Punk Rock Big Year

Live tattoo session interview by you

2012-02-28T12:04:00.000-05:00

So here's the plan. I was recently followed on twitter by a group that does live tattoo session broadcasting. Their idea of broadcasting live tattoo sessions online gave me an idea. Maybe I should do a live session so anybody following the blog could easily see the ink going on me after they spent an entire year following PRBY. It seemed like a good idea but not greatly interesting. I figure people would maybe tune in and watch for a moment or two. Then, they would promptly say, "Yep, that's Paul getting Latin bird names tattooed on him." followed quickly by, "This is boring, what's in it for me?" Followed even quicker by closing their browser window. My writer partner Adam Bailey had the great idea of making it an interview about the film and big year. Now there was suddenly something for people to tune in to. I tossed the idea out on twitter and Facebook yesterday to see if any of you would be interested in that. So far interest has been pretty good.

So, that's what I plan to do. Now comes the incredible hassle of organizing it. I need a venue with fast Internet, a web cam, a person to conduct the interview, someone to monitor my Facebook and twitter account while I sit in the hot seat and someone to help get the word out there. I hope a live tattoo interview will be a first for both birding and tattooing.

Anyway, I have heard from a few people but not enough to make a big enough audience to have an hours worth (half hour might do) of questions. Questions can be about anything; birding, tattoos, me, my family, my job, you, anything at all. I'll strive to answer any question anyone might have. They don't have to be flattering, just interesting. I have a very thick skin (pardon the pun) from working in the advertising business.

To help me gauge interest level, please, please, please, please leave a comment here (even if you usually don't comment) on this blog post if you'd tune in to the session with questions (save the questions for the moment though so I can't prepare answers). Again I say please?

Thanks for the support you've given me. You're the main reason I keep this going.

Paul Riss

Punk Rock Big Year

How to fund a documentary

2012-02-21T09:35:00.003-05:00

Easy right. All you have to do is deprive your entire family of anything that isn't free for 365 days!

...have a job in advertising. I chose a little of both. Luckily, the children are young and won't likely remember the sacrifices they made. If you read Rachel's post on PRBY, you know she might not forget so easily. In all honesty, most of it was done with our own money, that and the insane amount of support we got (and are still getting) from people I've been lucky enough to work with over the last 10 years in the ad business.

Yes, I'm one of those ad people. I interrupt your day, evening and any other time I can to try and get you to buy stuff. If I could, I'd probably get you in your dreams too. ;-) It might seem a tad evil for a guy into conservation. Truthfully, I don't always stand behind what I sell but I also do lots of free work for charity and mostly conservation related charities. I do what I can. And that's really all we can do right? I thought instead of one of my long- winded posts that you have to read, I'd give you a bunch of pictures to look at. These videos and images represent what I do when I'm not birding. This is what pays the bills and buys the scopes and bins and road-trips to see birds. It also buys beer and whiskey and music. Some is TV spots and some print ads or band stuff. Enjoy.

Working remotely (Bird 235-238)

2012-02-08T09:33:00.001-05:00

So I did this big year in 2011. To make it more difficult, I also filmed it all to try making a documentary about birding/birders. You know all that. What you don't know is what it cost me? Financially, it wasn't the cheapest thing to do. I'm in debt now. Let's hope I can recoup some costs when the film is done (read: please buy a DVD even if it sucks worse that The Big Year did). It also nearly cost me my marriage. I'm not trying to be all dramatic but things were tough around the house. Doing a big year is nothing if not selfish. It takes time and money away from the things that actually matter, your family. Will I do another big year? Not while I'm married to Rachel.

One thing that didn't really get affected was my job. Sure it made it so I couldn't take all the trips I wanted but all I do for a living is think. And that can be done anywhere. Even in Algonquin Park, looking at birds I failed to get last year, some lifers even. That's how I spent last Tuesday, working remotely from Algonquin Park while looking for a few winter birds I should have had last year. I got them, all but two target birds we wanted. All the while trying to figure out how to get Americans to paint their living room. Here's the latest commercial I did for Subaru Canada.

I hadn't been birding for a full month. I hadn't missed it much either. The word 'Bird' by the end of last year had become, in the words of Rachel's sister, a four letter word in our house. I focused on Rachel and the kids. I did take great pleasure in watching the few birds I was getting to my feeders in the back yard but I hadn't looked through my bins in a full 31 days. But like herpes, the urge to go and bird always comes back. There is no cure. It's my methamphetamine. The feeling of seeing a new bird is indescribable. So, off I went looking for some new ones, three hours north of where I live. And how could I take a trip without Richard Pope and Margaret Bain?

We got into Algonquin Park about 10:30 am. We stopped first at the visitor center. They have feeders there that are very reliable for certain things. We saw many Blue Jays and much to my delight, about 50 Evening Grosbeaks. These are birds you don't see except in winter where we live and often not at all some winters without going north a few hours. There were both Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers, a few Black-capped Chickadees and one single Red-breasted Nuthatch. But I had all these birds last year. I needed more. While here I also used their wireless to watch an edit of a commercial I'm currently working on post production for.

Evening Grosbeak by Rob R Robinson.

Then we headed to the Spruce Bog Trail. There we got some Gray Jays (not a tattoo I'll be getting) and both White-winged and Red Crossbills. Also birds I won't have the pleasure of tattooing onto me. So now I had 3 new species that would have put me to 237 had I been able to do this trip last year. Next we headed off to Opeongo Road. It's too long to walk so we tried another way. We opened all 4 windows and the sunroof (despite some snow mixed with a very light freezing rain), crept along at a snails pace and listened intently. Whenever we heard chickadees, we'd stop and I'd whistle them in. Boreal Chickadees are known to hang at the edge of Black-capped Chickadee flocks. None the first time, only Black-capped Chickadees. Then we came across what we figure was the same flock of Evening Grosbeaks we saw at the center. Other birds started to show up. We got out and listened, scattered some seed for the very insistent Black-capped Chickadees. I even fed a Gray Jay in my hand (super cool). Then, I heard it, what sounded like a Black-capped Chickadee with a ball-gag in its mouth. I was very excited to hear this noise. Not because I have a fetish for Black-capped Chickadees sporting ball-gags but because I knew it meant a lifer was very near. We looked, examining every chickadee very closely. Then, there it was, keeping to the edge of the flock, a Boreal Chickadee. I easily got it in my bins. There was the hit I needed. A life bird. Went 41 years not seeing one. That was over now, the void filled. After seeing the Carolina Chickadee with Kenn Kaufman this past year, I had now seen all the chickadees available in North America (except the Mexican one that might show up in the south). This was especially good for me as the Black-capped Chickadee is my spark bird and it was nice to have all it's cousins ticked too.

Boreal Chickadee by Firstmac.

Gray Jay by quinet.

We drove on and got to the end of the road. Then, we turned around to head back driving faster now as we needed to go get two more birds before dusk. As we drives saw three birds flying. They had long tails, something Richard and margaret told me to watch for. We stopped, glassed them when they landed and all of a sudden I had another lifer. Pine Grosbeaks. We had hoped for but didn't expect them. I also had an idea for my paint client so I stopped to type it into my iPhone. I'm sure when Richard sees me doing this while birding, he must think I'm nuts.

Pine Grosbeak by ru_24_real.

After that we raced back to the Spruce Bog to try for Black-backed Woodpecker and Spruce Grouse. Never got them but heard another Boreal Chickadee. Then it was back on the highway and home. I had left the house at 6:15 am and finally got home about 8:30 pm. Rachel was out roller skating and my mom was watching the kids. I read some books to them, tucked them in and started working again on flushing out some of the ideas I had had that day for work. You have to feel lucky when Algonquin Park is your office for a day, your co-workers being life birds.

Paul Riss
punk Rock Big Year

Where's my Tilley hat?

2012-01-31T22:31:00.001-05:00

I broke 40 years on earth last Sunday. This may come as somewhat of a shock to people following this blog. I talk a big game about being punk and all that but as cameraman Jon Wayne Brown says, "He's more like an aging lanky punk." I'm still a contrast to the stereotype of a Birdwatcher. But the way I've gone on this year you might peg me for 25 which would place me knocking up Rachel at 21 years of age. Not so strange a scenario for a C student from Oshawa and a girl born in Sudbury. Thankfully, that ain't at all how it went down.

Young me (before marriage). I don't know why I have no shirt on.

I'm clearly drunk at this wedding.

Still, 40 isn't old. I'm only about half way to my forever dirt nap. If my dad is any indication of my gene-pool, I'm not even close to half way there. But anyone who's over 40 knows, shit gets a bit different; physically. Booze for one is a big one. I remember waking still drink and heading off to work with a smile on my face. And I'm not talking about when I was 18, this was a few years into my career. I could even do a meeting like that back then. At 30, it took a full 12 hours of face down (or in the toilet) recovery. At 40, it's shot up to about 48 hours recovery time. I shudder to think what it'll be like at 50. I guess maybe you aren't supposed to go out to rock shows and drink beer and whiskey until 3am. I just can't promise that isn't going to happen from time to time. My buddy Brad can still do it (he's a couple years older than I am) but his kids are grown and out of the house. Mine are like rats trying to bore a hole into your skull when you're hung over. My fix for that is this; drive to the pub so I can't drink. I'll never drink and drive. It's just so retarded a thing to do. So, I drive, get one pint of beer and free ginger- ale the rest of the night (at some pubs). Anyway, my point here is that I'm clearly aging.

On my honeymoon. Still no sign of aging.

It's as if gravity is getting stronger each year. It's harder to get up hills, stairs, out of bed. Anything up seems to suck just a bit more. Maybe I only notice this because I'm super observant of everything around me and of my own self. It's like I keep track of every change around me (except the decorating changes in my home; to be fair, Rachel changes things weekly). It's that sort of behaviour that makes me good at my job and a nightmare to be married to. For example, I can notice if my office chair has been sat in while I'm away from it at lunch. It's just not the way I left it. I also can't not tell Rachel she shouldn't have put her iPod through the washing machine. I know she knows this fact, probably even feels bad about the fact that we need to buy yet another iPod for her. But I won't be able to get on with life if I don't. So now, instead of telling her, I have a picture of her on my iPhone that I can open and tell, then it's over and done with.

Still looking relatively young in these. Last one's Cuba (hence cigar).

Never did get the Cuban Green Woodpecker.

What does all this mean? It means I'm getting older and I'm wondering if somewhere, there's a Tilley hat being stored in a box with my name on it. Will I become the stereotypical birder? Even if I did, my friends that look the part are not what you think. Richard is so witty and has such a sharp tongue that I'm often left thinking, did I just make that up in my mean old mind or did he say that? It's always the latter. Margaret is much more reserved but she's so crazy intelligent that I'm never not learning from her when we speak. So if I get the hat, the vest, the sensible shoes and the blue hair, bring it on because when I'm driving to the twitch, I'll still be listening to The Dead Kennedys, Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death! Or something similar. I will however be listening to it quietly if I'm birding with Richard or Margaret (they aren't big DK fans). Secretly, I want the gray hair. I think I'd look better that way.

Then this happened...

...times two. Here comes aging.

Tomorrow, I'm going birding with Richard and Margaret in Algonquin park. It's the first time I've looked through bins since December 31st. I'll let you know how it goes.

Paul Riss
Punk Rock Big Year

Go Bird Yourself.

2012-01-24T10:38:00.002-05:00

This week, we hear from my wife Rachel. This is the view from the wife of a Big Year birder. Always understanding, not always happy about it. Big shout out to Rachel's blog. If you like art, crafting and laughing, it's kind of the mecca for that stuff.

Rachel's blog header.

My sister Jenna predicted last January that "bird" would become a "four letter word" by the following January around these here parts. She wasn't entirely wrong.

For those of you who don't know me - I am Rachel, the non-birding half of the marriage to Paul Riss. The Missus Punk Rock Big Year as it were.

There are some ideas that in abstract seem fine. Great even. Snow shoeing across the Arctic, climbing a mountain, fighting a bear - unless you are the dummy left at home while the only other person responsible for helping get shit done in the house - is off doing these things .

When Paul approached me in 2010 with his Punk Rock Big Year idea, admittedly that was one of them. "That sounds awesome babe, do it"! Cut to four months in and I am alone on Mother's Day with two flu riddled children who are doing their very best to leave no surface (myself included) un-barfed on. Not so much. I mean Mother's Day, big deal right? Except it is a big deal. I cranked out two kids at once people, much to the ruination of a perfectly good set of boobs and a mostly intact psyche. And nope I don't expect a medal or a round of applause every time I enter a room (although that would be nice), but I sure as shit expect a day off. Same scenario on my birthday, minus the barf, but I am certain someone, somewhere in my house made a gross mess that I had to clean up, by myself, again. This was pretty much the scenario for much of 2011.

To be fair to Paul, I didn't really understand what a Big Year would mean. We had just moved to the country - to a completely gutted house (as in no walls gutted) so I was a bit distracted. I may have even

thought "great, it will get him out of my hair so I can get stuff done around here without having to discuss it first". I was focused on short-term gain, my bad. By the end of January last year most of the renovations were done and the walls were painted, lights installed. I imagine I had a moment of clarity. A "WAIT A MINUTE, WTF"!? moment after being left alone, in the country, in the winter, with two three year olds and no drivers license, for the fourth weekend in a row. By then it was a dollar short and a day late to object, Paul's Big Year had begun.

I would never, ever say no to something Paul was passionate about doing. I fully believe life is way too short to sit around wishing and waiting to do something great. This was a big deal to him and his whole heart was in it. I fully supported him in his efforts to make this documentary. I didn't however promise to be nice about it 100% of the time... or even 50% of the time.

Doing this year also meant that a camera was around more than I am comfortable with. I am not a fan of reality T.V, nor am I a fan of appearing like a shrieking harpy on film. Let's face it, it is way more interesting to watch the wife come unwound when her husband announces "they've spotted a blappity blah blah blah bird 10 hours or so north of here" on a Saturday - when she already has plans, than a smiling doe eyed agreeable "yes dear" wife. Bottom line - I don't feel like being the asshole of the film. I do however have a feeling that a few moments of "WHO THE HELL CARES!?! AND STOP THINKING ABOUT YOUR NEXT BLOG POST WHILE WE ARE HAVING A CONVERSATION! I CAN TOTALLY TELL WHEN YOU ARE DOING THAT FYI"! may have slipped on through.

It wasn't all yelling and hateful thoughts (really! ask him). Luckily for our marriage there were also moments of feeling very happy when Paul would find a "lifer" (is that the right term, or is that only a jail thing)? And many many moments of being incredibly proud of him. He made this work, he stuck to it, he found people to help him make it happen and he got to meet so many wonderful people (Margret Atwood - what??), and new friends along the way that it was hard not to be. Getting to see a rough cut of the trailer was rather heart swelling as well, it was the first time perhaps I actually got why he is doing this. It is odd to be fiercely proud and extraordinarily angry at someone all at the same time. No less confusing for Paul I am sure. I whole heartedly encouraged him to drive to Ohio to meet Kenn and Kim Kaufman, I knew what a big deal it was and I really did mean it when I said "of course go". I also meant it when I called him mid trip crying and threatening divorce if he left me alone with sick kids one more time this year. He called my bluff and left for Nicaragua one week later.

I was actually hesitant to write this post. My opinion on the whole event is much much different than most I am sure. I did however feel that it would offer some closure on what was really a rather hard year on myself and my family. Was it a good idea to do this in the middle of a move to a new house, new town and a complete life shift? Probably not. Would I agree to a part 2. for 2012? Hells no. Am I happy he did it? Very.

I am assured that post production and promotion this year will be of minimal upset to my life and schedule. I am also assured that the next planned documentary will not start until 2013. It has been promised that I can pick where we go on vacation this year, and that it won't be a vacation cleverly disguised as a birding trip (he has been known to trick me in the past). I am not sure I believe him 100%, perhaps I should get something in writing, or, tattooed on whatever patch of skin is left after this documentary wraps up.

Much love, much support, do it again and I will leave your ass. Xo.

I am NOT a birder!

2012-01-16T12:30:00.001-05:00

This week we hear from Jon Brown, one of the cameramen that helped so much with Punk Rock Big Year. He was the one that I told first and pushed me to the finish line all the way along. Next week; Rachel Riordan, my wife, weighs in on the effect of the big year on her and our family.

Jon Wayne Brown with 20 lbs. of camera.

If thereʼs one thing Iʼve learned from riding on Paulʼs big-year coattails, itʼs that birders are crazy people. Which is probably why I got along with them so well.

It is completely irrational to drive hours upon hours to chase a bird that may or may not be doing its mating dance on a frozen, and at the same time cruelly wet field in the wee hours of a frigid late-winter morning. Even Paul wouldnʼt argue this point, though heʼd probably add that the same can be said for chasing after such lunatics with twenty pounds of camera on your shoulder. Touché.

But Iʼm talking about the best kind of crazy. That irrational impulse to do something you love, despite the naysayers and the costs. I think this experience has really clued me in to the common drive anyone with a passion shares. Itʼs easy to judge another personʼs interest as a foolish waste of time while holding your own up as something noble that warrants countless hours of unrewarded effort, at least in the accepted sense. I should know, Iʼm a writer. With a BFA no less.

So in case you havenʼt figured it out, Iʼm being facetious. A couple of years ago I might have thought birders crazy and meant exactly that. Working on this documentary with Paul has been a definite eyeopener, and I feel privileged for the experience. I hope that the finished film will be able to capture what I saw firsthand and share it with a broader audience. In the end, it isnʼt just about seeing beyond the Tilley hats and safari vests, but about the need for understanding across social boundaries.

As I told my parents when they asked, with a surprising amount of concern I might add - No, this year hasnʼt turned me into a birder. You wonʼt find me on the birder chat sites or amongst the cluster of scopes at the next rare-bird sighting five hours north of god knows where.

But a pair of binoculars is on my wish list. Just a small pair, nothing fancy, that I can toss in my backpack the next time I go hiking. And if I manage to focus the damn things on anything other than a sea gull (rats of the sky as theyʼre known back home, a fishermanʼs prejudice) Iʼll think of the wonderfully crazy birders I feel lucky to have met over the past year.

And if I spot something I think might be rare, Iʼll call Paulʼs wife Rachel up to see if Iʼm allowed to tell him.

Iʼll end with a list of my own, which I will not be tattooing on my body in latin or otherwise.

Jonʼs Big Year Highlights (in no particular order):

- Sprinting across the wet/frozen field like a giddy fool upon hearing someone yell “Gotʼem!” - Pelee Island. All of it. - My first high speed car chase.

- Spending more time in the woods than I have for I donʼt know how long.

- Interviewing the teenaged speakers of the Ohio Young Birders Conference and wishing I could be like them.

- A lazy morning at Kenn Kefferʼs drinking Birds & Beans, followed by breakfast pie at Blackberry Corner.

- Paulʼs best line of the year, spoken the first time I filmed one of his tattoo sessions: “If you want a good shot of me in pain, get ready.”

- Our new friend, Rocky the Raccoon.

Jon

233 and 234

2012-01-01T18:09:00.000-05:00

Then end of a big year is always slower moving but then again not. You've seen most of what's possible and are constantly hoping for something unusual to show up. Especially something I've chased on many occasions and missed each time (like Bohemian Waxwing). I had pretty much resigned myself to the number 232. Bird 232 was a Snowy Owl in Whitby Harbour. It was terribly uneventful. I read about it on Ontbirds (our local bird email hotline), drove the 20 minutes (kids in tow), and found the bird. It sat motionless for the ten minutes I was there. The kids saw it and promptly started whining about leaving. I guess standing on a pier in the cold wind isn't everyone's idea of good birding. I had kind of slowed my pace by this time. My wife was sick of the 'out of the blue' trips that lasted an entire day for one bird. Frankly, so was I. I mean I wasn't going to set any records for damn sure and I'm clearly not even going to get anywhere near the magic number of 300 for Ontario.

