PODCAST · sports
The Big Year Podcast
by Robert Baumander
I began my birding journey in 2012 having never picked up a pair of binoculars. I decided to learn by doing an ABA,(American Birding Association), Big Year and finished with 600 species. 10 years later, in 2022 I did a Canada Big Year, and counted 456 species.Now I get to talk to the birders of the Big Year, from Sandy Komito who was the first birder to do two Big Years, to Eve Morrell who was only the second woman to see more than 760 species in the continental ABA Area and provincial Big Year Birder, Karen Miller, who still holds the New Brunswick, Canada provincial record of 303 species.
Episodes
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Season 4, Episode 7: Riley Black and the Origins of Birds
Birds are dinosaurs. I’ll say that again. Birds are dinosaurs. Yes, birds, in fact, split off from a common non-avian dinosaur long before the asteroid hit 66 million years ago, and were flying the skies of our ancient planet while T-rex ruled the earth. In fact, they shared the airspace with the...
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Season 4, Episode 6: Ellen and Jerry Horak's 2025 Canada Big Year
Welcome birders to fall migration and a new episode of The Big Year Podcast, with me your congenial host, Robert Baumander. It’s the time of where the phrase, “there’s no birding like shore birding” comes to mind. In fact, I’ve written a little song to commemorate the Occasion: There’s no birding...
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Season 4, Episode 5: Tarik Shahzad's Cook County Big Years
It’s my birthday and I’ll bird if I want to bird if I want to. You would bird too - if it was you. Welcome to the birthday edition of the Big Year Podcast. Well, the only thing that makes it a birthday edition is, well, because it’s my birthday. I’m Robert Baumander and I’m 66 years old today. Do...
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Season 4, Episode 4: Back on the Road, Again
Yes, once again, I am back on the road again. Welcome back to the Big Year Podcast, I remain and am still Robert Baumander and you’re well, you. And thanks for being you and taking the time to listen. Today we’re taking a little break from Big Year Birders and talking to a few birders I’ve met on...
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Season 4, Episode 3: Tobin Brown’s Nebraska Big Year, and a Whooping Craine update
A hardy welcome to summer birding and the return, after a break for migration, of The Big Year Podcast. Seems silly of me to tell you the title of the show, since you must have known it when you clicked on the podcast to begin with. Today, we have two guests. Our first guest is Tobin Brown, who…
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Season 4, Episode 2: Canadian Astronaut Roberta Bondar, and A Space for Birds
The year was 1969. I was a month shy of my ninth birthday. It was way past my bedtime, though it was only 10pm. In my memory of the event, it was the middle of the night. Along with my family, gathered around the black-and-white television in my parent's bedroom, we watched the broadcast of the...
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Season 4, Episode 1: Josh van der Meulen’s 2012 Ontario Big Year
The Big Year Podcast April 1, 2026 It is April 1, 2026, I’m Robert Baumander and welcome to season 4 of The Big Year Podcast. My 4th season? Really? So glad to be back again. Miss me? It’s been an exciting journey and this season promises to be the best ever. Maybe. Or not. I’ll let you be the...
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Season 3, Episode 8: Ellen and Jerry Horak's Big Years
Welcome to another episode of The Big Year Podcast. I’m your host and guide to the world of Big Year birding, Robert Baumander. It’s December 1, 2025 and you’re listening to the Season Three Finale. That’s right, l have been blathering on now for nearly three years. When I began this podcast in...
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Season 3, Episode 7: Liam Ragan’s Victoria Island, BC Big Year
It’s a rainy day in Birderland. It’s October 30, 2025 and I am writing this on night before Halloween. I won’t claim that this is going to be a spooky episode, but there are one or two scary birding stories from our guest Liam Ragan. Liam broke the record for a Vancouver Island, British Columbia...
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Season 3, Episode 6: On the Road, Again
It was the perfect way to begin The Big Year Podcast On the Road, Again, with discovery of a very rare bird, right here in my backyard, near Cambridge, Ontario. A young birder by the name of Nathan Hood found a Spotted Redshank, a rare visitor lost on its way back from Eurasia. Almost every…
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Season 3, Episode 5: 2012 Ontario Big Year with Andrew Keaveny
Welcome all to The Big Year Podcast. I’m Robert Baumander and you’re, well, you. It’s the end of July, 2025, and you know what that means? Certainly an all new episode of the Big Year podcast, naturally, but mostly, we’re smack-dab in the heat of the summer and the lack-of-birds blues. In July…
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Season 3, Episode 4: Ingrid and Ethan Whitaker's Lower 48 Big Year
Happy Canada Jay Day. It’s July 1, 2025 and for most people it’s a holiday and a chance to barbecue, picnic, get away from the house and watch or set off fireworks after dark. For birders,(those poor souls that have to work for a living during the week), it’s a day to celebrate birds and go…
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Season 3, Episode 3: Alberta Bider and Guide, Gavin McKinnon
Well, thank you once again for joining me on the Big Year podcast. As May turns to June, spring migration is coming to a close. I've been busy all the merry month of May, birding in Long Point Provincial Park, where we got to see a Summer Tanager, Rondeau Provincial Parks for a Mourning Warbler,...
