you had not already bagged them prior to heading to Florida), before getting on a plane on Monday to head west for the Citrine Wagtail and Brambling in British Columbia and then down to California for the Brown Booby and Arctic Loon.

From there, probably by Wednesday of next week, you'd be heading to Arizona for the Rufous-capped Warbler and Ruddy Ground-dove.  You could spend the next week or so in Arizona and Texas and your year would have been off to an amazing start.  In addition to any regular local birds you'd count along the way, you'd have picked up at least 18 tougher birds you'd not have to think about the rest of 2013.

Oh, if only I new then what I know now.  Though, back in late December of 2012 I was already committed to California on January 7th and already had booked a trip to Florida for February and couldn't afford to change those plans had something rare shown up elsewhere.  And that is the main reason I did miss so many good rarities in my Big Year.  I didn't have the money or flexibility in scheduling to drop everything and chase what needed to be chased.  That will change when I do another Big Year.

Today, back here in good old Toronto, Sue and I went down to Colonel Sam Smith Park to find the Great Horned Owl I had seen the previous day.  No luck, but lots of ducks and I took more digiscope photos.  Yesterday's photos were done with my old iPhone 4S and this morning I made an adaptor for my iPhone 5 and it works pretty good too.  Afterward we went to Humber Bay East where we saw a beautiful Northern Pintail, my favourite duck.  It was so close I didn't need a scope to take the photos.

Later, at home I walked around the cemetery that my house backs on to, hoping for signs of our own owl, but it was dead in there.  So I contented myself with photos of a Downy Woodpecker and female Cardinal at my feeders.  Meanwhile I shall wait for some local rarities to show up and try and photograph birds I missed getting pictures of last year.  And hope some of those Florida rarities hang on until my next work trip down there.


The first three birds were very far off and the light was bad, as the sky was overcast, but if I needed a photo to identify an uncommon or rare bird I would be quite happy with the results.

The Cardinal at my feeder was somewhat closer, and this was taken through my kitchen window.

I was close enough to these two that no scope was needed:

I love the Northern Pintail!