Snowy Owl by this is for the birds.

So I spent all of the holidays just hanging with Rachel and the kids. I'm off work until January 2nd. December 27th Rachel had a day long meeting to attend. That left me alone with the kids all day. What to do? I though I'd start by taking them out to breakfast someplace. We headed out, dropped Rach off and went to a place to eat. Closed. Hmmm. We tried a second one. Closed as well. A third. Closed. This was starting to bug me and Georgia was beginning to whine about stomach pains. Our fourth try was booked for a private event. Who the hell has a private event breakfast on December 27th in the Orono cafe? I guess that doesn't matter, as someone clearly needed to do that. I popped the kids back into the car and the phone rang immediately.

It was Richard. He was excited about something. He said, "Where are you?"

"Orono", I replied.

"There's a f**king Smew in Whitby Harbour!"

"Ok.", I said.

I knew it was a rare bird. My knowledge was punctuated by his expletive and tone of voice. Richard doesn't always exhibit that sort of behavior. But what would I do about my rather hungry children? My need for food had quickly dissipated with the knowledge that there was a Mega Tick lifer not 30 km from my house. But my kids worried more for a snack. The fools.

I did something that day that I'm not proud of. If you've been following my blog you know I'm not a fan of fast food. I grow much of my own vegetables in summer. I won't buy meat I don't know the origin of. I generally try and eat only non-processed food. All this means I don't eat McDonalds. They have very much perfected cheap fast food. They've turned food into something so easy and cheap that it kind of ruins our relationship with the ingredients of a meal. But this was a Smew! And my kids were complaining of sore stomachs from a lack of breakfast. Four closed restos constitutes me having tried very hard to feed them properly. So what's a twitcher supposed to do. This one went to the McDonalds drive through. I haven't been to McDonalds in years. It is nothing like what it was when I was a kid. I didn't recognize a thing on the menu. I didn't even see a Big Mac. After what was surely mind numbing questions for the girl that worked there, I decided on a bagel (with butter) for each of the kids and an apple juice. This would put something into their stomachs and not be so bad for them. I wasn't happy about them experiencing the ease of drive-thru (I don't even like that they have to mis-spell the word through) food but they thought that Mrs. McDonald, as they called her, that worked the window was nice. They explained to me that they had a Mrs. McDonald teacher at school but she wasn't the one in the window.

After that, I raced down the highway to Whitby. As I arrived, I was informed that the bird had flown 15 minutes ago but was giving great views. I was unhappy about that. Richard arrived a few moments later. We scanned the water but no bird. All the usual people were there and had just seen it. They said it flew over the dyke and dropped behind it. Richard, myself and a few others decided to drive around and try to find the bird from the other side. I undid the kids from their seats (no easy task) for the fourth time this day and carried them down the path to the beach and ran along to the spot where we'd check for the Smew. They are heavy. My arms were like jelly. No bird! We took turns scanning the water and talked about maybe driving one more bay west since there were tonnes of ducks heading in that direction out over the water. Then, my phone rang. It was Jean Iron. The bird was back where we originally were. I announced it to the group. Suddenly, everyone was running down the beach carrying scopes. I was once again carrying 60 pounds of children. My arms were so sore that I thought I'd drop the kids. My bins were bouncing around my chest and the kids were getting so heavy. We all jumped into our cars and everyone but me sped off. I laboriously strapped the kids back into their seats.

I drove around to where the bird was, got out, locked the car and ran over to look through a scope. I had it. It was a relatively plain bird. Red on the back of its head. Very dainty in comparison to so many of the ducks it was with. Then I ran back to the car and gathered the kids up. They came over and got their first (and maybe last) Smew. We all stood around watching it, doing the usual chatting and catching up that always happens at a twitch.

My number that I thought was going to be at 232 changed to 233. And what a 233! This would easily be the rarest bird I would have this year. And I got to experience it with my kids. So great.

SMEW! by Rictor Norton & David Allen.

My plan was to spend the daylight hours of December 31st trying to find something new. My wife wasn't going to be happy about it but she'd be understanding about it. She always is. The main target would be a Black-throated Gray Warbler. This is a bird I had a few years ago in its usual rang in California. But here in Ontario, it was pretty special. Lucky for me it was near the home of Jesse Senko, one of the cameramen that has helped out this year. He volunteered to meet us at the spot and film the day.

I met Richard and Margaret, the two people that have helped me so much with finding birds this year, in Newtonville at 9am and off we went on our 200plus km trip. Unbeknownst to us, at that exact time people were observing the bird at very close range. We arrived at about 10:30. Do the math, I drove fast. We looked and looked with several other birders to no avail. One of those birders had been four times already and missed it. After two hours of searching, I figured we had wasted the day, gas and my wife-favour-points. Then, out of the blue, I hear Richard yelling my name from down the path. I stopped speaking to Jesse mid-sentence and ran. This was possibly my very last bird of the year. I half wondered if they weren't just pulling my leg to see if I'd actually sprint for it. Then again, birders are generally too serious for that kind of shit if it's a great bird. I caught up to them while also realizing that I'm morbidly out of shape. My physical shape is just fine but clearly I need some cardio in 2012. I looked up, arms kind of shaky, lungs feeling as if they were bleeding profusely and there it was. My number 234. All the way in from the west coast to make my day. I watched it for a while, loving every second of it. Then, just like any other type of junkie, I lowered my bins and said, "Should we try for that Brant Goose that sometimes hangs out on the grass at Spenser Smith Park." It was on the way home and would only take ten seconds to glass the lawn at the park and leave. So we left. Dropped by the park. No bird. Got back in the car and raced like mad to get home to spend the remainder of the day with my family. I have no idea where all the police were but they weren't patrolling the 407 for bird nerds breaking the sound barrier, that's for sure.

Black-throated Gray Warbler by jessi bryan.

Now this is all done. I'm happy and sad. I am not going to feel obliged to chase birds and subsequently guilty for not spending time with my family. I'm also a bit sad because I have a strange feeling of no responsibility. My job will rip that feeling from my hands ruthlessly tomorrow morning at about 9am. Then there's the watching of all this raw footage, making notes with time-codes, editing, transferring, onlining, packaging and selling the damn thing. Luckily I have a producer to help keep me on track. I spent some time with my mom today watching a show about a friggin' pawn shop in Las Vegas. If that can be entertaining enough to watch, then I should be able to get something out of this year.

234 is NOT a big Ontario Big Year number. I can easily and all too quickly think of 10-15 birds I missed or didn't run for. That upsets me a bit but really, a guy with the type of job I have and twins that are 4 years old, 234 is not too bad. Non-birders nearly fall off their chair when I say that number. SO I have to be happy about it. I'll never feel the same about Brant Geese for denying me a nice 235 though.

Big thanks to everyone that has helped me out this year in any way that you did. Big thanks to all of you that have paid attention and helped me spread the word. Super huge impossible thanks to my family, Rachel, Shepard, Georgia and my parents and Rachel's parents and our sisters and their families, for they really sacrificed the most. There will be more posts. Maybe about birds, maybe not but I hope to keep in contact with each and every one of you. Good birding (or whatever it is you like to do).

December 17, 2011 day list

Snowy Owl

December 27, 2011 day list

Smew!!!!!!!!!!

December 31, 2011 day list

Black-throated Gray Warbler

Paul Riss

Punk Rock Big Year

Nicaragua has huge f--king spiders.

2011-12-04T15:12:00.001-05:00

Flying over Nicaragua.

Anyone that's a regular follower will know where I was this past week. Shooting footage for Punk Rock Big Year, in Nicaragua. I couldn't add any birds I saw to my big year, though there's been a suggestion by a few people that I should count them but use a different ink colour when I get the tats. I'm not quite convinced yet but we'll see. The trip was incredible. The coffee farm was incredible. The birds were incredible. The spiders were mind-numbingly terrifying. Ok, so a little thing not so many of you know about me. I'm 6' 2", 185 lbs. Not huge but not a little fella' either. I don't look like I scare easily and I don't. I can handle many situations without fear save someone stuffing a gun or spider in my face. I think I might fear the spider more. A gun in your face means you might have met your end but it'll undoubtedly be quick. A spider will take its time, paralyze you with fear and them maybe some poison. It won't likely kill you but leave you scarred beyond any other life experience. Maybe that's just how it goes with me. I have arachnophobia. Not the kind you make jokes about over a couple beers but the kind that actually freezes my muscles and makes me unable to act. I know it's ridiculous. I know it's a completely irrational fear but there it is, as real as the train I'm riding on right now. More on this later.

The new sign at Gaia Estate farm.

I visited a full-sun coffee farm (which will remain unnamed) and Gaia Estate organic, shade-grown, fair trade and Smithsonian Institute certified bird-friendly coffee farm. That's a mouthful to say for sure but if you are a birder and don't drink it (as much as humanly possible) you might just be a bad birder. Ok, maybe you are a good birder that doesn't overdo the iPod bird calls, that doesn't tread on private land for a tick and that doesn't plod into the bush and scare out a bird if it has become secretive. Let's just call you a bad coffee drinker if you don't drink Birds and Beans coffee. Ask my wife, things are often that black and white for me. Since I have become involved and educated about Birds and Beans, I can say that I probably have had about 50 or so cups of non- bird-friendly coffee. I even travel with my own bag of it, kettle and coffee press. The latter two items only cost me about $80. The coffee is priced roughly like any other good coffee per pound. So there's really no reason not to do it.

The birds
Our main reason for the trip was to prove the promises made to me by the owners of Birds and Beans Canada/USA that these farms were used extensively by both local and long- distance migrant birds. In truth, I trusted the owners implicitly, but for the documentary, it wouldn't have been very entertaining for you to have my face on screen saying as much to the camera. I wanted to experience it first hand (and secretly add many birds to my life list). I also wished to see if the difference between Gaia and a random full-sun farm were as vast as they told me. Let me say, the difference was staggering. We got a total of 71 species in two days birding Gaia Estate. The full-sun farm produced no more than 5 species. To be fair, we only birded there for about an hour and a half but it was clear that we'd be wasting our time to be there any longer. 3 out of the 5 were located at the very edges of the farm, near less affected forest, two Yellow Warblers were seen about 300 yards from the edge of the farm and the fifth species was a non-native species (Cattle Egret, not typically a user of heavily forested habitat, which this land only used to be). The other thing to note is that Gaia is only about a third the size of the sun coffee farm.

Squirrel Cuckoo by mindoconexion.

Collared Aracari by lightbrigade.

Our findings on Gaia Estate were extremely similar to that of Kenn and Kimberly Kaufman in January of 2011. We missed a couple they had and had a couple they didn't. Kenn was kind enough to send me his species accounts so we could do our research and make comparisons. I'm not anywhere near his league for bird knowledge but in my humble opinion, both local and our long-distance migrants are using Gaia Estate as a place to actively hunt for food, find shelter and even rear their young (we found several nests on the estate, some right in coffee plants). I feel it is extremely important for every birder (and non-birder) to drink this coffee and only this coffee. If we did, we would cause a ripple effect. Take money from the pocket of a big coffee company (like Starbucks) buying from full-sun and partial shade farms and they'll be quick to react and force their farms to go bird-friendly to recoup lost customers. My marketing experience is enough to know they'll do whatever they can to get their money back. Will you all do it? That's doubtful. But if I can just get some of you on board, that's a start. And then, you can tell two friends, and so on and so on (just like that famous ad campaign said).

White-throated Magpie Jay by bayucca (busy).

Turquoise-browed Motmot by Rainbirder.

My fave, Rufous-capped Warbler by Seabamirum.

The coffee
We also did a blind taste test of three types of coffee. Gaia's, a partial shade option and a full-sun option. The winner was clear and unanimous among myself and my three companions. The criteria were based on smell (grinds) and taste (fresh-pressed coffee). The owner of the Estate, Jefferson, is in the process of creating a small Eco-tourism plan. They are building cabins and out buildings that guests can stay in and experience the birds, beans, butterflies and trees. It is a very interesting idea and I'm going to help them in any way I can. I'll keep you all posted in case you are interested in visiting them when they are up and running.

Coffee cherries.

The spiders
Since the Eco-tourism part is in it's early stages, there's only one cabin to stay in. I was traveling with my cameraman Chris and two birders that are older than us. They would of course stay in the cabin and Chris and I were in a friend of Jefferson's place on the other side of a valley. This arrangement was fine with us as Jefferson was very graciously providing meals and a bed for us while we were there months ahead of his Eco-tourism schedule. The home we stayed in was not used recently and the bugs/spiders had clearly taken over. Chris and I are both heavily affected by arachnophobia. What are the chances of that? With both of us, it's not really a funny thing. Though we tried to joke as much as we could, we were both relatively paralyzed with fear when in close proximity to the spiders (of which there was no shortage). The ones in Nicaragua are just plain huge. One as large as the palm of my hand, leg tip to leg tip. Suffice to say we drank ourselves to sleep each night. I drank more beer in 5 days than I usually do in 2 months. One morning you could really tell by the look of me that I had had far too much alcohol the evening before. On top of that, we took an Ativan before retiring. I wasn't worried about the health effects, I had done plenty of drugs when I was younger and knew I'd wake up each morning to do my birding. I don't condone my actions but it was the only way I could get any sleep. My other companions, Richard and Margaret, staying in the first built cabin didn't have the same experience. Nor did Kenn and Kim. Kenn dreamt of the garden of Eden and I dreamt of my demise.

A hand-sized spider on our wall.

Margaret and Richard's cabin.

Bonus (the butterflies)
Something I never expected were all the amazing butterflies among other really cool insects. I don't fear insects at all. In fact I quite like seeing them. They are a sure sign of a healthy ecosystem. There were plenty to see at Gaia. We had Azure butterflies, Owl butterflies, many ant species (leaf-cutters among the coolest) and so many others that I can't remember all the names. There were so many butterflies that they were nearly running in to me all the time. I found this to be another great indicator of the need to farm coffee in only this way. On the full-sun farm, there was not even one butterfly. In fact, I only saw one insect; a dragonfly passing high overhead. This is no doubt from all the pesticide used specifically so there are no insects. Without any native species of plants, the insects would only have the coffee to feed on.

This large Owl butterfly's wing has been attacked by something.

The crew
I travelled with a few people. One, a photographer I have worked a great deal with in advertising over the last many years. His name is Chris Gordaneer and you can see some of his work here. Below are some portraits he did of the farm employees. The others are the two people that have helped me with the big year portion of the film more than anyone else. Richard Pope is a retired York U professor/author and Margaret Bain, a retired baby doctor. Dr. Margaret delivered many of the people in the city I grew up in. She started at Oshawa General a year or so after I was born. Had she started a couple years earlier there, she might have delivered me. How cool would that have been? Meeting 40 years later and heading to the Niagara Gorge looking for gulls with the woman that brought me into the world.

Richard, Margaret Freder and I birding.

The conclusion
Bird friendly coffee is the only way to go. It is a unique situation where all sides benefit. The environment is preserved, the farmers are working in a healthier environment and fairly paid and it's better for the customer as they get a superior product. It's win, win, win as they say. So please, do this simple thing for me. Order some Birds and
Beans coffee today. It doesn't matter where you live in the US and Canada. They deliver it right to your door. If you have a coffee system at work, try and get them to switch to Birds and Beans product. Ask your favourite barista if their coffee is bird-friendly. Politely demand that they get Birds and Beans. I promise you, you'll be making a difference. The proof is in our lists.

http://www.birdsandbeans.ca
http://www.birdsandbeans.com

Our second last sunset.

Trip lists
(G) seen or heard on Gaia Estate
(H) heard only

Thicket Tinamou (H) (G)
Magnificent Frigatebird
Great Egret
Cattle Egret
Black Vulture (G)
Turkey Vulture (G)
Cooper’s Hawk (G)
Common Black-Hawk
Roadside Hawk (G)
Broad-winged Hawk (G)
American Kestrel (G)
Bat Falcon
Plain Chachalaca (H) (G)
Spotted Sandpiper
Caspian Tern
Rock Pigeon
Red-billed Pigeon (G)
White-winged Dove (G)
Ruddy Ground-Dove
Inca Dove (G)
White-tipped Dove (G)
Orange-fronted Parakeet (G)
Orange-chinned Parakeet (G)
White-fronted Parrot (G)
Squirrel Cuckoo (G)
Groove-billed Ani (G)
Lesser Ground-Cuckoo (H) (G)
Pacific Screech-Owl (H) (G)
Mottled Owl (H) (G)
Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl (H) (G)
Common Nighthawk (G)
Mexican Whip-poor-will (H) (G)
Vaux’s Swift (G)
Canivet’s Emerald (G)
Cinnamon Hummingbird (G)
Steely-vented Hummingbird
Ruby-throated Hummingbird (G)
Black-headed Trogon (G)
Ringed Kingfisher
Blue-crowned Motmot (G)
Turquoise-browed Motmot (G)
Collared Aracari (G)
Hoffmann’s Woodpecker (G)
Barred Antshrike (H) (G)
Long-tailed Manakin (G)
Northern Beardless-Tyrranulet (G)
Yellow-olive Flycatcher (G)
Tropical Pewee (G)
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher (G)
Dusky-capped Flycatcher (G)
Great Crested Flycatcher (G)
Brown-crested Flycatcher (G)
Great Kiskadee (G)
Boat-billed Flycatcher (G)
Social Flycatcher (G)
Piratic Flycatcher
Tropical Kingbird (G)
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (G)
Masked Tityra (G)
Gray-breasted Martin
Blue-and-white Swallow
Northern Rough-winged Swallow (G)
Cliff Swallow (G)
Barn Swallow (G)
Rufous-naped Wren (G)
Banded Wren (G)
Rufous-and-White Wren (G)
Plain Wren (G)
Wood Thrush (H) (G)
Clay-colored Robin (G)
Tropical Gnatcatcher (H) (G)
White-throated Magpie-Jay (G)
Yellow-throated Vireo (G)
Philadelphia Vireo (G)
Tennessee Warbler (G)
Yellow Warbler (G)
Black-and-white Warbler (G)
Ovenbird (G)
Rufous-capped Warbler (G)
Western Tanager (G)
Blue-gray Tanager
Stripe-headed Sparrow
Rose-breasted Grosbeak (G)
Melodious Blackbird (G)
Great-tailed Grackle (G)
Common Grackle
Baltimore Oriole (G)
Orchard Oriole (G)
Montezuma Oropendola (G)
House Sparrow

Long-distance migrants seen on Gaia Estate that breed in Ontario, Canada:

Turkey Vulture
Cooper’s Hawk
Broad-winged Hawk
American Kestrel
Common Nighthawk
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
Great Crested Flycatcher
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Cliff Swallow
Barn Swallow
Wood Thrush
Yellow-throated Vireo
Philadelphia Vireo
Tennessee Warbler
Yellow Warbler
Black-and-White Warbler
Ovenbird
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Baltimore Oriole
Orchard Oriole

Long-distance migrants seen on full-sun estate that breed in Ontario, Canada:

Yellow Warbler

Totals

90 species seen in Nicaragua
71 species seen on Gaia Estate
5 species seen on full-sun estate
21 long-distance migrant species seen on Gaia Estate
1 long-distance migrant species seen on full-sun estate

Our last meal was at the ocean. Just a 30 minute drive away from the farm. Nice view.