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Season 3, Episode 2: Natasza Fontaine and Robert Gundy Florida Big Year and Artist of the
Happy Podcast day, one and all! Welcome to back to The Big Year Podcast. Thank you once again for joining me. It’s April 15, 2025 and spring migration is well underway here in southwestern Ontario. It’s actually a bit of a miracle that I finished this episode on time because the last 2 weeks have...
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Season 3, Episode 1: Jean Iron
Yes, The Big Year Podcast is back. And after a long, cold, snowy winter, the temperatures are finally on the rise and the birds are finally on migration. It’s March 15, 2025 as I sit down to write this, I’m looking out my front window, here Brantford, Ontario to bright blue skies and hearing...
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Season 2, Episode 9: The Season Finale
It is December of 2024 and we’ve come to the end of another season of The Big Year Podcast. Welcome one and all as we look back on another year of birding or are looking forward to next year and possibly your own Big Year. If so, let me know and we can have a chat, sometime. I love to hear your...
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Season 2, Episode 8: Josh Gant, 2020 Ocean County, NJ Big Year
Well, it's Friday, November 7, 2024. I'm now five weeks late for my latest podcast, this episode with Joshua Gant, which was supposed to have appeared on October 1st. Well, I got busy in October, actually in September as well, and I started a project that kept me pretty busy. Not only was I...
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Season 2, Episode 6: Marcus Legzdins and his 2023 HSA Big Year
Welcome, birders and non birders who have to put up with the birders in their lives, to the Big Year Podcast, with me, the one, the only,(thankfully), Robert Baumander. As I sit and type this introduction, it is August 1, 2024 and the unofficial start of The Dog Days of Summer. Actually, for...
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Season 2, Episode 5: Trailblazing Extreme Birder Lynn Barber
Today’s episode, features a trailblazer, who was the first woman to do a full out ABA Big Year and has been an inspiration to women in the birding world ever since she saw 723 species in 2008, one more than Sandy Komito’s first Big Year in 1986. Lynn Barber is an author and artists and had done…
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Season 2, Episode 4: Brett Forsyth's 2022 Human Powered Green Big Year
Well, happy birding to everyone who has chosen to join me here today. It is Saturday, June 1st, 2024, as I type. I'm Robert Baumander and this is The Big Year Podcast. My guest is Brett Forsyth, who, in 2022, did a self-powered Big Year, which means he never got in the car to go to see any bird,...
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Season 2, Episode 3: Krissi Martin's 2022 Double Big Year
Welcome back to The Big Year Podcast. Sorry to have been gone so long, but birding seemed to drag me away from editing more often than not in April. Not to mention that I was recovering from a severe hand injury, when I fell after seeing both Ross’s and Snow Geese in Burlington in March. I hyper...
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Season 2, Episode 2, Part Two: Bruce DiLabio’s Canada Big Year
Hello there everybody, Welcome back to The Big Year Podcast. This is part 2 of my chat with the new all time record holder for a Canada Big Year, Bruce DiLabio. As I type this, it’s a sunny spring day in late March and the excitement of migration season is just around the corner. It’s what all...
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Season 2, Episode 1, Part One: Bruce Di Labio’s Canada Big Year
Hello Birders, welcome back to The Big Year Podcast. I am so excited to be back for a second season. I wasn’t sure we’d get renewed but the birds tweeted their approval and desire to hear from even more Big Year birders, so here I am and boy do I have a great line up of guests ready to share…
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Season 1, Episode 14: Kelly-Sue O’Connor and Birding with Mental Health Issues
Hello birders, and other non-feathered friends, and welcome to Episode 14 and the final episode of Season 1 of The Big Year Podcast. I am thrilled to have Kelly-Sue O’Conner, who runs Birder Brains, who along with myself and many other birders, live with various mental health issues, including...
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Season 1, Episode 13: Tiffany Kersten’s 2021 Lower 48 Big Year, Part 2
We are back. Welcome once again to the show about birders and their Big Years. I had the pleasure of speaking with Tiffany a while back and in a previous episode we were discussing the life changing events that accidentally pushed her into doing a Big Year in the Lower 48 states. And today as we...
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Season 1, Episode 12: Tiffany Kersten‘s Record Breaking Lower 48 Big Year: Part One
Welcome to Episode 12 of The Big Year Podcast. For those of you here for the first time, my name is Robert Baumander, but I spent 41 years as Captain Video for the Toronto Blue Jays. Along the way I performed as a magician and Escape Artist, managed the computer system for Pizza Pizza…
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Season 1, Episode 11: Kiah Jasper’s Record Breaking Ontario Big Year.
