Big year

I was so exhausted and so tired and I was so upset and so we went back up to the meadow area and searched and searched and finally Jerry saw movement and it was the white-tailed ptarmigan.

Welcome, birders, to Fall Migration and a new episode of the Big Year Podcast.

With me, your congenial host, Robert Beaumander.

It's that time of year where the phrase, there's no birding like shorebirding, comes to mind.

In fact, after a winter trip to Costa Rica, it was Ellen's 601st species of the year.

Again with the numbers, what can I do? I had a year like that in 2016 when Sue and I went to Panama for a week in January.

That was part of my Birds and Blue Jays big year.

That year I was traveling with the Toronto Blue Jays baseball club on all their major league road trips.

Today, we have a very interesting guest, Anton Schultz.

Anton took part in a birding big year.

Now, for those that don't know, a birding big year, depending on where you do it, some people do it globally, some people do it for their province, and some people do it for Southern Africa, which is the common one that we do as Southern African birders.

Bertus, he did a Southern African Big Year in 2019, and he managed to see 804 species in a year, setting a record as the youngest person to hit 804 species in Southern Africa in a year.

I had the joy of birding I think once or twice with Anton during his big year and I don't think I helped him find a single target but anyway Anton currently works for Birding Eco Tours he's led some great tours he's a fantastic birder I've had the joy of having him on some of guiding some things with me as well, mostly impromptu things.

And I've had the joy of spending quite a bit of time with Anton.

I actually recently saw him at this year's African Bird Fair, which was an absolute joy.

Yeah, I think it was September 2019.

and they win the division.

It's going to be a big year for Drake May.

He had an unbelievable year.

You could almost say out of nowhere, not out of nowhere, but it was kind of a little surprising how good it was.

And then from that point on, him and his brother, because clearly had nothing else going on.

And this happened to happen, I think, like in the fall or winter.

They were like, we're going to go around for a year and we're going to try and do a big year.

These guys ended up seeing.