Punk Rock Big Year
Paul Riss

You're a birdwatcher?

2011-11-17T21:31:00.000-05:00

"You're a birdwatcher?" That's a question I get over and over. It is inevitably followed by, "You really don't look like a birdwatcher." If I push the issue, I always get the same thing, "I though birdwatchers were all little old ladies in Tilley hats." I hear this happens to a lot of birders my age that 'look' like me. Below are some people I've met this year that don't fit the stereotype. None of them are old ladies; they may have a Tilley hat but I doubt it. All of them however have lots of tattoos, are heavily into music and are crazy nuts for birding. If you are one of those old ladies out there in the field wondering what the person covered in tattoos is doing at the sewage lagoons, now you know. Enjoy the punk birders telling you about themselves in their own words.

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Lauren

My tattoos are bats that were originally art by former Groovie Ghoulies front man, Kepi Ghoulie. The Groovie Ghoulies were one of the first bands that I got into when I "found" punk rock, and I always liked his art. There isn't much more story or meaning behind them beyond that.

I have been interested in birds and wildlife in general for as long as I can remember. I grew up in a rural area on a farm type setting. There were always birds we looked for - most notably the bald eagles that always seemed to be in the same stand of trees year after year. We almost always had chickens and an uncle with a farm "a field away" who had an assortment of different types of fowl. When I was a bit older, I raised pigeons.

While the interest was always there, I didn't get into birding until I visited Farmington Bay WMA almost four years ago. I had no clue it existed until I heard an advertisement from a local NPR station about a field trip out there. I skipped their field trip but went on my own. I was utterly amazed at what was just a mere 30 minutes from my home. Watching great blue herons fly over me towards the seemingly endless wetlands as I walked along the dike roads was enough to hook me... And have been hooked ever since.

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Shyloh

Since I was a kid, I've always loved tattoos, but never thought I'd be 'allowed' to have any. They were merely an art form that I observed from afar. I grew up in a religious home and tattoos were considered taboo. I'm a grown ass man now and concluded, "If my body is a temple, tattoos will be the stain-glass windows." After that, all bets were off and in 1999 I got a small tattoo of the sun on my shoulder. It was a pretty bad ink job that quickly faded and long since been covered. I got a few small tattoos during the next 4--5 years: a band around my arm that makes the skin look braided, a kanji that means 'energy' and the four aces from a deck of cards. My wife and I were married in 2005. For our anniversary we thought we'd get matching tattoos. We considered a bunch of different designs and styles. Since we were married in the 'Year of the Rooster' we went with that theme. After getting a big piece we were fully addicted. Since then, we both have 30+ hours in the chair. I've got a heart wearing headphones on my chest "always listening to beats!", The cards and kanji are now surrounded by a horseshoe, a flower, and a banner that reads, 'wonder junkie'. The armband serves as the base for the whole piece. The rest of that area is filled in with wind bars. The back of my right calf is covered with a 'wizard-like' hand holding some Skittles candy and words shooting out that say, "the left hand knows". It's a bit zany, but I really like it. Surprisingly, getting ink on my calf hurt the worst of all. I've got transport control buttons (rewind, fast forward, play, pause, stop) down my bicep behind the rooster. Across my wrists it say's "live music". My latest is an old school styled bird. Not a particular species, but more a symbol. Let's call it a sparrow. It's my favorite tat so far. My wife has about 1/3 of her body covered. She's a trooper for ink.

I was informed the Boy Scouts had erected a Great-Blue Heron rookery about 15 miles from my house. So on June 30, 2009, I enthusiastically headed to the Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area to find me some Herons! I reckon that was my first outing as a birder and consider it my birding birthday. I didn't know it yet, but I had found my conduit for getting in touch with nature and the divine. Not God, the divine. I couldn't believe I lived so close to such great habitat. So as I fell in love with birds, I also fell in love with the Great Salt Lake and it's surrounding wetlands. I grew up in the area and had no idea such places existed near our dead sea. In Utah, we're moslty mountain people and the Great Salt Lake is largely ignored. I spent a great deal of 2010 exploring every accessible shore of the Great Salt Lake. It's amazing. Nowadays, I'm well aware of the GSL's key importance to all birds. Particularly, migratory birds. It's a global rest stop. Paydirt for birders. Bald Eagles winter in the area as well. Bald Eagles are easy to exalt and after a season of watching them I was well on my way to becoming a fully obsessed birder. I'm getting close to adding the 300th bird to my life list and this year I've ticked 276 species. If I'm outside or looking out a window, chances are I'm birding. Birds have made life simpler and my soul feels ever full. I doubt I'll ever look back for there are more birds up ahead! So if you're birding in Utah and find a tatted up, mohawk wearing, middle-aged badass with binoculars glued to his face, come say hello. "I never thought I'd find myself standing in a field, looking for birds. But there I was, finding myself."

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Ryan

I am in love with all things wild. My passion for the natural world was fostered during my childhood when my mom brought me to the ocean to swim, surf, and explore. I vividly remember being captivated and enthralled by the foraging behavior of sanderlings. My innate passion and love for wildness was nurtured when I moved to the Southern Appalachians of Western North Carolina to study botany and work as a Botanist Assistant at a native plant sanctuary in Asheville, N.C. From there I traveled to the Adirondacks and lived in a little cabin that was off the grid and electricity free for two years. After a six year hiatus from academia I decided to go back to school. I truly want to affect change and do everything that I can to conserve biodiversity and work towards solving important environmental problems. I am currently a senior at the University of Rhode Island studying Wildlife Conservation Biology. I have been fortunate to work for the U.S. F&WS as a Biological Science Technican for the past year and half and have had the opportunity to dedicate my time, energy, and passions to various conservation issues including the management and protection of endangered shorebirds.

Paul asked me to talk about my tattoos and my love of birds. There are so many reasons that I am in love with birds and birding. To put it simply birds fill me with an emotional, intellectual, and spiritual contentment that is acutely intimate and deeply satisfying. Birding allows me to connect with my bioregion or any bioregion that I am visiting and with the biotic community in general. Modernity has alienated me from the natural world and the experience of birding helps re-wild my heart and reconnect me with nature. As a field biologist I am very fascinated and interested with the life history of birds, specifically with their migration, breeding, and foraging ecology. I am very passionate about conservation biology and I have some big goals in conservation that I am looking forward to accomplishing. I decided to get tattoos that reflect the experiences and animals that bring me joy and happiness. The animals that I have tattooed on me are of species that I encounter on a regular basis. Seeing a Black-capped chickadee in the heart of winter puts a smile on my face and reminds me of the beauty of life and how important it is to protect and conserve the natural world. I identify strongly with bio-regionalism on a political, social, and emotional level. My tattoos express my love of birds, wildness, and bioregionalism.

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Tristan

I'd love to tell you a story about how I got hooked on birding that includes some reference to me being inspired by a famous bird writer or being encouraged by a father figure; but that just isn't me! I don't have heros and believe me during my youth I never had a worthy father figure. My obsession with birding had almost certainly grown out of nature rather than nurture; though to be fair there was some encouragement by my mother and school teachers along the way.

I started birding seriously at quite a young age; initially as a form of escape from a less than pleasant home life. As I got more drawn into the world of birding my obsession grew. I think it is the adrenaline buzz you get when you see something new (or at least think that you have something new) that got me hooked!

I feel very fortunate to have met all these folks through this past year trying to make and promote a birding documentary. Even if only knowing them online, it has been great to know that I'm not alone as a punk birder.

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Beth

I'm 26, an intern with BirdLife Malta and really passionate about wildlife conservation. My love of birds definitely preceded my love of tattoos, the ones I remember from the 90s were things like geckos and those barbed wire armbands. Either those or wrinkly bulldogs on the arms of pot-bellied, pub-lurking men in their fifties.

My mum was the one who introduced me to birding, my dad would constantly tease us with 'it's just a fat sparrow!' but I feel really lucky to have been taught the names of most British species just through family walks and trips to feed the ducks at our local park. It surprised me when I realized that not all 10 year olds knew a Coot from a Moorhen or a Blue Tit from a Great Tit.

I started thinking about tattoos when I was about 18 and into the alternative music scene. Suddenly everyone had tribal tattoos, which at the time I thought were cool but now I am so relieved I didn't get. My back piece came about when I was at uni by the sea. I used to watch Starling murmurations almost every evening in winter while sitting on a beach and it made me realize that I desperately wanted to work in conservation, to help wildlife in some way. So there they are, my six starlings.

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There you have it, five tattooed birders. And that's not all of them I've met. I'll be making this a regular page on the blog soon enough so if you are an alternative birder (to the stereotype) and want to be featured, let me know. i'll be super happy to do this again.

Punk Rock Big Year

Paul Riss

A lifer that doesn't count.

2011-11-10T16:41:00.005-05:00

This past weekend was a bit of a whirlwind. I drove 1500 round trip to a place where no birds I saw would count towards my big year number. But I didn't care about that because I was lucky enough to be invited to attend the Ohio Young Birders Conference. No only that, I'd get a change to meet, interview and go birding with North America's number one bird expert, Kenn Kaufman.

You should know that Punk Rock Big Year only exists because of four sentences Kenn wrote many years ago in Kingbird Highway. It was a conversation with a non-birder. When that non-birder found out Kenn was a birdwatcher, they said:

"You can't be. Aren't birdwatchers all little old ladies with blue hair? Or old guys with skinny legs and funny-looking shorts and safari hats? If you were a real birdwatcher, wouldn't you be wearing a little birdwatcher's uniform?

When I read that, I thought to myself, "People say that to me all the time." That happened to Kenn in the early 70s and it was still happening to me to this day. The stereotype was still prevalent so many years later. I don't need to remind you of how I'm attempting to smash that stereotype to bits.

So when Kenn and his wife Kim asked me to attend the Ohio Young Birders Conference, I was really honored and there was no way I could miss out on the chance to meet the dude that inspired my whole project. I arrived after taking ten hours to drive an eight hour drive. Why? Well, I forgot my passport at home. That meant I had to drive all the way back home to get it. Then, we got back on the road and drove almost straight except for a quick stop to grab lunch at Aunt Millie's. It was a great, fast lunch and a chance to get the footage until that point onto a hard drive. We arrived in Columbus Ohio at about 8:15 pm. A guy walked up behind me in the lobby of a restaurant and says, "Hey, are you guys birders?" I turn around to see Kenn Kaufman standing there. Then Kim comes around the corner and gives me a hug. We chat a bit over a meal and head to the hotel as it'll be an early start.

The Ohio Young Birders Conference is a unique conference. How so? It's completely controlled by the young birders that started it five years ago. They are the paid speakers, they help organize it all, they kind of run the show. Logistics that they can't handle are graciously covered by the staff of the Black Swamp Bird Observatory (BSBO). In the morning there was a bird walk with Kenn as the leader. I was amazed to find that some of these kids that were under 15 years of age were able to tell what birds were around just by sound. I got a lifer in the second bird we saw. We were surrounded by Carolina Chickadees. I got a lifer my first time birding with Kenn. When I said as much, he stopped walking, looked at me with a happy expression, extended his hand and said, "Congratulations man." That's how it is with birders. We are genuinely happy for a complete stranger when they get a new bird because we know the awesome feeling of discovering something new. The walk was followed by a banding demonstration in which we saw them band a leucistic Hermit Thrush. It had white feathers scattered all over its body. Then there were the speakers. Most of them were under 16. All of them gave interesting talks about their experiences with birds or field biology in general. One of them went to Alaska for two months studying shorebirds in a field camp. It was an inspiring story that so many other young people would have been jealous of. Hell, I was jealous. What I would have given for an opportunity like that.

Bird banding demonstration. Notice one kid up in a tree to the right.

Kenn helping a pretty young birder with ID.

The presenters at the Ohio Young Birders Conference.

Carolina Chickadee by cotinis. Mostly told by geographical location.
Notice it shows a little less white on the wing in general.

Black-capped Chickadee by noflickster. Shows more white on wing.

After the conference, the young birders went on their way and a bunch of the organizers went for a bite to eat. I bought Kenn the birthday pint I had promised him a few months ago. Then, we headed up to Oak Harbor. Jon, my cameraman and I crashed at Ken Keffer's house. In the morning, Ken made us a Birds and Beans coffee and we sat out front of his house watching birds and drinking coffee. We saw Rusty Blackbirds, a single Eastern Bluebird, Grackles, Robins, a Bluejay and we heard Juncos and a White-breasted Nuthatch. Then, we headed to a local spot for breakfast with Kenn and Kim. After eating, we headed over to the BSBO headquarters and interviewed Kenn. Then, after all that stuff, Kenn and I went birding. Most birds are already passed through the area but I didn't care, I was going birding with Kenn Kaufman. We did see a few things: Winter Wren, Carolina Wren, Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers, Golden-crowned Kinglet, White-throated Sparrow, Canada Geese, Great Blue Heron, Rusty Blackbirds and a rather large flock of American Crows. Birding with Kenn is very interesting. It's not just looking at birds, it's learning about them. Things you didn't know are brought to your attention in an educational way that isn't intrusive but just casual conversation. I now know that Carolina Chickadees tend to look a little darker on the folded wings than Black-capped Chickadees and that the reason a Hairy Woodpecker is called that is because the bottom edge of the white feathers on its back. They are stiffer and hairier when the Downy's are softer, downier. Let me just say it was super-cool to go birding with Kenn. At 2:30, Jon and I hit the road toward Canada, laden with a whole bunch of gifts from Kim Kaufman and the BSBO. Kim is so thoughtful that she even included something for my kids and Rachel. I was invited to come back in the spring for The Biggest Week in American Birding. There was even mention of me leading a bird walk or two. I'm not sure I'm qualified but Kenn and Kim seem to think I am. Either way, they suggested we keep in touch and I most certainly will. I've always got room for good people in my life.

Kenn and I birding the famous Magee Marsh boardwalk.

In spring, there are more warblers here than anywhere in the world.

I returned home to a very sick family. Both Shep and Georgia had a fresh flu from the one they had when I left. Rachel was also feeling a tad shitty.

Punk Rock Big Year
Paul Riss

Ottawa hates me, it really hates me.

2011-10-31T15:59:00.000-04:00

OK, I shouldn't complain but I've really not had the best luck with the city of Ottawa and surrounding areas. Birders out that way have been gifted with so many rare birds this year. I might have been able to get to 300 birds for my big year if I had lived out there. But as my friend Richard puts it, "Riss, if you lived out there, they'd be having a shit year and Cobourg would be full of rarities." What does all this mean? Well, it means I dipped on what might have been the rarest bird for my big year. And this bird isn't just your run of the mill jerk, it's a complete a-hole. It's there the day before I go, giving "excellent scope views" and "excellent scope views" the day after I leave. But on the day I go, nuthin'! The bird in question is a Razorbill. According to Kenn Kaufman (as posted on my Facebook page) its the closest living relative to the extinct Great Auk! Pretty cool.

Great Auk by Museum Wales.

Razorbill by U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Northeast Region.

You all kind of know my situation. Full-time job, twins, wife with a new store. So when something so rare shows up and I know I have to go get it, I do what any twitcher might do. Skip work, abandon my ever understanding wife and drive about 400kms to see it. I grabbed my cameraman Jon and friends Richard and Margaret (the latter two retired and able to more comfortably do these things) so we could film this trip for the film.

We get up before the sun to go because I need to be home at 7pm FOR SURE because Rachel has a class to attend. Should be no problem right, it's only a 3.5 hour drive, we see the bird and drive back. Theoretically it should really only take 9 hours in total. If I leave at 7, that gives me 12 hours to complete a 9 hour trip. That's 3 hours of error time. Good situation right? Nope. We get there all excited to find this thing. We don't find it. We meet a local birder that can help us look in other places it's been seen. He joins our party and off we go. We check every possible spot. No bird. There were two other possible birds, Red Phalarope and Western Grebe. Neither of those show themselves either. Coincidentally, the Western Grebe starts showing nicely the day after we leave too.

Western Grebe by Mark L. Watson.

The day wasn't a total bust though. I did add Black Scoter to my year list and also I saw some Red-throated Loons. I saw them really quite close up too. Such a nice bird with their heads held high as they swim along. They look almost silvery on the water with so much white on them in their winter plumage. Then, just as we are going to go find a public washroom somewhere, a car drives up, rolls its window down and a man sticks his head out and says, "Possible Pom Jaeger. First parking lot west of the bridge between Ontario and Quebec." This was cool. It would be a lifer for me. So we hop in the car, abandoning the idea of a bathroom and I drive, possibly way too fast, to the spot. We get the wrong parking lot, twice. We know because there's no crowd of birders with their scopes all pointed in the same direction. We finally find the right spot. Lots of cars in the lot means we probably have it right.

Red-throated Loon by davidhofmann08.

Black Scoter by Rick Leche.

We get amazingly close views of the bird sitting on a rock. Now this is a sea bird. A pretty nasty hunter too (Jaeger means hunter in German). Non-birders would call it a brown seagull. You don't always see them just sitting on a rock. I also saw some birders that I met back in the spring at Point Pelee. This happens on a twitch. You just end up running into the same folks again and again. The group decided it was a Pomarine Jaeger. I got such great views with Richard's Carl Zeiss 60x scope. The details were really amazing. Sure it was brownish but the slight details were really subtle and beautiful. It had a silvery bill with a black, hooked tip. The texture on its body and wings were amazing. You could see every detail at this distance. Later that day, some folks that had lots of time and many photographs decided to change it to a Parasitic Jaeger. Something about the very thin bill and a few other details. The digi-scoped photos must have been pretty easy for a real expert to work from. It was pretty close to us.

Parasitic Jaeger by BruceLC.

We searched in vain for that Razorbill for the rest of our time there. To no avail. At 2:45, I knew I'd missed the bird. I had to be back by 7 and leaving by 3 gave me 4 hours to do a 3 hour drive. No problem right? Guess again. We hit this insane traffic jam just by Kingston. So many cars, so few lanes. We were at a complete standstill for at least 15 minutes at one point. The others in the car could feel me getting worried about my very important 7pm deadline. I got really worried when cars began to reverse back past us on the grass beside the highway. At a certain point it became clear I wouldn't make it home on time. So what does a grown man do in that situation? Call his mom of course. I called her and asked if she could drop over to the house at 6:45 to watch the kids until I got home so Rachel could go to her 7pm class. One thing about moms, they will never let you down. Well, mine won't anyway. After the traffic cleared, I drove at insane speeds. The kind you lose your license for if you get caught, dropped Richard and Margaret off and literally flew home as fast as my Subaru would take me. I got there at 7:10. Not bad but certainly not good. Rachel was very understanding again. She must be getting kind of tired of that. Only two months more of this shit left.

I hate this feeling. Traffic Jam by Wyscan.

Saturday Rachel was busy working so I had the opportunity to try and make birders out of my kids again without her meddling in my affairs. This time we would head to the spot I got hooked and I'd try and see what happened if I setup the same experience I had when I was young. IT WORKED. Shep was instantly addicted to feeding chickadees by hand. Dad was pretty proud. Georgia on the other hand tried it once and complained that the bird had bitten her. I explained that it just grabbed a seed from her hand. She went on to say that she wanted to leave immediately and that this would never happen again. Somewhere, Rachel must have been smiling. Georgia is her mother's daughter. Rachel doesn't dislike birds by any means but she isn't interested in them very much, other than maybe painting them. But she doesn't pay any attention to the proper colours. In her mind, a Winter Wren is nice but it'd be nicer if it were entirely peacock blue with yellow bars instead of brown on brown. So, that's just how she painted it. Anyway, after birding for a half hour, I took the kids to Baldwin St. Burger. When we left there for home, Shepard said to me, "Dad, can we go birdwatching again?" I was in birder-dad heaven for a half second. That was shattered by Georgia's blood-curdling scream. "NOOOOOOOOOOO, I DON'T LIKE BIRDWATCHING." I guess one outa' two ain't bad.

