[TN-Bird] Re: Big Years
- From: David Chaffin <davchaffin@xxxxxxx>
- To: kbreault@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2011 20:13:24 -0400 (EDT)
Kevin,
Found your analysis interesting, as I have followed this big year game on a
number of levels. That includes back when I first started birding, as Steve
Stedman was doing a big year for TN. Have followed Sandy's years on a number
of occasions for the ABA area. Also, have been interested in folks who tackle
their own county for a year's go at it, like Blount Co recently. By the way,
have topped my previous Bradley Co(of 127) by a total of 151 this year. But I
digress.
I think the two major changes in ABA big years are, on the minus side, the lack
of availability of Attu as a reliable destination that was available to earlier
big year contenders like Bill Rydell(for example, in 1992) versus the
tremendous help that is available online now for more recent big year birders.
When Larry Balch stop the Attu trips, I thought at the time that there goes the
big year records, but time looks like will prove me wrong. I look forward to
the results for this calendar year.
David Chaffin
Cleveland
Bradley Co
-----Original Message-----
From: kbreault <kbreault@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: tn-bird <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: kbreault <kbreault@xxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tue, Nov 1, 2011 5:29 pm
Subject: [TN-Bird] Big Years
With my wife overseas (not birding), my daughter in college (and I hope not
birding and spending most of her time studying), my dad, who is 85, asked if I
had heard about this movie, The Big Year. Well, I had seen the movie when it
first came out (in a large theater with seven other people), so I thought why
not. Perhaps we could have one of those father and son moments depicted by Jack
Black and his ailing father, Brian Dennehy (the birder Greg Miller and his
father in real life). This time there was only one showing of the movie in the
afternoon and the theater was as small as that of some of my toniest neighbors,
but at least the audience was more numerous with about 20 individuals (I would
be more specific but they were sitting in seats and not up in the air). You may
be interested to know that in the movie the birding trip with Greg and his
father was as it actually happened in life. Greg had doubled back down the
trail when he became concerned about his father, who had been left behind on
the trail when he got winded, only to find his father watching the owl they had
been chasing. The only difference was that the owl was really a Long-eared Owl
not the Great Gray of the movie. Note that it was a Long-eared Owl, Sandy
Komito's NARBA password, that was Sandy's last bird on December 31 of 1987, the
year he got 721, and that Sandy's last bird for 1998 was not the December 31
Snowy Owl of Sax-Zim Bog, Minnesota as indicated in the movie, but a
White-cheeked Pintail in Florida. In the end, my father's take on the movie was
rather similar to that of my wife who quipped, "It makes you look less like a
crazy person." She's exaggerating, of course.
And so it got me thinking about this exciting version of our hobby--or
"calling" as the Komito character puts it in the movie. While the movie tanked
(it cost $41 million and as of last week had earned about 6.5 million), Big
Years have become more popular (although the numbers were never very high), a
new Big Year record may soon be established in 2011 (see below), and the
information about the records on the internet are incomplete. Thus, the
following are the top 18 all-time Big Year records for the ABA Area, including
James Vardaman's near 700 total (sources mainly from the ABA; birds-year):
1. Sandy Komito (745-1998)
2. Robert Ake (731-2010)
4.-t Wayne Irwin (724-2010)
4.-t Bob Maxwell (724-2010)
5. Lynn Barber (723-2008)
6. Sandy Komito (721-1987)
8.-t Greg Miller (715-1998)
8.-t Dan Sanders (715-2005)
9. William Rydell (714-1992)
10. B. Shiftlett (712-1983)
13.-t Benton Basham (711-1983)
13.-t Al Levantin (711-1998)
13.-t Steve Perry (711-1987)
14. Curtis Jordon (707-2002)
15. John Spahr (704-2010)
16. Charles Hocevar (702-1998)
17. John O'Neill (701-2007)
18. James Vardaman (699-1979)
Never fully satisfied with a mere list of numbers, I wondered how the all-time
list would change if the date of the records were taken into account. Why is
that important? Most birders would agree that getting to 700 birds in 2011 is a
lot easier than it was 32 years ago when Vardaman got painfully close. Compared
to 1979, we now know much more about how to conduct a Big Year. If we adjust
the records since 1979 by the overall increase in Big Year records, the top
three are Komito in 1998, Ake in 2010, and Komito again in 1987, emphasizing
just how dominant Komito has been in the Big Year game.
And change is coming soon to the all-time list. In just a few months John
Vanderpoel has at least an outside chance to beat Komito for the overall
record. As of this writing John has 729 with a McKay's Bunting seen in balmy
Nome, Alaska several days ago. You can follow John's progress at
www.bigyear2011.com. Enjoy.
Kevin Breault
Brentwood, TN
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