And a hearty welcome to episode 11 of the Big Year Podcast. I'm Robert. Baumander, and I'm your guide to the life of the big year birding experience. Late in the year 2011, which seems like a lifetime ago, I saw a little movie called, not surprisingly, The Big Year. One of my favorite actors…
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Season 1, Episode 10: Ezra Campanelli’s 2022 Ontario Big Year
Welcome to Part 4 of my 5 part series on the Birders of the Ontario 2022 Big Year. Today I will be talking to Ezra Campanelli who was one of the 3 birders that broke the all time record for species in an Ontario Big Year with 357 species seen. He is one of a crop of young birders who are taking...
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Season 1, Episode 9: William Konze’s Ontario Big Year 2022
Welcome to Part 3 of my 5 episode series on the birders of the 2022 Ontario Big Year. Three birders broke the all time record, including William Konze, who didn't even set out to do a Big Year, let alone break the record. Though he didn't end up on top, his accomplishment is still a testament to...
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Season 1, Episode 8: Andy Nguyen’s Ontario Big Year, 2022
A long time ago in an era known as the Covid-19 Lockdowns, I met Andy Nguyen on a berm above the Grand River in Brantford, Ontario. We were looking or a California Gull and before finding it, I ran off to look for a Yellow-browed Warbler in Oakville. Because Andy was wearing a mask, as it was…
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Season 1, Episode 7: Susan Nagy’s Ontario Big Year
Welcome to another episode of the Big Year Podcast! My journey across North America to talk to and see what makes Big Year Birders Tick. It’s July 2, 2023 as I broadcast from my Secret Big Year recording location, deep in the basement of my Brantford home. It’s a rainy day so I am stuck indoors,...
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Season 1, Episode 6: On the Road. What Was Your Spark Bird?
The month of May in Southwestern Ontario is all about songbird migration and seeing as many warblers as possible. I knew I wasn't going to have time to edit previous podcasts and, naturally, no birders were going to have time to do sit down interviews that may cost them a Big Year Bird or Lifer…
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Season 1, Episode 5: Laura Keene 2016 Record Breaking Photographic Big Year
Today is May 1, 2023 and it is the official start of Spring Migration here in Southern Ontario. Birders from far and wide, some doing their own Big Years, are beginning their own migration to Canada’s spring birding hotspot, Point Pelee National Park to welcome the songbirds home. Down in Ohio,...
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Season 1, Episode 4: Karen Miller 2017 New Brunswick
I met Karen Miller on Canada Day in 2022. I was running out of options to get close enough to Bill's Island, off of Grand Manan, New Brunswick, so I could see American Oystercatchers. If the ferry had not been late, I'd have never met Karen and her husband Bill, who had been ferrying birders out…
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Season 1, Episode 3: Christian Hagenlocher 2016 ABA Big Year
On today's episode we talk to Christian Hagenlocher. At the age of 26 he did his 21st century version of a Big Year on a budget,(a tight budget), and saw 752 species. He was the youngest birder to ever pass 750, making it an even greater accomplishment. Christian is creator of The Birding Project...
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Season 1, Episode 2: Yve Morrell 2017 ABA Big Year
Episode 2 of the Big Year Podcast features Yve Morrell. I first met Yve Morrell in 2017 during her Big Year. I had flown down to Texas to search for a Jabiru. A bunch of us, including Yve, searched in vain for it for most of the day. Many of us did get a Black Rail that day, so it wasn’t a total...
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Season 1, Episode 1: Sandy Komito’s Record Breaking Big Years
Episode 1 of The Big Year Podcast features Sandy Komito, who twice broke the ABA Big Year birding records in 1987 and again in 1998.
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The Big Year Podcast Preview
The Big Year Podcast, begins January 30, 2023. Having just completed a Canada Big Year in 2022, birding across the country for 365 days and seeing 456 species, I am now putting my obsessions, ahm, efforts into talking to the birders of the Big Year. Birders who have had the same commitment,(some...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
I began my birding journey in 2012 having never picked up a pair of binoculars. I decided to learn by doing an ABA,(American Birding Association), Big Year and finished with 600 species. 10 years later, in 2022 I did a Canada Big Year, and counted 456 species.Now I get to talk to the birders of the Big Year, from Sandy Komito who was the first birder to do two Big Years, to Eve Morrell who was only the second woman to see more than 760 species in the continental ABA Area and provincial Big Year Birder, Karen Miller, who still holds the New Brunswick, Canada provincial record of 303 species.
HOSTED BY
Robert Baumander
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does The Big Year Podcast have?
The Big Year Podcast currently has 38 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Big Year Podcast about?
I began my birding journey in 2012 having never picked up a pair of binoculars. I decided to learn by doing an ABA,(American Birding Association), Big Year and finished with 600 species. 10 years later, in 2022 I did a Canada Big Year, and counted 456 species.Now I get to talk to the birders of the...
How often does The Big Year Podcast release new episodes?
The Big Year Podcast has 38 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to The Big Year Podcast?
You can listen to The Big Year Podcast on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Big Year Podcast?
The Big Year Podcast is created and hosted by Robert Baumander.
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