P.S. - I had a picture of this but for some reason my iPhone using iOS5 didn't save it anywhere. Guess we gotta' go out and try again next weekend...

Sunday, we had a little party for the kids. A combo Halloween and early birthday party. We decided to do the party early to separate it from Christmas. Also, last time we had a birthday near their Dec. 8th date, someone showed up and brought the nastiest puking flu with them. This ensured that at least one of my family was vomiting throughout the entire two weeks I had off for the holidays. Not so fun. If that happens again, it'll surely be out of our system by Christmas break. Fingers crossed.

Spooky Shep.

Understanding wife.

October 27, 2011 day list

Parasitic Jaeger
Red-throated Loon
Black Scoter

Paul Riss
Punk Rock Big Year

Punk Rock Big Year hits the road and skies.

2011-10-25T16:01:00.000-04:00

So as our fall migration starts to slow down and it gets less and less comfortable to drive the Duster (it has no heater), what's a punk birder to do? Follow the birds I guess.

I have been feverishly planning a couple of really exciting things lately for PRBY. Well, exciting for me anyway. A little less so for my wife and kids. Many of you might remember that me doing this documentary was actually inspired by a few paragraphs in Kenn Kaufman's Kingbird Highway. If you haven't read that book, get to it. It's the story of a dude that drops out of high school to try and break a Big Year record. Even crazier is that he did it spending only $1000 and with no car. He hitched about 50, 000 miles around North America. You birders may already know this story very well. You non-birders should read it. It's a very cool story about a kid finding himself within his passion for birds. Well, now Kenn is one of our most prominent birders and bird conservationists and author of not only Kingbird Highway but other books as well as having his own line of great nature field guides; the Kaufman Field Guide series. Not bad for a dude that dropped outa' high school. I never dropped out but I was certainly vacant most of the time in high school, spending all my time painting, drawing, birding and getting into a fair amount of extra activities that my parents would most certainly have frowned upon. And here I am working for one of the world's most prominent creative advertising agencies. The moral here is school sucks but education is extremely important. Ok, school doesn't always suck but I hated it. Anyone under the age of 18 reading this? Stay in school, take charge, make it what you need it to be. Neither Kenn, nor myself would encourage anyone to do things exactly the way we did.

When I started this thing, Rachel said, "Well, you have to go birding with Kenn on camera." She may rue the day she said that now because that's exactly what's happening. I'm lucky enough to be able to attend the Ohio Young Birders Conference. I wouldn't exactly call myself a young person but I tend to be on the younger side of birding. These are actual young people and they care about birds! Something I never experienced when I was their age. I was pretty much alone in that back then. Oh, and did I forget to mention, I'll get a chance to go birding with Kenn and Kim Kaufman! If you are into sports, it's sort of like playing a game of pick-up hockey with Wayne Gretzky. And if you're in a band, it'd be like being on stage with Neil Young or Tom Waits.

As if that's not amazing enough, I'm also in line to go to Nicaragua birding for a few days. This isn't just any birding trip. This is to go birding on coffee estates. The main place we will visit is Gaia Estate. It grows Smithsonian certified Bird-friendly coffee. We will also find a full-sun estate to visit. What I want to show is just how much damage we are doing to habitat when we clear-cut a forest and change it into a full-sun coffee farm. You can read all about bird friendly coffee at an earlier post I did about Birds and Beans coffee companies. If you want to do ONE SIMPLE THING that will dramatically help birds, it's drink ONLY Birds and Beans coffee. Not just at home, ask your favorite coffee shop if they will get it for you. Since I found out about Birds and Beans, I've probably only drank about twenty or thirty cups of coffee where I wasn't sure the origin. Hell, I actually carry around my own coffee, press and kettle (when needed) for when I'm on the road. And shade grown isn't enough. Some farms have shade grown certification with only two or three trees on the estate. That's hardly a good wildlife habitat. Sorry about this always turning into a rant, I'm just really passionate about this subject.

So, big things on the horizon for me and Punk Rock Big Year. Wish me luck and I would like to take this time to thank a few people for my good fortune. Firstly, my wife for being so understanding and supportive all year, putting me first all the time. I love you Rachel. Secondly, Kenn and Kim Kaufman for taking time out of their insanely busy schedules to spend time with me, a heavily tattooed aging punk that just randomly fired them an email this spring. Thirdly, David and Madeleine and Bill from Birds and Beans for helping me get further in touch with Kenn and Kim. Also, all the people supporting me by way of donating time and mad skills with shooting, editing, onlining, sound design and transferring (some of these things won't happen until next year but they are greatly appreciated).

Oh yeah, I also went birding last Sunday morning and found some LBDOs.

Long-billed Dowitcher by almiyi.

October 23, 2011 day list
Long-billed Dowitcher

Punk Rock Big Year
Paul Riss

Mixed emotions about The Big Year.

2011-10-19T18:50:00.000-04:00

There are some pretty exciting things happening for Punk Rock Big Year right now but I can't let them out of the bag yet. Don't want to jinx some things that I've been looking forward to so much.

So Sunday night we got a babysitter and Rachel and I went to see The Big Year. The birder in me really loved it. But there's this other side of me. A film lover, a creative professional, a perfectionist. This is what that person thought...

(The following is a comment I left on 10000birds.com's excellent blog which I love and read every day.) spoiler alert. A couple things here might spoil it if you've not seen the film yet.

More people aren’t going to be interested in birding because of a bad director. Sure, he’s probably a better director than I am but he’s not great. The film was far too much about a series of birding events and not about the characters. Mark’s book is really great and I felt like maybe I knew those guys by the end of it. There was zero character development in the film, ZERO. If I missed my wife’s fertility treatment for a Snowy Owl, shit would have hit the fan a hell of a lot harder than that. It would have been a devastating blow to an already fragile relationship. Yes, so he lost her, she left him, but what’s the saying, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” That statement is a serious truth. She never even threw anything at him! As for the relationship with Jack Black and his dad, there was one moment where I might have believed that they connected but it had little to do with the emotion pulled out of the actors by the director and more from the owls all-seeing eyes. The only place I really saw the way I feel when I see a rare bird is when Steve Martin got his Hummingbird at that fence when it seemed he’d miss it. His eyes said a lot in that moment but it was the only half-second where I could turn to my wife and say, “That’s why I’m a birder.”

If you are interested in what I mean by character development, go see a film called 50/50. They did more to tell me about the main character in the first two seconds of the film while he studiously waits for a walk signal before crossing a road while other joggers just go right across. That kind of directing is very powerful and could easily have been done with The Big Year too. There’s no reason I shouldn’t have teared up when Jack Black’s dad finally understood that his son wasn’t a complete failure but a person with a passion that deserved recognition.

For birders, it’s a fine film because we can see bits of ourselves in it, but it ain’t good for anyone else. My wife fell asleep for a bit and I don’t blame her for a moment. I know she’d enjoy the book, though now, I won’t be able to get her to read it.

I’m in the process of trying to make a short documentary about my own big year but if it sucks when it’s done, it’ll stay shelved. As with most big years, it’s turning out to be the people I’ve become acquainted with that are what I’ll remember most. I’ll always love the birds but counting them is getting a bit old after 10 months of it. In a way, I’m glad I did this at a younger age, that way, I can just enjoy looking at birds from January 1, 2012 until the day I keel over, hopefully with my bins in my hand...

Thanks for everything.

2011-10-13T10:36:00.000-04:00

Canadian followers will know and maybe some American ones as well that this weekend was the Canadian Thanksgiving Weekend. The last of our good-weather long weekends.

Thank you #1

The company I work for, DDB, always gives us four day long weekends during the summer. Unfortunately for me, I had to work Friday on colour transferring a commercial I shot for Subaru a week before. That's OK, I spent the day with Mark (the editor that will work on PRBY), Andrew (the Executive Producer at DDB) and Billy (one of the best transfer dudes in Toronto, maybe Canada). They are all great guys and we usually sit around listening to records while we work.

Thank you #2

I spent Saturday hanging out with my kids. Early Saturday morning, like every morning, I could hear a flock of Canada Geese approaching my house. I happened to look out side just as they went over. On the right tip of the flock was a Snow Goose! A new bird for the year! I also went to see a movie with Rach called 50/50. I highly recommend it. Very funny at times and very touching at others. Great little film.

Snow Goose by kukkurovaca.

Thank you #3

Sunday, Rachel's new shop, Sunday's Child, was closed for the holiday Sunday/Monday. Read it again, that sentence makes sense. We went apple picking and pumpkin buying with the kids. We never got around to planting our own apple trees or pumpkins this year. We also had a great outdoor dinner for Thanksgiving. It was a great time spent with friends and family. We killed a turkey, but I know it had a humane existence on a nearby farm prior to it's demise. Many of our veges came from our own garden.

Thank you #4

Monday was not the best but it was a cloud with a silver lining. The kids seemed to have grabbed a sore throat type of cold. Lots of hacking and spitting of phlegm. Both Rachel and I got this one too. Still feeling it today as I head to work. Why am I thankful for that? Well, we folded our couch out into a bed and spent the day renting movies from apple TV and generally just spending time together.

Thank you #5

In lieu of working Friday while the rest of DDB was enjoying the spectacular weather we were having, I took Tuesday to go birding and shoot some footage for PRBY. I never got a lot of new birds and missed a couple I was trying for but I got two new birds. A pair of Trumpeter Swans and a pair of Hudsonian Godwits. It was a great day spent wandering around looking at birds with two great people, Richard Pope and Margaret Bain, my birding teachers.

Trumpeter Swan by James Marvin Phelps.

Hudsonian Godwit by Henry McLin.

Hudsonian Godwit Digiscoping I did.

Thank you #6
Thanks to all the people reading and following my blog. This year is drawing to a close. What should I do next year?

October 8, 2011 day list

Snow Goose

October 11, 2011 day list

Trumpeter Swan

Hudsonian Godwit

P.S. Last Thursday I finally got to do a couple hours of tattoos of bird names. We managed to get 13 of them done. I'm realizing that I'll be tattooing well into 2012. It takes longer than I expected. I need a strategy, any ideas?

And so it begins.

Paul Riss

Punk Rock Big Year

What kind of birder will you be?

2011-10-05T11:17:00.001-04:00

There's an awful lot of chatter about the Hollywood film coming out about birding big years. Well, there is in the birding community. The rest of society has no idea about our world really, now do they? I'll have to reserve judgement on the film. The above trailer doesn't fill me with confidence but that doesn't mean anything. Trailers can be deceiving. At the very least, people that never knew birding even existed will know it after this. But will it bring anyone new into the realm of birding. I kind of doubt it. My guess is that most folks will come away saying, "Those birders are silly." Too bad if thats the case because the book was really amazing. Hopefully we will see some other interesting takes on birding films, preferably more real and less Hollywood. Maybe that can grab a few people to be our new birders.

I guess I'm writing this post in response to a couple of others I've read recently on the subject of new birders and how they will change birding. Gunnar and Alvan have both written on the subject.

I want more people to be birders. Lots more. But as to what kind of birder they'll be, I just don't care. As long as they are in it for love. Some might want to photograph them (I personally have no interest in that side of it), some may want to be crazy listers (I don't really do that much either [beyond my 2011 big year]), some may just want to be feeders (like my mom) and some might want to get deep into the world of bird ID (I like that but it's not everything to me). What's most important is that they love the birds in their own way, respect the birds boundaries and share their passion with somebody else.

I don't think we should limit the way we get new birders. Let's welcome them all in with open arms, teach them as much as they want to know and give them nothing more than what they want. As long as they appreciate and love birds, they'll be much more inclined to care about their survival and therefore be more inclined to care about our planetary ecosystem. Who cares if they're only doing it to continue to get their Blue Jays and Chickadees to their feeder, as long as they're doing it.

I work in advertising and most advertisers see the huge value (to their brands) of youth. They are a powerful group of consumers and advertisers take full advantage of that. I don't always agree with the way they do it but we birders can learn from them. We should target youth and try to bring them into the fold at a young age. If they grow up appreciating the natural beauty of birds, that can only translate into good things for the environment. Check out this blog of a young Californian birder. We need more people as devoted as he is to seeing a bird. (lost this link, will add it soon).

In case you're wondering. I went out birding Sunday morning, trying desperately to squeeze in a couple species before taking the kids to a birthday party of a friend form school by 10:30am. I'm not sure what the hell I was thinking since the drive to the spot is and hour, the drive home is an hour. It left me with about 25 minutes of birding. I guess it was worth a shot. I found nothing I went looking for, though my friend Richard saw them the very next day.

Paul Riss
Punk Rock Big Year

You gotta jump back in with both feet.

2011-09-27T21:50:00.000-04:00

Note: this is a long post but much needs to be said.

I'm not sure if you've noticed or not by my postings but I'm a little tired of this Punk Rock Big Year project. In the beginning it was fun and I had high hopes for getting funding for the documentary, maybe a little corporate sponsorship to help pay for trips to see birds and so on while I plugged product that I already use and love (I'm not getting any so I won't bother telling you what brand of bins/scope I use). There was also the exciting prospect of seeing between 275 and 300 birds in a single year, many would be lifers as I've never chased birds like this before. This project would see my first ever trip to Point Pelee (8 days of nothing but birding). There was talk of meeting people like Graeme Gibson and Margaret Atwood (both avid birders). Things were moving along so well.

Then, summer happened, the birds flew right past me on their way north, taking much of the wind in my sails with them. I was halfway through my Big Year and there was no funding. To the contrary, there was (and still is) a maxed out credit card. I'm not too far off turning tricks downtown for a few extra dollars so I can go to Rainy River (a trip that I may in fact be too late for now). There was only 200 birds. And it's looking like I might only be able to get to 250 now (and that's with some effort). I felt as if I'd be sitting at 220 forever. The kids were heading off to their first year of school, my wife is opening a retail store downtown Orono, my partner (in advertising) and I decided to split after 8 years working together so work is busier than ever because I now need to find a new writer (a full-time job in itself). Suffice to say I was just plain tired of the bird chasing shit.

I almost gave up. I tweeted as much and was sent many messages from you folks that urged me to carry on. You all told me it was important that I didn't give up now and that you wanted to see me keep going. My wife, having given up a lot to let me do this, said she would be pretty unhappy to have given up a year of what she might want to do for nothing. So I did what she told me, and what you told me, I planned to jump back in with both feet, literally.

I emailed someone I never even knew in 2010, but whom I now consider to be a great friend and teacher. Richard Pope. He wrote a book about his big year. You should read it, it's funny, it's honest and if you are planning to do a big year in Ontario or anywhere, you need to read it. It's put together like a blueprint of how to do a successful big year. It talks about needing a plan and a support group. Richard being Richard, he sent me a message right away asking when was the soonest I could get out birding. There were a couple of shorebirds I needed that he knew we could find nearby. So off we went two days later.

And when I say I jumped right back in, that's exactly what I meant, though it was more like wading back in. After some running around in the city I needed to do, we met at Richard's home and headed off to Presqu'ile Provincial Park. It is one of the best places to see shorebirds in the fall in Ontario. Luckily it's only an hour from my house. Things were not looking great all day though. It was raining heavily the entire time I was in the city. And weather patterns always being the same here, I knew that by the time I got out to his place, it would be pouring there too. Feeling a bit dejected, Rachel and I started out of the city. While Rach slept, I fumed at the amount of traffic on the highway. It's one of the things I hate most in life, traffic. I called Richard to let him know I'd be at least two hours late. He calmed me down and assured me we'd be fine. I helped Rachel pick up the kids from school and raced, and I mean raced (140km/hr at least) to Richard's place.

We got to the park, parked the car and walked out to the beach where these birds might be. There's a spit that reaches out into the lake and a small island not too far away from the main land. Richard said that I should bring a shitty pair of shoes. I wasn't totally sure why but I did what he had said. We saw a couple birds right off. One of which I needed, White-rumped Sandpiper. A second flock of shorebirds flew in and one of them was a standout bird from the pack. Process of elimination and our common observations made it an American Golden Plover. Then Richard started to take his boots and socks off. The rain had let up, thankfully, but it wasn't overly warm. He said I needed to do the same. Since I almost always do what richard says, I removed my boots and threw on my shoes. Then he said, "OK Risster, walk over to that island." there might be two or three new birds over there. I probably looked at him a bit funny, but like the good student, I walked in. The water was cold. Hell, Lake Ontario is cold in late June, and colder in late September. The depth was about up to my thighs until the first wave came. After that, I knew I'd be driving home in wet underwear.

On the island, we saw lots of dead gulls. It was a breeding colony and I guess lots die. We saw a few more birds but nothing new yet. I was starting to think this wet trip to the island wasn't going to get me another bird. Then, we saw some American Pipits, such a nice little bird. They flew around in the strong winds, almost looking like they were doing it just for fun. Then we came across another bird we had been hoping for, a Stilt Sandpiper. Around another corner were three Ruddy Turnstones. I was really enjoying being out birding again, filming some of it on my iPhone so it can be used in the movie (couldn't get a cameraman on such short notice), and of course adding to my list.

Stilt Sandpiper by dominic sherony.

Ruddy Turnstone by davidhofmann08.

White-rumped Sandpiper by dominic sherony.

American Golden Plover by lgooch.

American Pipit by THE Holy Hand Grenade!

I'm feeling a renewed energy for the project, I'm meeting my producer Friday to talk money. I'm still working on a zero budget but hoping for some relief of some kind. Though it's a one way street with the money on this thing, even my financial advisor is telling me not to give up hope. That's encouraging. I'm still under an enormous amount of stress at work and home but there's only a few more months to go this year. And it doesn't matter really what number I get to, as long as I have a good time doing it. Who else can say they made a documentary about themselves? Well, maybe lots of people but nobody I know, that's for sure. So I want to take this opportunity to thank my support group (of birders), Richard, Margaret, Hugh, Dave, etc. To my cameramen, Jon, Jonathan, Derek, Chris, Jesse. And to all of you that follow this crazy thing. But most of all, my family, Rachel, Shepard and Georgia for putting up with this. Thanks.

Sometimes it's the smallest things.

2011-09-19T14:35:00.000-04:00

My weekends are disappearing like the leaves soon will. Not that I'm having a bad time but my birding is suffering. I bet I've already missed many shorebirds I wanted. Last time it was work. A really big job I was working on ended up shooting in Florida. That was all well and good except none of the birds I saw were of any use to either my big year or my film. What's worse is that when I returned, there was no time to go birding. My kids were starting school and I'm pretty sure if I had said to my wife that I was heading out to hunt down some shorebirds a day after being away in sunny warm Florida for 5 days, I may not only have been met with resistance but also a bullet to the face, or two. Rachel is a very understanding lady for sure but that may have been too much.

I also love liquor.

I threw up in this thing. Not my fault, he flew sideways, often.

I didn't throw up in this one. No sideways flying.

First day of school. How cool is that car?

My little girl.

My little dude.

