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<\/a>Big Years are not new in the birding world. Many birders have done them in their home states, and some\u00a0even dare to\u00a0do a Big Year throughout the U.S. (check out the film The Big Year<\/em> starring Owen Wilson, Steve Martin and Jack Black), and the ultimate,\u00a0the\u00a0recently-completed global Big Year completed by Noah Strycker, who, on December 29th, checked off his 6,000th species while hiking\u00a0in the Himalayas, breaking the previous world record by nearly 1,400 species!\u00a0\u00a0But, it would be a new “test” for me and my birding skills. I really didn’t have much of a plan or strategy, although looking back over the past 12 months, I wish I had! The list of words that describe my year-long\u00a0quest are fun, tiring, frustrating, appreciative, discovering, wife-support, family-support, new friends, guidance, snacks, water, more snacks, driving, walking, tripping, falling, hot, cold, wet, dark, bright, beauty, weird, snow, rain, sleet, wind, mud, ticks, bugs, briars and finally, exhilarating!<\/p>\n My 12-month journey included traveling over 7,000 miles in the Keystone State, and tallied birds in\u00a028 different counties.\u00a0I covered rural habitats and urban areas. I explored\u00a0mountains and valleys, forests and fields and lakes and rivers. My birding treks sometimes started hours before the sun came up,\u00a0 lasted all day, and once\u00a0in a while, continued after the sun set.\u00a0\u00a0Along the way I had my share of experiences, funny stories and interesting encounters. For some of these, please scroll back to read older posts The Quest<\/em> (February, 2015) and\u00a0The Quest Continues<\/em> (April, 2015).\u00a0My travels took me to many out-of-the-ordinary places to see birds, where, on occasion,\u00a0I\u00a0met several nice law enforcement officers who were very curious about what I was doing, and sometimes politely advised me to leave (no officer, it’s not a camera, it’s a spotting scope)! I only got Big Blue stuck twice (both were due to the combination of snow\/ice and deep ditches) where I needed assistance to get out, and one of those I managed to get the nice guy who stopped to help me\u00a0in Monroe County, stuck as well! Sorry Larry!\u00a0 You were a good sport about it! Unfortunately, my birding activities were not all about finding the next new species. there were plenty of those not-so-glamorous moments that most birders would like to forget-mostly due to other natural factors.<\/p>\n As spring rolled into summer, my biggest obstacles seemed to be insects, or simply called bugs after a while. I was constantly picking ticks off me (only a few out of me), trying to swat away a billion gnats that always targeted the inside of my ears, and having my blood drawn by herds of mosquitos and a variety of different horse\/deer flies. I was stung by a few “pretty-looking,” wasps and bees, and had the misfortune of stepping on a ground nest of yellow jackets in Cumberland County that sent me running wildly\u00a0through the woods like a deer being chased by a lion! Did you know that shrieking loudly while running does not scare off yellow jackets? I don’t think a single one heard me. My face-to-face meetings were not limited to police\/security officers and bugs.<\/p>\n In early July while looking for warblers in Carbon County, a mama Black Bear with two cubs stopped momentarily\u00a0to give me a brief stare down (I turned away first), and\u00a0a camouflaged movement along the side of a trail in Lycoming County was the only thing that prevented me from putting my foot down on a Timber Rattlesnake that never rattled. But most of my flashes came from the lack of\u00a0using good judgement while\u00a0caught up\u00a0“in the heat of the birding moment.” Whether it was the small, freezing cold stream I tumbled in to while trying to cross an ice-covered log in Pike County (that one hurt), or the wetland in Lancaster County where I sunk my boot in mud that was a foot deep while looking for a Marsh Wren. After\u00a015 minutes of trying to dislodge my foot\/boot from muck while deer flies\u00a0chomped at my head and arms, and\u00a0sweat rolled off my face,\u00a0I finally managed to get it out, then proceeded to trip,\u00a0fall on my gut\u00a0and sink my binoculars in the same stinky grime! After a long, uncomfortable drive home, I was seriously thinking about ending my big year-until a Pacific Loon was found at Nockamixon SP the next day, and I quickly forgot about the man-eating swamp. There were days that I considered uneventful, but most of my excursions always brought back something funny, weird or painful, to share with my wife. She always tried to listen attentively\u00a0(and seem interested)\u00a0to my latest bird story, or encounter, while holding back her chuckles.<\/p>\n Throughout the year, there were lost of rarities that showed up in PA (not normally found here) that I chased, too. There was the Harris’s Sparrow in Northampton County in January\u00a0that the Koch family welcomed birders to see\u00a0at their backyard bird feeders, a Bullock’s Oriole in February\u00a0that appeared in a backyard\u00a0for another winter, only 15 minutes from my\u00a0home, and a lonely, male\u00a0Chuck-wills-Widow in Lebanon County in June\u00a0(on land owned by the U.S. Army’s\u00a0Ft Indiantown) that returned to the same location, calling each night for a mate. Click\u00a0below to hear the recorded call of the Chuck-wills-Widow.<\/em><\/p>\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>