This weekend it was something much smaller than a photo shoot that kept me from birding. Not small so much as microscopic. The common cold virus. After four days at school my daughter came home with a runny nose. Followed by a night of zero sleep. Then, two days later, Shep was down with the same thing. That friggin' train is never late. I don't know what it is but men (from 2 yrs. and on) can be such sucks. I know I am when I'm sick. Rachel just seems to handle being sick better than me. She says it's because women have to deal with pregnancy and nothing is worse than that. A cold renders me completely useless. Turns out Shep is an apple that fell close to the tree. He went to bed saying his throat hurt. Two hours later (11 pm) he was up again. And he never went back to sleep until about 7 am. Rachel spent most of the night with him. I subbed in about 4 am.

Food from our garden.

The day before he was sick, he helped clean the carrots and parsnips.

More food from our garden. Well cleaned by Shep.

Needless to say, there'd be no birding happening. So, with Shep flat on the couch in front of Netflix and Georgia just getting over her cold, we needed to find something to do in the house. CANNING! Yes, canning. As many of you know we moved to the country last October. There are many reasons why but one was to depend less on grocery stores and that whole terrible food chain. We started growing lots of our own food and shopped only at farms for local food. But as the birds leave us, so does the fresh food. No we grab an extra bunch of fresh vegetables each time we hit the farm. This time it would be tomatoes. I bought an entire bushel of Roma tomatoes for 7 dollars. We spent the day blanching, peeling, coring and stewing them. We also made salsa. It was a ton of work but it'll save us lots of money and trips to the grocery store when it's minus 30 degrees out.

Spicy mixed pickles. Mmmmmmm.

I really need to do more birding. I'm sinking into the hole again of feeling I'm not doing enough toward this film. This week I'll spend my 2 hours a day of commuting on the train watching footage I've shot so far. There's a few things more that need doing. One is a trip to coffee plantations to show how incredibly bad it is to drink non-bird-friendly coffee. In a nutshell (because I can't help plug this any chance I get), you MUST drink Birds and Beans. If not, you are directly supporting the clear-cutting of forests in coffee growing nations. And buying shade-grown isn't enough. All they need is one tall tree to get shade certification. That certainly won't support an ecosystem that once was acres of forest. Buy Birds and beans. If you take nothing from anything I am doing with Punk Rock Big Year, at least do that. Sorry for the ranting.

Ok, so this week, send good thoughts my way, thoughts of sharp needles going into skin and beautiful (new) birds in my bins.

Paul Riss
Punk Rock Big Year

Working, not posting

2011-09-12T07:26:00.003-04:00

I usually try to make a post every week. Sometimes, life just doesn't allow for that. Last week, things got very busy. I had to fly to the Florida Keys for work. Amazing place for sure, lots of birds but very little time to really take it in. Think, sitting in front of beautiful scenery and never looking up from a computer...

I grabbed a few shots here and there.

Action shot! Birding in the keys. I do this sillyness everywhere I go.

Spent most of Friday up an 85ft crane. Some birds flew underneath me.

A view of the Florida Keys people rarely get. From the crane.

Brazilian Skipper (ID by Kenn Kaufman).

White Ibis feeding in the grass.

Punk Rock Big Year
Paul Riss

A little family, a little friends and a little birding.

2011-08-30T11:02:00.000-04:00

This weekend was great and terrible all at the same time. It all started with me taking the commuter train home Friday at 5pm only to put the kids in the car and drive right back to the city. This weekend we did something most people would never think of doing, we traded houses with a couple in the city. They needed a break from the city and we needed to be in the city for a wedding, so, we traded houses, for 2 days. We arrived at their place later than expected because there was lots of traffic getting into the city. Traffic would be a common theme for the weekend. I really don't miss a single thing about living in the city but traffic jams 24/7 are the nail in the coffin of my once city dwelling self. The stress of it comes off of me with the force of a nuclear explosion. I hate it.

Saturday was spent mostly in traffic as well, with us desperately trying to get from place to place. Between bouts of excruciatingly slow car drives, we got Shep's hair cut. It was worth it. He got his first real haircut. Mom and a few other people had chopped at it from time to time (mom showing the best results) but this was a proper cut. John Roth, owner of Crow's Nest Barbershop, did an awesome job as he always does with mine when I'm not sporting this Mohawk for the documentary. We got Shep a fade. He now looks like he can kick some serious ass. He even got a comb from John at the end of the appointment. I think you'll agree looking at the shots that he suits is new cut very well. I think Rachel shed a tear or two when she first laid eyes on him after john was done.

Shep getting his cut, 1920's style footage.

Later that evening, we to our friend's wedding while Rachel's brother Derek and his girlfriend Kate watched the kids. Normally I'm not a fan of going to weddings but this was a long time friend of mine who had been married once before. Needless to say, he's with his soulmate now. I understand what he went through. My first marriage didn't work out either. But, the way I see shit, it was necessary to have that first one and all the terrible trouble of it falling apart to get to the person I'm with now. I have nothing against the previous marriage, it just wasn't the right person. Nothing more, nothing less. I think he feels the same way. I took some shots at the wedding but that's for them to share, not me. Well, maybe just one.

Matt and Tiina on their special day.

Sadly, it was such a good time that I drank too much and went to sleep about 2 am. So 6 am Sunday morning came way too soon. Why would I get up at that hour after such an evening? The only reasons I can think of would be for Rachel, the kids or birds. This weekend, was birds. I snuck out of the house and drove to pick up my cameraman. Jon was ready right away. We grabbed a shitty coffee at McDonalds (sadly not bird friendly) and hit the highway. We had at least an hours drive to get to the meeting spot of the OFO guided walk. The leader of the trip was Dave Milsom. You might remember him from that amazing and terrible trip I took to Manitoulin Island looking for Sharp-tailed Grouse. He's great and is always eager to tease me if things aren't going well. I managed to pull shit together enough that he may not have noticed how I felt. There was a group of 45 birders present. It was great, especially when I saw the two wearing metal band t-shirts. I knew I needed to talk to them. They stood out in the crowd like I usually do. They were new birders and loving it. They had been birding for about a year and had a list of a little over 200. Not bad at all for a first year. He programs games for X-Box 360 and she works for a recycled clothing company and teaches belly dancing. And I thought I was different...

Birding the Beeton Sod fields.

Birder convoy.

Anyway, we did well and we saw lots of good birds. I even managed to add 5 to my year list, bringing it up to about 220. The new birds were Baird's Sandpiper, Semi-palmated Plover, Buff-breasted Sandpiper, Least Sandpiper and Pectoral Sandpiper. A couple of those I think I had a few days previous but I was alone and am a novice shorebirder at best. Those I was with were not so I can be more confident in adding them to my list. Also, I got a confirmation on something I saw Thursday last week. You may remember me saying I got a dowitcher but was sure if it was short or long-billed. A fellow named Charles was at the same spot the day after me and saw the same bird. He identified it as a Short-billed Dowitcher. He also told me how to tell the difference. It's the shape of the bird, not markings and certainly not bill length, despite their names. He said that a short-billed will have a flatter looking back while a long-billed will have more of a hump on it's back. After much conversation with Charles, I learned that with shorebirds, it can be easier to go by behaviour than markings. The way they feed and act is more important to helping distinguish one shorebird from another. I learned a lot that morning, let's hope the slight hangover and lack of sleep doesn't cloud my memory.

Baird's Sandpiper by JulioM.

Semi-palmated Plover by A. Davey.

Buff-breasted Sandpiper by Seabamirum.

Shepard and I about to go shorebirding.

Short-billed Dowitcher by omarrun.

After getting into yet another traffic jam heading into the city to drop Jon at home and pick up my family, we were finally going back to Orono. Oh how I had missed it. What others might deem boring, I call paradise. It's funny. I wasn't always this way. There was a time when I didn't leave the city once for 3 years. But this past weekend made me realize I can never live in a big city again. Who the hell stands outside a house and yells another persons name for 3 hours. I swear that's what was happening outside our bedroom window. Though the house we traded for was beautiful, there's no place like home. Will we trade again, yes. Will I drive around doing things in the city again, never. Next time we go in for the weekend, I want to park my car in the driveway and just relax, maybe take the streetcar to Kensington market for another haircut or lunch, but forget driving, it's just not worth the anger that builds up inside me. Here's a shot of Orono that I was happy to come home to.

Orono. Home sweet home.

Thursday August 25 day list
Short-billed Dowitcher

Sunday August 28 day list
Baird's Sandpiper
Semi-palmated Plover
Buff-breasted Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
Pectoral Sandpiper

Punk Rock Big Year
Paul Riss

A lotta' meat and almost no fowl.

2011-08-23T22:33:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was spent with family again. Now don't worry, the birds are coming back soon. I hope I've been able to keep your attention this summer with so few birding posts. Things are going to get better this weekend. I'm going to a friend's wedding Saturday evening and birding early Sunday. That's more like it you say. Make this punk ass birder suffer. Hung over birding rules. OK, maybe not but I'm sure to be awfully tired when my alarm goes off a couple hours after I pass out.

Last weekend I ate meat at almost every meal. Sorry if you're a vege but I'm just not. It's not the life for me. You might be a bit healthier and live a few years longer but I'm OK with that. As long as we are all happy I say. First, Thursday evening, was a party for the creative department where I work. It was held at an incredible BBQ joint in Toronto. The place is called Barque and if you ever find yourself here, you NEED to eat there. If you're one of the aforementioned veges, there ain't nuthin' for you at Barque. Then, a small Stag outing for my friend Matt Friday night. He's the one getting married next weekend, so we went out for a big fat steak served on a wooden board complete with a blood groove. The place was once a king among steak houses in Toronto I'd bet, but now, it's just a place with too old carpet, wood panelling and grumpy servers. That said, I loved the place, and that stern server was right up my alley. I couldn't help but wonder if the Beastie Boys Check Your Head wasn't playing just for us. Saturday, I took the family out to see Bradleyboy play in a small town 20 minutes north of Orono called Keene. It was a fund raiser held in the town hall and was catered by the incredible Muddy's Pit BBQ. Shit, was it ever good. Ribs, corn, wings, a whole pig, I was in heaven. I love great BBQ. The place is owned by the singer of another fun band, The Venisons. We had fun dancing and partying well into the night, kids and all. To give you an idea of the meat fest that was last weekend, enjoy some photos and videos of the days and nights.

Steak at Senior's Steak house.

Tomatoes I grew and ate. They were delicious.

That cooked the pig.

The incredible sign out front of Muddy's.

Muddy's in all it's lo-fi glory. Mmmmmm, meaty.

Very tempting...

Muddy's ribs for leftover Sunday breakfast.

And now for some video. It's a bit dark but you get the idea.

Shepard pretending to be the half zombie from the beginning of Walking Dead.

Even a couple shorebirds Sunday afternoon.

Solitary Sandpiper by kenschneideruas.

Pectoral Sandpiper by Henry McLin.

Lesser Yellowlegs by Rick Leche.

Punk Rock Big Year
Paul Riss

Five days off, no new birds.

2011-08-16T11:22:00.000-04:00

Last week, my wife went to a wedding in Calgary. She was at Lake Louise, a great place to see western birds. I, on the other hand, was at home with the kids. We got up to a lot of stuff, none of it birding. I really feel the need to go birding. It's driving me crazy. I also feel like getting some tattoos. I'm slipping into a phase of feeling like a failure again. Like I'm not doing a big year at all, or even a documentary. There's just so much going on in the rest of my life. The twins are starting school in 2 weeks, there's a ton of stuff to get done at the house before the winter, I'm in the process of finding a new partner at work on top of doing three really big campaigns for Subaru, Cialis and Manulife Financial. Argh. But forget all that, here's some photos of my week as a single dad.

Muddy feet.

Beds I made from old barn boards.

Flower garden I made for Rachel to fill with plants.

Saturday lunch in the yard.

My personality can be a tad exhausting...

Even for Lucy.

Naptime. Shep piled up pillows in case she rolled off. His idea.

Dinner with skipping-rope eyes.

Noodle Shark.

Sunday afternoon in the yard.

"Dad, open the door, I need to dance on the sidewalk."

Raw

Cooked.

Served. The twins ate Cheerios. Losers...

Breakfast at Olympia. Ordered pancakes. Never ate anything...

GIant Hibiscus flower. Kid for size reference.

The storm that hit just as I went to get Rachel from the Airport.

Punk Rock Big Year

Paul Riss

I can't play a note, and who cares?

2011-08-12T09:45:00.000-04:00

Birding is the shit for me but for some, it's flowers, others it's old cars (I'm sort of into them too) and for some it's music. I'm not talking about people like me that collect music. I'm talking about those lucky souls that can make their own. It's something I've ways longed to do. Music has been a huge influence in my life but I can't read a note or play a chord. It started because my mom and dad loved it. They never loved the same music. My dad grew up in nazi Germany. My mom in a tiny town in Saskatchewan. He was into jazz of course. A bit of a Swing kid. My mom maybe a bit more wholesome. But hey, she's 20 years younger than him, she wasn't even alive when he was living through hell on earth. Some of the stories he tells me make me feel like so lucky to have been born when I was. My mom and dad also owned a record store when I was young so I was always surrounded by music. Some of my fondest memories are sitting in the Harwood Place Mall Records on Wheels in Ajax.

1970s me. Music was already in our house.

My dad in Germany with an early iPod prototype.

Anyway, enough about me. This post is actually about other people, and what I can learn from them. The first person I will tell you about is a great friend of mine. We live in the same town, have the same intolerance of fools and both drive cars that were made about the time we were born. His name is Brad Mac Arthur. But musically, he goes by Bradleyboy. He has played in 6 piece, 5 piece, 4 piece, 3 piece and 2 piece bands. There's a lot of stuff that goes with being in a band. Egos, personality clashes, creative differences and so on. Not to mention splitting the pay-check. So one day, he asked himself, why don't I just do the whole thing myself? That way, the whole band will always show up to practice, there's only one ego to deal with and any creative differences can get worked out in thought rather than open arguments that can destroy the foundation of what made the band great.

Brad playing at The Dakota Tavern in Toronto.

Cover of his new record, Salt Gun. Wood burning by Pete Commanda.
Cover design by the stay lucky design.

There's not much Brad doesn't do. He is half of the team that renovated my house in Orono. He's an amazing musician that doing a soundtrack for my film. He makes furniture, or whatever else he needs. He's a firm believer that if you need something done, do it, then it'll be done. That is another quality we share. He played a couple shows Friday and Saturday evening. I went to both. One in Peterborough and the other in Oshawa. He played with 2 other great bands. Catl from Toronto and The Venisons from Peterborough. It was a meat heavy show. Both shows put me to bed after 2am so it was a pretty sleepless weekend. Those kids are up at 7 or earlier no matter what happens.

Then, on Sunday evening we went out to a rather new acquaintances farm for dinner. This guy is living the dream. He owns a company called Green Side Up Environmental Services. They are an ecological contracting company specializing in natural resource management and the environmental science industry. His home is about 30 minutes north of Orono. We arrived and after a short time we were wandering the farm, checking out the chickens that supply their eggs, the garden that supplies all the vegetables and the ponds that will hopefully supply fish dinners someday. There's a great feeling of self-sustenance you feel on a farm. It was the same feeling I got from digging up potatoes with Shep in the morning and eating them as a potato salad made by Rachel later that evening, but on a grand scale. It was like I was looking at my future. Once the advertising world is done with me, I'll need a plan. And I saw things that I might want to apply on Doug's farm. We sat and ate a great meal, talked and listened to Brad and Doug play music. As I sat listening and writing this, I realize that I don't need to make music, I make other things. I write, I make art (the non-commercial stuff) and now I'm making a film. Be it a good, bad or just plain average film, I will have made something from nothing more than an idea I had riding my bike along Harbored Street. Just like the song Doug is playing and singing right now, I'll be proud to share it when I'm done.

Later in August, it's back to birding and tattoos. Shorebirds are coming through and the scientific name changes are released so I can get more inking done. I'm looking forward to a trip on the 28th of August that will net me some new birds for the year, and to having Pete hurt me with his needles.

Paul Riss
Punk Rock Big Year

I'm not alone.

2011-08-02T11:04:00.000-04:00

I'm not as unique as I may have thought. That doesn't sound like a compliment but in the case of birding, I'm glad I'm not. I've made acquaintances all over the world while doing Punk Rock Big Year. A teenaged metalhead birder, a guy that used to see Black Flag shows until 4am and be birding by 6am, other folks with bird tats, a school teacher that was into the UK punk scene back in the day that equates birding with punk ideals. I haven't met many of them except online but I'd love to go birding with some of them if they ever come here or I ever end up in their area. Turns out I was right, there's punk or punk-ish birders everywhere. One Brit I've met has no bird tattoos, yet. But if we are willing to donate some cash to an environmental charity, he'll cover his entire arm with bird tats. Donate for the birds or just to see him squirm (he's afraid of needles).

I'd like to share a great idea that I came across by way of one of you. Somebody put me on to his site a while back. His idea is simple. If he can raise 10,000 British pounds, he'll give his right arm. He isn't going to lop it off, he's going to get a tattoo of the ten most iconic birds of Turkey, covering his entire right arm. His name is Tristan Reid and this is his idea (in his own words).

Note: All images supplied by Tristan Reid.

I guess I’ll start this post by introducing myself! My name is Tristan Reid and I am a UK birder, my obsession is birding! Exciting eh? So what does an overweight almost middle-aged father of four have in common with the cooler than cool Punk Rock Birder? Tattoos of course!
Well, to be completely honest I don’t have any tattoos presently and I have a fear of needles! However this situation is all going to change soon (all except perhaps my fear of needles)! I will be having a full sleeve and shoulder tattoo on my right arm that will feature a design that will include, Northern Bald Ibis, White-throated Robin, Wallcreeper, Caspian Snowcock, Pallid Scops Owl, White-breasted Kingfisher, Masked Shrike, Black Francolin, Spur-winged Plover and Rüppell’s Warbler.

Why these species and why the massive piece of body art? These ten species were voted for by regular readers of my blog (www.binocularface.co.uk) as their top ten iconic birds of Turkey. Turkey is country that has really stolen my heart; a recent trip to this amazing country saw me well and truly hooked! The amazing birdlife, immense scenery at superbly beautiful people all played a part in this country having a massive impact on my life!
On my return home I was saddened to learn that the Turkish government had sold off all its water ways to private companies and there are a planned 1,740+ Hydro Electric Power Plants planned and a further 2000 dams in construction. This will have a disastrous impact on the countries globally significant biodiversity and it is estimated that over 2,000,000 villagers will be forced to migrate.

This situation is unacceptable on both humanitarian and conservation terms. Suffice to say, I knew I had to do something to help stop this destruction. After all aside from the humanitarian issues, Turkey is home to 30% of the global population of the Critically Endangered Northern Bald Ibis, 25% of the European breeding population of the Endangered White-headed Duck, more than 10% of the global population of the Endangered Egyptian Vulture, more than 30% of the global population of European Rollers, more than 70% of the global population of the near Turkish endemic and Near Threatened Krueper’s Nuthatch and more than 90% of the global population of the Cinereous Bunting. Additionally Turkey holds five endemic mammals (mountains here still apparently hold the Anatolian or Asia Minor Leopard Panthera pardus tulliana), has 52 endemic freshwater fish, 13 endemic reptiles, 30.6 Turkish plant species are endemic to Turkey and the nearby Aegean Islands.

I had a mission on my hands to help raise funds for Birdlife Internationals partner in Turkey (Doğa Derneği) and to raise awareness about the proposed developments. Given that I have always been a fan of bodyart I had a plan! The main reason I had never had a tattoo before (besides fear) was because I wanted to get something that really meant something. I have now got my cause and reason! So the plan was hatched; after running the poll on my website, the selected species would feature in a commissioned piece of artwork (currently being designed) and the last stage is for the artwork to be tattooed onto my right arm and shoulder (all costs will be paid by me allowing all donations raised to go directly to where they are needed). So the title of my fundraising campaign seemed fairly obvious ‘Giving my right arm to help protect Turkey’s biodiversity’!

You can find out more information about this here:
http://www.binocularface.co.uk/2011/07/10/the-ten-species-to-feature-in-the-art-work-are
and keep up to date with my campaign by following me on twitter @givemyrightarm

You can also donate here:
http://www.justgiving.com/givingmyrightarm
Big thanks to Paul for allowing me to post this to his blog. Check out my blog as rumour has it that your very own Punk Rock Birder will be featuring there very soon!

I hope you enjoyed reading about Tristan. And if everyone that visited this blog last month donated just 5 British pounds (about $10CDN), we'd raise nearly 7000 pounds. (I don't know how to make the pound symbol on my keyboard).

Punk Rock Big Year
Paul Riss

Dog days of birding

2011-07-27T14:23:00.000-04:00

Everyone knows the dog days of summer. Late August, early September. The same lazy, somewhat uneventful days exist in birding too. Spring is over, many birds have completely passed over southern Ontario and moved on to the boreal forest to raise a family. The ones that nest here, and there are a lot of them, are not looking as beautiful as when they first arrived. The massive efforts involved in avian child rearing have started to take it's toll on them. They look a bit tired. This might be my wife's favorite time of year. The weather is nice, and I don't generally disappear each Saturday and Sunday for half or all of the day to chase birds. Even the fishing slows down as streams get lower and trout head back to the lake. Then, I become family Paul. The kind of guy that goes shopping for trees and digs holes to plant them in, moves dirt from one spot to another, makes beds for his twins and generally spends time at home. Birder Paul fades into the background.

Every once in a while he emerges though. Especially when a rare or interesting bird shows up on the list servers I subscribe to. The thing about the rarities is that I NEED them to grow the number on my big year. Certain birds are guaranteed and that's the bulk of them. But it's these unusual instances that really help the number climb beyond what just about any decent birder might hope to achieve. Let's face it, getting to 211 hasn't been all that hard. Soon, the shorebirds will start heading south. It seems to be the best time to get them. I have quite a few but definitely need to be sharp in August to get the easier ones.
A few rarities are popping up this year. Most notably the Willow Ptarmigan. It was within 15 minutes of my house. It seems Ottawa, our nation's capital hates me though. If you remember, a couple weeks ago I drove myself and the twins out to the Ottawa area to see a White-faced Ibis. Seems that bird had some weekend plans of it's own. It was seen the morning I left to go to it, disappeared for the entire time I was there and showed up again the day after I got back home. Then, a few days later a Western Meadowlark shows up a few kilometers from the Ibis spot. There were more than a few hints thrown at Rachel about me going back out there but none of them garnered much more than a very serious face and the terrifying sentence, "Go and see it, if it's what you think is the right thing to do." Anyone who's married knows that it would have been the exact opposite of the right thing to do. So instead, I keep reading about how easily it is seen and that it is loudly calling so that one can be sure it is a Western and not our Eastern variety. It's awfully difficult to tell the difference if they don't vocalize. The birds look virtually identical. But genetics and a song would say otherwise.

Western Meadowlark by NDomer73.

Eastern Meadowlark by kenschneiderusa.

I've seen Western Meadowlarks. Lots of them. I often find myself in Calgary shooting pictures of Subaru vehicles for ads. It's a great place to go birding. I just love the differences between our birds here and theirs there. I can't explain why it's cooler to see a Red-shafted Flicker over a yellow, a Red-breasted Sapsucker over a Yellow-bellied, it just is. Grass is always greener I guess. But here's the thing, Western Meadowlark is a lifer for my Ontario list. Am I going to push the issue with Rachel? No. Life has taught me that some things you need, others you only want. And let's face it, if I don't see it, nobody's gonna die. All that's going to happen is that I'm gonna get one less tick which translates to one less tattoo this year. Watch, when I get to the end of the year and I'm one bird off 300, I'll curse my lazy cowardice self for not stomping and crying and even begging to go see that bird.

So for now, I'll make some deposits at the bank of Rachel. Here's hoping they increase in value when the northbound birds I missed in the spring are heading through to hit the tropics again for the winter. And if I'm lucky, that Western Meadowlark will still be kicking around the next time we visit my sister in Ottawa.

Punk Rock Big Year
Paul Riss

What am I doing with my life?

2011-07-19T10:48:00.000-04:00

Looking for Sharp-tailed Grouse in -20 degrees with 70km/hr winds in ankle deep water.

I ask myself, "What am I doing with my life?" on a pretty regular basis. See, I probably should be on some ship or in a small country fighting giant corporations that are out to ruin our planet. But I'm not. Instead I'm working for the big corporations, selling their wares. Some products I push I believe in more than others. I guess as an advertising professional, I can decide against producing some ideas that might pop into my head (and I have certainly had ideas that'd sell things that I just never committed to paper, for fear they might actually get produced and work a little too well). I can also decide what ad agencies I work for, thereby determining what brands I promote. One thing is for sure, being an ad guy has made me impervious to it's charms. Without getting myself in trouble, let me just say that everyone should be very involved in their purchases. I can take some comfort in the fact that I also do a lot of free thinking for charity. Especially environmental stuff. I make a point of it.

I also ask myself "What am I doing?" in my personal life. Anyone out there that has children does, and if they say they don't, they are bold-faced liars. Raising kids is the hardest thing I've ever done. There are times when kids make you want to punch yourself in the face over and over for being so stupid as to think reproducing human life was a good idea. Don't get me wrong, I love my kids fiercely and would put a city of people in their graves to save them without even thinking twice. Shepard and Georgia are worth every second of the difficulty but if you say you never EVER think it may have been easier to live out your life without kids, you lie. But, if you know Rachel and I, we rarely, if ever take the easy route.

I also question myself when it comes to this Punk Rock Big Year thing. I mean, who am I to think I know how to make a documentary? Why is my ego such that I feel the need to make a film about myself? Why would anybody even give a shit about me. I'm just Paul. There are millions of us out there. Who has time to devote to following some dude that's chasing birds around? Especially when they are all busy punching themselves in the face pondering why they ever decided to have sex in the first place. And why on earth would I EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, decide to permanently cover the vast majority of my body in Latin words, very few of which I even know the actual meaning of? It seems crazy. It is crazy. There are so many times when I just think, "Stop it, stop being so weird and just be a normal person. Normal people don't do this." And believe me, when I'm standing ankle deep in ice-water in 70km/hr winds with watering eyes that pretty much instantly freeze up, 800km from my wife and kids, I can't help but think I'm wasting my time here. Its even worse that I did that whole trip in 36 hours.

Then, I get a random message on Facebook. It goes like this:

Hey man, just wanted to send a little note of INSPIRATION to you. When I first heard about your Big Year, I kind of might have said "He's gonna what? try to see a bunch of birds this year" "Then I might have said a little something like "What the heck, I see birds all the time?"

Here's where the message gets a little nice. I have to admit, I'm not a bird watcher or anything but I do know a little bit about identifying a few birds, probably more than the average person, but I've been reading all your blogs and posts and I'm finding the whole thing fascinating. Your travels, the different causes and all the other stuff.

Around April we started going down to the conservation area by us to feed the birds by hand. Chickadees, woodpeckers, red-winged blackbirds, blue jays all those a plenty. From there we ended up putting some feeders in our yard. I've been guilty of calling the birds with my Ipod but have since stopped after reading your post about people like me who do that.

Anyways man, just wanted to let you know that it's been interesting following your Big Year, even as a non-birder. I have to give credit to my kids for getting me started by wanting to go feed the chickadees and stuff but your Big Year definitely has increased my interest in our feathered friends and might have helped me sound smart when talking to my family about birds, and I love sounding smart. Not sure if I can still call myself a non-birder as whenever I hear a different call I usually try to find it to see what it is (something i never really used to do before) but I can never find them.

Good luck with the rest of your year!

This is the kind of thing that makes me want to keep going, someone got more into birding because of PRBY, and not only that, they took their kids with them and those kids might now be part of our future generation of birders. That's why I'm doing this. Get young kids to care about birds, appreciate natural beauty, and they can't help but want to preserve it. They, and the generations after them, are the only ones who can ensure our planet doesn't go the way of the Dodo. Because we will all be dirt before too long. I'm already halfway to my end. That means we don't have much time and we need to keep at them. If it means covering my body in ink to get their attention, I'm up for it. I just hope there are others behind me that will do things as crazy, or crazier, to get people riled up and giving a shit.

Paul Riss
Punk Rock Big Year

You win some, you lose some.

2011-07-11T14:14:00.001-04:00

This weekend, I lost, in a pretty big way. If you are a regular reader, then you know the last two weekends in June were spent mostly driving long distances. Once to drop my wife and kids off on Manitoulin Island for a week. Then, the very next weekend, I drove up to get them again with a stop at Sauble Beach to see some Piping Plovers. So this past weekend was going to be an around the house weekend. Lots of gardening and great home cooked meals with the kids (Rachel was off to do a 5k obstacle course run called The Warrior Race). It was going to be just me, the kids and almost no driving at all.

This is where I would've been this weekend.

And this is what we would've been doing.

Maybe some of this too.

Alas, it wasn't meant to be. You see, all week long I had been watching reports of what at first was a possible White-faced Ibis. As the days went on I was insanely busy at work but kept checking the reports. The possible bird became a sure thing. People were seeing and photographing it daily from Tuesday onward. There was a sighting Friday. I contacted my friends Richard Pope and Margaret Bain and we decided I should maybe go for the bird. I may never get another chance at one this year. They are certainly not common. It was time to pace up and down Main St. Orono contemplating the idea of going. What would it mean? It would mean driving about 1200 km round trip to Ottawa, with the twins, asking if I could stay with my sister when she already had company that weekend, finding a baby sitter I could trust with my two favourite humans while I chased the Ibis, letting my Aunt Pat know that the dinner plans we had were cancelled at the last minute and doing this all on my own. I started to formulate a plan. Kim was fine with more visitors, Aunt Pat liked the idea of joining me on the trip and Kim's daughter Lainey would watch the kids for me.

White-faced Ibis by chuqui.

I contacted Bruce Di Labio, the birder that found and had been monitoring the bird. It was doing the exact same thing every day. Flying into a watery area and spending much of the day feeding. In the late afternoon, it'd fly off and go wherever it was roosting. Nobody knew where that was. If so, I might have had two locations to check. So much the better. In talking with Bruce on Saturday morning, he said he hadn't seen the bird that morning but someone had very early on. It broke patter that morning, leaving the Carp River and flying west until it was out of sight. Things started to seem a little shaky with my plan. I was doubting going. I posted to twitter about my situation, asking followers what they thought. They all said I should go. It would be a great adventure they had said. And they were ,at least in part, right. So I go inside and ask the kids if they want to go see their Aunt Kim and Uncle Rob. They adore Kearan and Lainey (Kim's kids) so I wasn't too surprised by their approval of the idea. What the kids were not yet able to comprehend is the 3 hour drive before seeing anyone.

White-faced Ibis by chuqui.

So I packed up some clothes, snacks and optics and off we went. It certainly helped to have Pat in the car with me. the kids lasted about 2 and half hours before losing their shit. There's nothing quite like the feeling of driving 130 kms down the 401/416 Hwys with two kids shrieking like demons in the back seat. And I'm not a huge fan of stopping on the side of big highways like that, what with the constant barrage of transport trucks whipping by. pat and I keep assuring the kids that we are almost there. If a half hour constitutes being close. At this point I'm seriously doubting my plan. We finally arrive at Kim's and like turning a light switch off, the demons fled my kids bodies and they were sweet, innocent, beautiful children again. My stress levels were a bit lower but I started to feel a bit like a shitty father having just put them through that. Once they get on the trampoline with Lainey, all is forgiven. I sit and have a cool ginger ale. Then, once I'm satisfied the kids are all good, I go to the spot. There's another couple birders there. Turns out it's a photographer from the area and his young son. They kind of reminded me of myself and dad when I was younger. The young fellow shrieking every tie he caught sight of a bird, his dad telling him to keep it down and then them looking at the bird with their bins. He was really good with his son. Teaching him that you have to study the bird, look at it for as long as it sat visible, then try and think about what it might be. Not to make snap decisions and remember what you saw and really identify it.

White-faced Ibis by chuqui.

Least Sandpiper by cotinis.

Spotted Sandpiper by kenschneiderusa.

My iPhone battery dies in the night sometime and so dad wakes me at 6:15am. Great way to start the chase. I was planning on being there at 6. I go downstairs, brush my teeth and we head out. No coffee, no breakfast and sadly, upon arrival to the Carp River, no Ibis. We wait, getting a bit chewed by mosquitoes. There were none the previous day as it was so hot. But this early, they are pretty numerous. They don't really bother me too much as I'm just focused on the bird showing up. We see a few gulls, some Great Blue Herons, perfect specimen of a Green Heron, some Least and Spotted Sandpipers. There's lots of Killdeer, Red-winged Blackbirds, and a couple of Wilson's Snipe fluttering here and there. A pretty darn good morning of birding, unless you are doing a big year and have all those birds already. A while later we come to the conclusion that this isn't going to happen. We pack up and leave, not so happy with the outcome of the trip. We drive around on the concessions trying various points where the Carp River crosses roads but get no Ibis. We go home, happy to have seen what we did but with an air of defeat. All I can think is what the drive home will be like. Loud, I'm guessing. Turns out they slept for the first hour, watched a movie for the next hour and a half and were again possessed by demons for the last half hour. As an example of how crazy kids can be, listen to this:

Shep is asleep, Georgia is awake and fussing. Aunt Pat crawls halfway to the back to grab a blanket. She can only reach Shep's. She puts it onto Georgia. G falls back to sleep. Shep wakes to see that G has his blanket and completely loses his mind. To the point I had no choice but to pull over and get him his blanket and give G hers. She goes ballistic at the idea of forgiving his blanket in exchange for hers.

It's all so crazy I can't even fathom it. I contemplate wandering into the highway traffic for just a second, but I'm anything but a quitter. Then, I get back into the car and we drive on, to the delightful sounds of demonic possession.

When I get home, I find out Rachel's race went really well and she's already talking about doing it again next year. I'm very pleased and proud of her. I'm also very happy that I won't be doing a big year next year. I'm just going to look at birds for the pure joy of it. After this weekend, I can't wait for that kind of birding.

July 9, 2011 day list

Least Sandpiper
Spotted Sandpiper

Punk Rock Big Year
Paul Riss

What would you do to see an endangered species?

2011-07-06T11:43:00.002-04:00

Note: All Plover shots were taken by Brendan Toews.

I'd do a lot it would seem. Drive 700 km round trip. Have a bag of salt and malt vinegar chips and 3 bottles of beer for dinner. Spend 4 hours trying to get wet wood to burn. Sleep in 8 degree weather in nothing but a sleeping bag that was half the length of me and an old t-shirt. Wake at 6 am and eat nothing but a granola bar. All under the watchful eye of a video camera.

Just another day in a Punk Rock Big Year, right? One thing this big year is teaching me is that 40 isn't actually the new 30. My body tells me every chance it gets that I'm not as young (and punk) as I once was. Would I do it all again for the chance at an endangered species? Hell yeah, I'd do it the very next day for that, and probably for a fairly common species. Especially when it comes with making a couple new birder friends. Even better, one of them was a metalhead.

I picked Jon Wayne Brown up in Toronto right after grabbing some gear from a great director friend of mine, Jonathan Bensimon, who was cool enough to lend me his camera, tripod and a nice long lens to film my adventures this past weekend. Jonathan and I sat and had a coffee while transferring some footage he'd shot while I was helping FLAP collect dead and injured birds in early May. He also showed me some things he was working on that were really cool uses of stills in video. Hard to explain but when the video comes out, it'll be amazing. Then I headed across town to meet Jon. We got right on the highway and promptly into gridlock traffic. You see it was Canada Day and every person in Toronto was heading north. It's an odd phenomenon. Everybody heads north to escape the hustle and bustle of the big city. But since everyone's doing it, you don't escape a thing. It's the same shit, with Mosquitos. At least that's how I see much of Muskoka. I went further north but the endangered bird is nesting on one of the most popular tourist beaches in Ontario. Thankfully, people are not usually out in full force at 6am.

Piping Plover by Brendan Toews.

The bird in question is a Piping Plover. A small shorebird that hasn't been nesting on the east shore of Lake Huron since about the 50s or 60s. In 2007, Kim Toews (pronounced Taves) and her son Brendan, were walking along the beach doing a little morning birding. Kim has been coming to the Sauble Beach area since before Brendan was born so she was well versed in it's nesting species. She saw something she wasn't too sure of. Brendan, already a very keen birder, said immediately that it was a Piping Plover. He told me that he was just reading about it the night before for some reason. He and his mom knew this was an exciting discovery but they kept it under wraps until they were sure that the birds weren't just passing through to another area further north. After carefully watching them a few days, they noticed Behaviour that might suggest nesting. They contacted the powers that be and things started getting really exciting. The beach was blocked off and 24 hour surveillance was started. The birds were banded and so were the chicks when they showed up.

Piping Plover with chick by Brendan Toews.

Kim and Brendan had discovered a new nesting pair of birds that were endangered in Ontario. It was like a birder's dream come true. I know I'd like to discover such a thing and I don't know a serious birder that wouldn't. The Ontario Field Ornithologists gave them an award and they have been back every year to see the progress. When I visited, about 4 years later, there were now two nesting pairs. They have seen a female chick from the 2009 season return in 2010 and successfully nest and fledge young (making this an Ontario record). The hope is that these little guys keep coming back and start to flourish again. One pair is great, two is twice as good. My fingers are crossed for more progress. Someday, I'd like to bring my kids to see one of the ten nesting pairs. That would be something.

Piping Plover chick by Brendan Toews.

I see a lot of myself in Brendan. It's been a while since I was 17 but my dad has since told me I was not your average kid. I feel that way about Brendan. He seems wise beyond his years. He might wear a Metallica t-shirt but he's also able to identify 95% of Ontario's birds by sight and 75% by sound alone (way more than me, even at 40yrs. of age). I'm sure he has his teen side but he's more than just an average teenager. I felt like I could have intelligent one to one conversations with him. Not something I often feel around someone his age. Usually I feel like throwing teenaged kids off the nearest cliff but that might just be me becoming a curmudgeon as I age. His mom is just flat out, a nice person. She's easy to talk to and very kind. She approached me about coming up to see the bird. She offered to show me around and make sure I got the best looks possible for my documentary. And she definitely delivered. I got very nice views of both the male, female and even the chicks. The male stood on a driftwood stump while his young fed on the shore behind him. He watched us as much as we watched him. How could he know that the three of us would probably take a bullet to save one of his chicks.

Piping Plover by Brendan Toews.

Afterward, I dropped Jon off in Owen Sound so he could get a bus home. How's that for dedication to the project? I headed further north to see my family again. If you remember from the last post, I left them on Manitoulin Island for a week. Now I'd head up and they'd be in my arms again. We spent an awesome weekend on the island, touring it a bit. Sure I saw some birds, heard even more of them, but the big deal to me was being with my wife and kids again. We drove home on Monday to avoid some traffic. Boy did I ever pay for it at work Tuesday. It was kind of like getting hit with a dictionary in the face. Not fun at all. But the first day back to work is behind me and I write this at my antique Oak desk in the quiet of my living room, drinking a beer and a little Irish Whiskey; kids sleeping soundly upstairs. Right now, life seems perfect, if you don't count all the writing of ads due this week and the fact that unusual birds seem to be turning up at each of the four corners of Ontario this week. No rest for a Punk Birder I guess...

July 1st day list

Piping Plover
Great Egret

July 3rd day list

Northern Goshawk

Drive, Fish, Drive, Bird, Drive, Bird, Drive, Fish, Drive, Sleep.

2011-06-29T09:27:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was spent driving for the most part. All totaled, I was on the road (or a ferry) for 15 and a half hours. It marked the first time my children drove a long distance without turning into screaming maniacal freaks. Ok, they got really close but we decided to risk missing a ferry across lake Huron/Georgian Bay to avoid it. It would've meant waiting 4 hours in Tobermory and an extra $50 dollars. If you have children, you know it's a small price to pay to avoid two screaming kids in the back seat of your car. Thanks to my lead foot, in Tobormory, we ended up having an hour to kill. It's a nice little port town. They all kind of seem the same. The vibe in Tofino, BC isn't a whole lot different feeling from Tobormory. Though I'd rather be in Tofino any day of the week. We ended up sitting by the water listening to a nice girl busking. Shep even played her Ukelele.

You'd think she was tangle him a bag of cobras.

My daughter is so beautiful it hurts my eyes.

Port of Tobormory.

I had read a trip report recently of a Red-shouldered Hawk just south of Tobormory and Brewer's Blackbirds are pretty reliable on HWY. 6 near Ferndale. But they'd have to wait, as this was a family trip, not a birding trip, if that's even possible. We crossed with a calm lake and the kids loved it. They not only spotted pirates, but also sea monsters. Sadly, neither is good for my big year list. Rachel's dad has built a beautiful house on the island and they have now retired there. When I say he built a house, I mean he personally did it with his own two hands. I'm still amazed at how he got the roof trusses up when there was nobody helping him. He said it was nothing more than an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys to disperse the weight so much that one man could do it alone. Whatever it was, I'm still amazed.

As soon as we arrived, Rachel and her mom got the kids busy and Tim, Rachel's dad, and I went fishing. We needed to get dinner. We went over to a spot he has been fishing since winter. There are cage cultures nearby. If you aren't sure what that is, it's where fish are farmed in underwater cages. The fish are shipped daily to Toronto and you are eating them whenever you get rainbow trout at a restaurant. Of course, nature being nature, some of them escape. Lots of them in fact. Much to the dismay of the farmers and much to the delight of the local fisherman. We set up our bait, put the rods in holders and waited, drinking beer to pass the time. In short order, we both had a fish on. Nice rainbows about 3 pounds each. We pulled them in, snapped their necks below the gills and let them bleed out. Quick death is always best. We stuck around for a bit longer and I got one more that was a little bigger. The lack of city smell and noise was incredible. The sound of birds in the trees behind us was a constant. A Black-throated Green Warbler here, a Red-eyed Vireo there, Chipping Sparrows and Chickadees. A few gulls, a tern or two and a close view of a Belted Kingfisher as it flew right past the dock. Suffice to say I was in my own personal version of heaven.

Dinner, part one.

I slept well and went out fishing again at 6am. When I got home, the kids were up and I went outside to play with them. Rachel was tired and needed some more rest. I wandered around the field and pick a bunch. Of wildflowers for Rachel. It was our anniversary after all. We spent too short a time together as I needed to make the 1pm ferry back south. Work was nagging at my head and Monday morning would again be upon me before I knew it. Since I was traveling alone on the way home, I thought I'd stop and try for the Red-shouldered Hawk and the Brewer's Blackirds. The hawk remained elusive but I'd be up again next weekend for the long weekend and would have the better part of a day to get it. The Brewer's turned up pretty easily. I had actually never seen one in Ontario so that was nice. I drove on southward right past a place where there are two nesting pairs of Piping Plovers. I'll get 'em next weekend. They're pretty reliable now that there's babies to feed. I stopped off to fish the Sydenham River south of Owen Sound. It was pretty fruitful. I got several smaller rainbows, one small Brown Trout and a great one pound Rainbow. After two hours there, I was on the road again with a mission to get home with enough light to pick some salad greens and Swiss Chard from my garden to go with the steak that was in the fridge. I ended up picking by flashlight but it was delicious all the same.

Triumph club boards the ferry.

Yacht off the port side.

Sydenham River Rainbow.

Brewer's Blackbird by chuqui.

I write this on the train Tuesday morning and I really miss Rachel and the kids. Luckily work is keeping me busy enough for three people. I picked up the Duster from the shop last night. New wheels and tires on her. Rides like a dream. Here a shot. Mmmmmmmmmm, beefy.

June 26th day list

Brewer's Blackbird

Paul Riss
Punk Rock Big Year

Family First

2011-06-20T11:36:00.000-04:00

Rock Pigeon, Mourning Dove. 2 down, hundreds to go!

So this weekend was father's day weekend. Sunday is one day I get to do whatever I want, no questions asked. Of course, I went birding, but not with just anyone, with my dad. More about that later, let's back up to Friday.

Work is as crazy as ever and there are products that need to tell people about themselves. Since they are just inanimate objects, I'll talk for them. I left work right on time Friday as it had been a rough week and I really needed to not think of banks or cars or anything else advertising related. It was pure family time. I had planned on getting some Latin names tattooed on me Saturday. That meant picking up my tattoo artist Pete from the GO Train station in Oshawa. I got him about 9pm. We came home, sat and caught up a bit and went to bed at a decent hour.

Saturday would be busy as it was the Bent Family Summer Solstice Celebration. What's that? It is when a local record company, Get Bend Records, has a two day camping-concert-family party. There'd be several bands playing and most people pitch a tent and stay the weekend. My friend Bradleyboy Mac Arthur was one of the artists playing and there was another band I was very anxious to see. They are called The Bone Devil and they are the greatest metal band in the world, or so we say on Facebook. They are great. They aren't a typical metal band. Their songs have crazing timing changes and is a bit of a throwback to a 70s metal sound. but they aren't just copying that sound as so many bands today are. They are certainly doing their own thing and have really nailed something down that's pretty unique. Check out their Facebook page and if they're ever in your town, go see them.

Nice to see Beard Team Canada was present.

The see-saw was a hit.

Rachel and the kids enjoying some music.

Bradleyboy Mac Arthur.

Let's reverse again. Saturday morning, Rachel was first up to be tattooed. She'd be working on finishing up her right arm piece. Lots of poppies and butterflies. While she did that, I printed up a bunch of Latin names of the first birds I'd seen this year. Then, I popped over to my moms house for an extension cord and once she heard Pete was in Orono, she wanted to get herself a tattoo. Since this weekend was all about family, I gladly slid myself down the line to get mom tattooed before me. While she got hers, I drove the Duster to Bowmanville and ordered some new wheels and tires. When I returned, she was just getting finished up and I sat down to get some work done. This was to be the inaugural session that would lead to me covering much of my body in bird names. Last week I tweeted asking people where to get the first tattoos. Most people said neck so I started there. After just two names, it was time to go to the Bent Summer Solstice party. Sadly, I only had time for those two names. That's OK. There's lots more time this summer. I already have set up weekly lunchtime sessions with Pete at his studio in Toronto. So we will be making a dent in the 207 birds I've seen so far.

Rach getting some arm work done.

Pete working under the watchful eye of Lucy.

Mom's new tat. RR stands for Rudy Riss (my dad).

Getting started on my neck.

My usual demeanor.

Mom said, "Smile, you're making a documentary."

More tattoos and my son Shepard.

Me, Georgia and Shep with a Strawberry from a local farm.

A little video of me getting tattooed. Listen carefully as my Aunt Pat threatens to rearrange my face.

Sunday morning I was up at 6am. I made some Birds & Beans coffee and walked over to mom and dad's place. He was ready to go and we headed out to Presqu'ile Provincial Park to look for birds. I asked a few good birding friends where they'd go at this time of year to maybe see something new for my year and that was it. We stopped at a marsh along the way and got a nice Blue-winged Teal, some Killdear and Common Moorhen. There was also a Painted Turtle. Then we headed to the park, paid our $15 fee and drove in. We saw a couple Baltimore Orioles, American Goldfinches and some other usual suspects for this time of year. We also got a Brown Thrasher, a Spotted Sandpiper and lots of Cedar Waxwings (a favourite of dads). The best bird of the day would be a toss up between the Black-billed Cuckoo and the American Woodcock. Both were Lifers for dad. The Woodcock was standing right at the edge of a trail we walked on. I thought I saw something far off that was brownish but never got a great look at it. As we neared the spot, it flushed and scared the shit out of both of us. It flew and we got a good look as it navigated the thick brush trying to find a place to set down. It had waited to flush until we were about a foot away from it. After our hearts slowed back down, we decided to head out for some breakfast/lunch in Cobourg. It was a good day birding that would be finished with a great meal of roasted chicken at mom and dad's house. Aunt Pat and the kids were there too. Family all the way.

Black-billed Cuckoo by ricmcarthur.

American Woodcock by Paco Lyptic.

Now it's Monday and I'm on the commuter train again, heading into the city. The last thing I wanted to do this morning was leave my seat between my two vegetable gardens. I was listening to, and even saw, the Great-crested Flycatcher that lives in my backyard. But, like I said, there's products that need selling and my brain seems to be pretty good at making people want things. Things they may not even need. Think of me next time you feel buyers regret, and know that I'm sorry.

Paul Riss
Punk Rock Big Year

Location, location, location.

2011-06-13T10:12:00.000-04:00

Like so much in life, location is of the utmost importance. Birding is no exception. But it's not always what you think. Just like the stereotype of birders, the places we go are not always what you might think either. It's not all beautiful national parks and expansive vistas. I've birded in many countries around the world. Often I get sent places to shoot TV commercials or print ads. And there's not a new place I go without staying on an extra day or two to go birding. Usually, I'll hire a local guide or use birdingpal.org. With limited time, I just need someone that knows the area so I can get as many new and cool birds as I can, as quickly as possible. This birding thing takes me to places people don't usually see, especially in destinations that offer some of the best tourist traps.

I've been to LA several times and have yet to see Mann's Chinese Theatre, or the Hollywood walk of fame. I've never even been shopping there really other than grabbing a gift for Rachel and the kids. I have no desire to see the cement impressions of people I care so little about or a famous movie theatre. Sewage lagoons are a different matter entirely. I've been to sewage treatment plants in Argentina, The United States, Chile and South Africa to name a few places. There's a good rule of thumb that states, if you don't like how a place smells, birds probably love it there. Now, that said, I've also seen some really beautiful places while birding. It's not all sewers and bogs. If you are reading this and thinking you might get into birding, please don't think you are in for what amounts to standing in the general area of someone that just farted day in and day out. You'll probably start by visiting lovely places but once you get really consumed by birdwatching, and that WILL happen once you start, you just might find yourself enduring a measure of stench for a great bird.

This weekend, I saw, along with most of the Ontario birding community, a bird so rarely seen in southern Ontario that I doubt anybody in attendance has ever seen one this far south in their lifetime. The last known record is from 1867. There are a couple loose reports of one in the 70s but nothing panned out. To see them, you normally have to go to the Arctic. But for me, I only had to make a 10 minute drive. The situation was however, very unique for another reason. The bird I'm writing about, for some unknown reason, has settled down for a stay at the Darlington Nuclear Power Plant not too far from Orono. The bird was first seen by an employee that is an amateur birder. They made their ID and no doubt needed confirmation of such a rare event. I guess they contacted someone from the OFO (Ontario Field Ornithologists) to come and positively ID the bird. From there, word quietly spread to a few people. Luckily for me, one of them was a birder friend of mine. She sent me an e-mail with a couple photos and told me that no matter what my Sunday morning entailed, the plans were now cancelled and that I was to meet her at the Nuclear Station Sunday morning by at least 8am.

Ok, so the bird is a Willow Ptarmigan. It's like a grouse. For non-birders, I guess it's kind of like a wild chicken. You might have heard the local word for Ruffed Grouse, Partridge, in the past. If you know that bird, then you have a rough idea of it.

Willow Ptarmigan by ditzygrly. This is the closest image to the plumage I saw.

Willow Ptarmigan by jpc.raleigh. (summer plumage)

Willow Ptarmigan by american_male. (winter plumage)

Saturday evening was the official CD release for my good friend Bradleyboy Mac Arthur. There were three shows, one in Toronto, Peterborough and Oshawa. The first two shows I couldn't get to. So this third in Oshawa was something that there was no option of not attending. Brad is one of my biggest supporters of PRBY and I don't let a good friend down. The show was great, the opening band was Tarantüla (pronounced Tarantoola). They went on about ten and played right through until about 2:30am. After the show, we were all hungry and so dropped in on a burrito joint and hung out until roughly 3:30am. All the while I'm thinking, "Shit, I gotta' get up in 3 hours to go see a bird." My saving grace was that I drove the Duster into Oshawa that evening and so didn't have more than 3 bottles of beer all night. At least I wouldn't be hung over on top of tired. I got to bed about 4. The alarm went off at 6. I basically fell out of bed, down the stairs, made some birds and beans coffee (I'm SO predictable) and drove half asleep to the power plant. I wanted to be early as I knew there'd be a crowd and if they were doing first come first serve, I needed to be near first. Even so, turns out I was number 48.

Bradleyboy Mac Arthur finishing up The Beatles, Blackbird. Written for PRBY.
Download a free track here. Get the record here.

Tarantüla with Bradleyboy singing Gloria.

Special thanks goes out to the Darlington Nuclear Power Station for even letting us all come and see the bird. They didn't need to and if I know anything about big companies, they don't often care about stuff like this. But they have environmentalists on staff and quickly organized a superb twitch for all us crazies. It was a who's who's of Ontario birding for sure. Many of the best birders were there. So many I have met on various twitches this year. I always get the same smile from Dave Milsom. As if to say, "Not Riss again! Tarnishing the birding community with his inappropriate haircut, yellow muscle car and t-shirt full of holes." Of course, this is in jest, Dave was essential in helping me see Sharp-tailed Grouse last April and we get on really well.

Once the three bus loads of birders were driven to the location the bird was being monitored, the team, including Jean Iron (check her account with photos of the actual bird), slowly and carefully walked toward the bird. It casually strolled out into the open, way closer to us than I ever expected. It was amazing. It wandered through the short grass a bit, pecked at the ground and ate a few things. It seemed comfortable enough with the crowd. Then, it slowly wandered back into the thicker brush and was gone. It was spotted once more just sitting in some tall grasses and low shrubs. It pecked away at things, eating and generally being a Willow Ptarmigan. Being that it's summer now, this bird was in it's summer plumage though had more white than expected for June. It had a reddish bit over the eye, some white with rusty brown/red patches all over. The rusty colour is finely scalloped with darker brown. The white is as pure as untouched snow. It stood in an all green setting and nearly disappeared. How it did when it's not even remotely the same colour as it's surroundings is really quite cool. All the birders then got back into the bus and went home. That's how a good twitch works, we all gather and the excitement is electric. The community spends a few brief few hours somewhere, then just goes their own ways until the next twitch.

Afterward, I drove straight home to look after the kids for the rest of the day as Rachel has a commission to work on. By about 2pm, I was excruciatingly tired. I talked the kids into going inside to watch a bit of TV. They were only to happy to oblige. I caught a short nap while they sat on me and watched a couple episodes of Star Wars Clone Wars cartoon. After that we went outside to weed the garden and draw chalk versions of ourselves on the sidewalk. I got to do the things I like best this weekend, see a great band with my great wife, see a great bird with great friends and see my great kids. What more can an aging, lanky punk ask for?

Punk Rock Big Year
Paul Riss

June 12, day list.

Willow Ptarmigan (lifer)

Punk Rock Big Year gets dirty.

2011-06-07T11:06:00.002-04:00

WARNING: This post contains nothing about birds. Though I did hear many species that are breeding in the forest behind my house. A favourite is the Great-crested Flycatcher.

One of the main goals behind moving from the city to the country was to be sure the kids understand a little more about where their food comes from. Since moving, we have visited many farms that sell meat and produce. When we eat, we talk about what we eat by what it actually is. Steak is cows, pork is pigs, chickens are, well, chickens. The kids love going to farms, and I hope are understanding more and more that they are eating those animals in the field. Vegetable farms are definitely of less interest to them. It's easy to have fun feeding some goats or cows. Not so much watching people pick asparagus or trim the new growth off of tomato plants.

In an attempt at making vegetables more interesting, we decided to try our hand at growing some of own. The garden went in a little late though. It was a combination of a really wet, rainy spring and all the birdwatching I needed to do this year. My big year number is now at 206. I don't expect it to grow much for the next couple months. I'll chase anything rare that shows up but the summer is generally slower as all the long distance migrants are now up in the boreal forest and beyond raising their families and I've seen most of the local breeding birds. And this year, it's all about the list! Now back to food. I had built the raised-bed garden boxes quite a while ago. This weekend we filled them with nice rich soil (35 wheel barrel loads to be exact).

Empty gardens made in Late March/early April.

Friday evening was spent watching Elliott Brood, Bradleyboy and Poor Pelley perform in Oshawa to celebrate Rachel's birthday. The bands were great. Also memorable was eating wings on the street with a very drunk complete stranger. She just walked up with a take-out container of wings and started sharing them with us. It was odd.

Tearing up Oh, Alberta.

Bradleyboy singing with The Brood.

The weekend wasn't great weather the whole time, in fact, it rained heavily Saturday until at least 3pm. That was fine as we needed to do something every father fears. The dreaded dance recital. Don't get me wrong, I am very supportive of Georgia being involved in dance. It does a lot of good thing for her. It's very social, it's great exercise and it's not TV. I'm going to be excruciatingly honest here and say G is the ONLY kid I cared to watch dance. As I'm sure all the other dads felt about their kid. Though they might stifle the urge to say so in a public forum. Ask Rachel, that's just not my way. Shep was in the class for two lessons and quietly told me he wasn't into it. Now, when G is at dance class, Shep and dad get haircuts or go to the hardware store. Another favorite activity is returning empty beer bottles. I don't know why he likes it so much but he does. I think it has more to do with us doing something no one else does but us. I fondly remember doing those things with my dad too.

Sunday was a different story. It was the best possible day you could ask for living in the country. Mosquitos are pretty much relegated to dusk and black-fly season is over. Now, it's just nice out. But a day of rest it was not. I woke at 5:30am and headed outside to finish moving the dirt to the garden boxes. At 7, Shep was up and helping me move dirt. He borrowed a small wheel barrel from a neighbour. Rachel and Georgia joined us about 8:30. They came with big stacks of pancakes and real maple syrup bought from a local place. We sat in the morning sun and ate. After that, the kids played in the dirt filled gardens; no food planted yet. Rachel and I started in on a fence. It would mean six posts had to be cemented into the ground. I had already dug the wholes. Everyone thought I was nuts not to rent an auger. I just felt like the right thing to do was avoid using any gas or electricity to dig these holes. How hard could it be? Pretty damn hard actually. Six holes, 3-4 ft. deep each. It took some time and caused some muscle pain but I have to say it's very satisfying and almost therapeutic to dig holes. We cut the sona tubes, placed the posts and cemented them in. It took significantly longer to do it than typing that last sentence.

When that was done, it was off to a local plant shop to get our food. It's nearby and a great place for the kids to run around. We bought several varieties of heirloom tomato, cucumber, beans, peas, watermelon, onions, squash, peppers, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots and parsnips, many types of lettuce and lots of herbs too. My Aunt Pat dropped by that afternoon and helped me and the kids plant all the veg. while Rachel worked on the flower gardens going down the hill. It was a lot of work but also lots of fun. There was one other hole to dig. You might remember that our cat Frances had been killed by a dog last weekend. We looked at burying her at a local pet cemetery but the $600 fee seemed a tad steep. Like $575 to steep. We found a nice place for her in the back garden and I dug yet another hole. This one was a bit bigger than fence post holes. 4 ft. deep and about two ft. by three ft. I wanted to be sure no fox, raccoon or other critter would disturb her. We marked her grave in the old style of pilling rocks over it. Among the rocks, the kids sprinkled some colourful little stones. I think it looks quite nice. See for yourself.

Tomatoes and herb in.

Working on the layout.

Aunt Pat working hard. She's a fast planter.

Georgia gets involved.

Shep (and a robot) trampling things more than helping, really.

Strangling dad usually helps move things along.

Shep preparing to put in some onions.

Even Frances has a place in the garden.
But not the vege garden.

I write this post as I ride the commuter train back into the city for work Monday morning. I wish I was putting boards on the fence and spending another perfect day with the family, but I guess I gotta' pay for that fence somehow...

This is what my commute looks like. Yuk.

Punk Rock Big Year
Paul Riss

Why sleep when you can chase birds?

2011-05-31T11:15:00.001-04:00

Ok, this past weekend was a crazy one. My job is pretty stressful right now for a number of reasons. As usual, I can't talk about it here because I have signed a number of pieces of paper saying I won't. Life outside of work is a tad nuts too. My wife and I take on way to much sometimes. Generally, it's worth the effort as things that come too easy are never as satisfying, now are they. The big one for us now is that our house is going to be listed on a tour of southern Ontario heritage homes. What makes ours so special for this popular tour is that it was supposed to be flattened and made into a parking lot for the bank next door. I'm sure they were salivating at the thought of having ten parking spaces instead of the current five. Even if it meant flattening one of the original homes in town. Well, we put a stop to that, we bought it, moved in and brought the derelict house that had been abandoned for years back to life. To show the house, we want to get some stuff done to the place so it looks it's best. And that, my friends, is a boat-load of work. If you want, you can see some of the progress on my wife's blog, the stay lucky. On top of that, as you know, I'm doing a birding big year and trying to make a documentary of said year. Makes raising twins seem pretty easy (yeah right).

As part of the doc. I participated in the Carden Challenge, a 24 hour bird-a-thon. In case you don't know, that means you try to see as many bird species as you can in 24 hours. And you generally bird straight through the night. We did attempt to sleep from about midnight to 3:30am. Though being the new guy, I got the cot. So, I never slept for more than five minutes. Sadly, it wasn't until the alarm went off that I realized I maybe would have been better off just sleeping on the floor. It might have been really hard, but at least it wouldn't have pieces of metal sticking into my back and sides all night. Well, all 3 hours of it. But hey, I'm significantly younger than some other members of our team and though they may have had beds, those beds were surely hard as stone and one participant stayed without electricity or running water.

Prairie Smoke by Blaine Hansel.

We planned to gather at the area to pre-scout on Friday. I was late getting there because of a few things. The saddest reason was to do with my cat. I've said here before that we don't often allow her outside. I'm not worried she'd kill any birds (she's a bit fat for that) but I worry about the strays in the area scratching her up and her getting some sort of crazy cat disease. I never could have planned for what happened. I guess she escaped the house when our baby sitter was watching the kids early Thursday evening so Rachel and I could get some groceries. As I was putting the kids to bed, I had heard a dog barking insistently behind our house. I thought that was odd but not much more than that. Once the kids were down, I went out to bring in the trash/recycling bins to find a very upset neighbour. He was going on about some dog and blood and he was really upset. I went around to the back of his house to see what he was so upset about and I was instantly more upset than him. You see, all that crazy noise was a dog killing my cat. She laid there, so still. I knew right away she was dead. I sat next to her and cried. I had had her for years. She was a great cat as cats go. Sure she sometimes shit under the kitchen but beyond that, she was my Frances. I now had the awful task of telling Rachel and the kids this news. Rachel has a really big heart and there was plenty of love for Frances in there. She was distraught. The kids took it rather well. So, needless to say, that was a crappy start to a weekend I had been looking forward to.

Georgia spending time with Frances.

Really, it could only get better, right? Here's the part where you might think I'll go on and on about more bad stuff. That won't happen, I don't want to depress you guys. France's is resting comfortably in a friends chest freezer and next weekend we will bury her at a pet cemetery nearby. The rest of the weekend was lots of fun. It involved a lot of bird chasing, someone getting locked in an outhouse at 3am and even a flat tire. Read on to find out the details.

Upland Sandpiper by Johnath.

Upland Sandpiper by Bananaram.

As I said, I arrived a bit late. After telling everyone about my situation, all was forgiven. We spent Friday scouting for birds and found some really good stuff for our contest. I got incredible looks at the endangered Loggerhead Shrike. This bird was incredible. I've seen many Northern Shrikes but this thing just tops it in every way. The grey is more like a steel blue on the spring breeding male, the black mask is so much more heavy and seems to be made of the deepest, richest, darkest velvet. The white parts are so white by contrast that you nearly have to squint when you look through a scope. I will travel back there many times to see that bird. Another speciality of the area we birded was the upland sandpiper. It too seems so unique. The head is really small like that of a dove and yet it's eye seem just enormous. Not to mention the fine details of the rest of it. You see them sitting on fence posts a lot. But we even saw them wandering through a native Alvar plant called Prairie Smoke. In case you aren't sure what an Alvar is, it's land that is limestone based with about four inches of soil on top. It holds water really well. This is the same type of landscape when I went to see the Sharp-tailed Grouse in early April. Thankfully, it wasn't an average temperature of minus 20 Celsius this time. The third very cool bird I got to see was a Yellow-billed Cuckoo. It's pretty rare around there (usually you get the Black-billed variety).

Loggerhead Shrike by jsutton8.

Loggerhead Shrike by steveberardi.

We staked out some nice birds but we knew the competition was tough. Some of the other birders were the best in Ontario. Some of them had been scouting for a few days prior to the race. We didn't have that luxury. What we did have was lots of fun. Despite Margaret getting stuck in an outhouse for 20 minutes at 3am. That must have been quite scary. You try sitting in a pitch-black closet for 20 minutes. See how it feels. Add to that there are bears in the area and that pretty much makes her a superhero in my books. We had one other major setback. We got a flat tire at the worst possible time. Our first few hours had gone really well and then we got a flat tire. And right when we were on our way to get a few birds that would only call at dusk. I worked at a feverish pace to change that tire but it still caused us to miss a few birds. Another highlight was a tree with a mother bear and two cubs in it. We birded right below them, not even noticing. Until somebody came along and said, look up! I got many new species for my big year, easily bringing my 2011 big year total over 200. See the list below for what I saw that was new. In the end we saw 119 species. The winners came up with 135, smashing last years winning number. The total number of species seen by everyone was 154. But the real winners were the birds we all chased. The event was a charity deal where people would sponsor us on a per species basis. I managed to gather about $400. All together, my team raised about $2000. And the event total was more than $21, 000. Not bad at all. Some of that money is going toward the purchase of more land so those birds we saw can live out their days in peace in protected habitat.

RIP - Frances Riss

Weekend total.

Upland sandpiper
Snipe
Bobolink
Pied-billed Grebe
Yellow-billed cuckoo (Lifer)
Black-billed cuckoo (Lifer)
Grasshopper sparrow
Common nighthawk
Least bittern (Lifer)
Gray-cheeked Thrush
Whip-poor-whil (heard)
Northern Saw-whet Owl (heard)
Olive-sided Flycatcher

Punk Rock Big Year
Paul Riss

Birding by ear.

2011-05-24T09:59:00.000-04:00

In the spirit of birding by ear, this post only contains images of places I heard birds singing. No actual birds.

This much needed long weekend with the family was spent birding 24/7. You could almost call it a Big Weekend. I didn't get any knew birds to my knowledge. So many great birders would probably say they make most IDs by ear. Im not great at that but certainly im getting better, right Richard? So that's the way this weekend went for me, practicing my birding by ear. Not because the birds were particularly difficult to see. Some were visiting my feeder. But I was busy. These four days off (my company gives us the extra day for each summer long weekend) were to be very productive. Not birding productive but more about getting shit done in the yard productive. You see, when we bought this small town home, we knew it'd be some work to get her all cleaned up inside. We also knew doing the yard would be difficult too. The backyard is right at the edge of a forest with a stream. Unfortunately, our property was abandoned for many years and became a midnight dumping ground where the land grades down to the forest.

What we needed to do was dig out some shit and haul it away. We started in on the task, listening to all the birds Friday morning, I decided to create a Big Sit/Weekend list. There was lots to hear over the four days (see the list at the end of this post). More importantly, once we started to dig, we found an awful lot of rock, or so we thought. More uncovering showed us what was really there. We knew there was once a barn standing where we were digging but we also had heard it was deemed unsafe and crushed and taken away by the town. We found many chunks of the stone and concrete foundation walls. They had been crumbled in on themselves and were all askew under the earth and weeds. Way to big to move, I'd dig around one, smash it to more manageable sized pieces and drag it off to a 'fence' we'd made from the rubble. This would happen over and over until we uncovered one that seemed way too big for that technique. We kept removing dirt waiting to find the edge. No edge really ever showed up. This proved to be a huge concrete pad. And in perfect condition. We uncovered it as much as we could and now we have a free deck right at the edge of the woods. Monday, I woke and sat with my family and drank a nice cup of birds and beans coffee. This had been a perfect long weekend. I really didn't want it to end.

Since I had such a great weekend spent entirely with my wife and kids, I thought I'd leave you with something that might make your Monday just a little brighter. My kids dancing up a storm.

Big Weekend (by ear) list

American Goldfinch
Black-capped Chickadee
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Red-winged Blackbird
European Starling
Red-eyed Vireo
Warbling Vireo
Blue Jay
American Crow
Wood Thrush
American Robin
Yellow Warbler
Chimney Swift
Ring-billed Gull
Canada Goose
Northern Cardinal
House Wren
Eastern Wood Pewee
Phoebe
Great-crested Flycatcher
Song Sparrow
Chipping Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Baltimore Oriole

Paul Riss
Punk Rock Big Year

The Carden Challenge fund raiser.

2011-05-17T10:51:00.001-04:00

Punk Rock Big Year is about to embark on the Carden Challenge. What's that? It's a contest to see what team can find the most bird species in 24 hours. But even better, we do it to raise money that goes toward habitat and bird conservation. Be Good. Help me, help birds. Click here to learn more.

Some of you have asked for more info. on this Carden Challenge. Here's a note I recieved from the organizer.

"I wanted to let you know that the Couchiching Conservancy has decided to allocate half of the funds raised by the Carden Challenge this year towards the purchase of Bluebird Ranch. This is a 206-acre property at the southern end of Wylie Road, on the west side, and directly behind the Important Bird Area sign. As many visitors to Carden know, the fencelines here are a great spot for Eastern Bluebirds, as well as Wilson's Snipe and sometimes Upland Sandpiper. The wet area within the property sometimes has Sedge Wrens, and a few years ago hosted a highly visible Henslow's Sparrow for about a week. Besides its attractions to birders, the Ranch has patches of alvar plants, and links directly to Windmill Ranch to the north. As part of the deal, we are purchasing two one-acre residential lots that were recently severed and fenced near the corner; those lots will never be developed. Obviously we are very keen on this purchase, and want to be sure that we have all the funds needed in place for closing this fall."

If you were thinking of making a pledge, remember that some of your money will go toward the Bluebird Ranch purchase. We are confident that 75% of the funds needed are in place, but still need to raise $75,000, so every dollar is important.

Pelee Trip report

2011-05-16T16:04:00.003-04:00

If you are looking for the Pelee Trip Report, it's here.

http://punkrockbigyear.blogspot.com/p/pelee-2011.html

Hoping for a not-so-big day

2011-05-05T10:36:00.004-04:00

WARNING: This post contains images of dead birds. I encourage you to read on. I feel showing these images is very important to the issue at hand. If you just can't look at that, here's a link to some Sharp-tailed Grouse I saw on Manitoulin Island.

Tomorrow, I'm making what could be called a pilgrimage for Ontario birders. It's the best place to see birds at the best time of year to see them. In North-West Ohio, Kenn Kaufman takes part in a very large birding week. In fact, it's The Biggest Week in American Birding. Ours happens in and around Point Pelee and Pelee Island (home to the Pelee Island Bird Observatory). That's very close to North-West Ohio. Only a few miles apart actually, separated by lake Erie, these two places make two of the most significant stops for migrating birds in north America. They are located where parts of both the Mississippi and the Atlantic Flyways come together.

Note: I know cats kill MANY birds a year. We don't usually let our cat outside.
She must have escaped an open window. Hence the fact that she's on the roof.

So why is this post called, "Hoping for a not-so-big day?" Well because today I did a different kind of birding. It still involved waking before the sun rose, heading to a specific 'hotspot', and searching for birds. The difference was that most of the birds we'd be seeing would be dying, injured or dead. Today, I am volunteering with an organization called FLAP. That stands for Fatal Light Awareness Program. Their full name can be a bit misleading. I'll explain that subtlety later. What FLAP does every morning during spring and fall migration is head downtown Toronto before the throngs of people arrive and collect dead and injured birds.

Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher with a really bad looking eye.

Why are there enough dead and injured birds to warrant an organization to collect them? The reason is two fold. Firstly, at night, birds use the constellations to help them navigate as they migrate and tall buildings with lights on all night confuse them (hence the name Fatal Light Awareness Program). They get lost in the maze of skyscrapers. Secondly, during the day, reflective glass buildings basically make the buildings invisible to birds. For example, when a bird is in a tree or garden near a glass building and they see another tree next to them, they fly over to it, expecting to find more shelter and food. Instead, it was only a reflection of the tree they were already in and they strike the glass, often killing them. When the glass is transparent, they see 'decorative' foliage inside as another safe place to be. You might think they wouldn't fly fast enough to kill themselves when just hopping from tree to tree. Think about the last time you banged your shin on a coffee table. You didn't expect it to be there so you walked pretty swiftly into it. Or, think of the last time you bit your tongue. Through the searing pain, you might wonder, "Why the hell was I biting a French Fry so effing hard that I made my tongue bleed for ten minutes?" My point is, you aren't aware of how much force is involved in even the smallest thing. So I'd guess bird aren't either. They just do things.

Olive-sided Flycatcher.

If they do survive a strike, they aren't in the clear yet. A stunned bird will just lie there and wait out the dizziness. That's all well and good except for the gulls. Gulls are smart birds. They actually sit around waiting in areas they know birds hit windows. I witnessed this behavior this morning. As the sun rose, gulls stated appearing out of nowhere. All around me I could hear and see White-throated Sparrows. So when a small bird hits the glass, gulls are there to eat them alive. Now don't get me wrong, I have nothing against nature running it's course, but when a building is involved, we altered that course beyond what's fair to the songbirds. So in this case, I think it's OK to intervene and save them.

A bag of dead Brown Creepers.

The people that run FLAP are Michael Mesure and Susan Krajnc. They founded FLAP in 1993 and are still the only paid employees. The rest of the people are volunteers. I found out about FLAP by attending a meeting to become a volunteer. I had no problem waking before dawn to help them out before heading to work everyday. Then something happened. I had twins and my volunteer days were over before they even started. Still wanting to help, I brought the idea of working on some sort of advertising for them to my employer. Thankfully, DDB Canada, where I work, was very supportive of me helping them out. My partner and I got to work thinking about how we could help spread the word. The result of that thinking was The Common Birds of Toronto. It was basically a field guide like any other that profiled ten very common birds you can find in Toronto. The difference with our guide was that all the birds in the paintings were dead. The copy went on to explain what each species dealt with in the event of a window strike. Often, it means death. Some people thought it was a little extreme but it's an extreme situation. Millions of birds die every year. Other people thought it was a great piece. It was handed out to people on their morning commute to help them understand what was going on in the buildings they worked in every day.

American Woodcock with various others including a few Canada Warblers.
Canada Warblers are listed as Threatened.

Today, FLAP is a key witness in a couple court of cases where Ecojustice and Ontario Nature are actually suing building owners with cruelty to animals, among other charges, for not doing anything about their problem buildings. It gets really scary when you hear that some of the birds dying are either 'species at risk' or even threatened. It's not only little songbirds. FLAP have collected everything from Hummingbirds to bigger things like Saw-whet Owls, Sharp-shinned Hawks and even an American Bittern. Since it's inception 1993, FLAP has collected over 52,000 birds consisting of 164 species (24 of which are in population decline). Thats a life list of the worst kind. Things aren't all dark though, the birds they do find alive are sent to wildlife rehabilitation facilities like The Toronto Wildlife Centre and are released far from the city so they might continue on their trip to Canada's Boreal forests to mate. Also, laws have been passed that any new construction in the city of Toronto must take precautions for bird safety. That's a huge win for FLAP. But if you ask Michael or Susan, it's a huge win for the birds.

My favorite bird, a Brown Thrasher. This one really put a lump in my throat.

I named my son after this bird, that's how much I love it.

Close-up of a Sharp-shinned Hawk.

The worst kind of life list...

Early punk gets the bird.

2011-04-29T22:47:00.001-04:00

Today wasn't like every other day. I didn't commute to the city. My wife did. She had an appointment in T.O. today (Friday) so I had to work from home and watch the kids. The sitter arrived at 7, I dropped Rachel off at the train at 7:20. Nobody would be around the office until at least 9 so I went to a very productive local birding spot near the train station; and am I ever glad I did. I wasn't there long but got a couple good birds. Here's the new one's that bring my year total up to 113.

Pine Warbler (female) by cometoseemerganser.

Black-throated Green Warbler by Matt Bango.

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher by RunnerJenny.

Gray Catbird by CKM_Photography.

Eastern Towhee by dwaynejava.

Rd-headed Woodpecker by tink tracy.

Baltimore Oriole by Kelly Colgan Azar.

Orchard Oriole by thefixer.

White-crowned Sparrow by ingridtaylar.

Yellow-rumped Warbler by pheanix.

Yellow Warbler by pbonenfant.

April 29, 2011 day list

Yellow Warbler

Yellow-rumped Warbler

White-crowned Sparrow

Orchard Oriole

Baltimore Oriole

Red-headed Woodpecker

Eastern Towhee

Gray Catbird

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Black-throated Green Warbler

Pine Warbler

Punk Rock Big Year

Paul Riss

High birding standards, even higher coffee standards.

2011-04-28T10:13:00.000-04:00

I've done a lot of birding in my day. In fact, I've been doing it from the age of about 10. Except that period where I was to cool for it in high school. Sadly, looking back, I never should have taken that hiatus. It did nothing to help the fact that I wasn't the cool kid in school. What it did do is hinder my ability to soak up information like scientific names and bird song when my brain was a great big sponge. Nowadays, it's hard work learning that shit.

In all those years of birding I remember two things most. One; every lifer and where it was seen. Two; birders always had a Tim Horton's coffee with them. Back then, it was all you could get really. But now, I cringe every time I see a birder drinking it. If you are serious about birding, you must be serious about bird conservation. I mean, even if you are nothing more than a lister, you should be into conservation. If for no other reason than to ensure the growth of your list. If you are purely a lister, I encourage you to take it to another level. You can still grow your list whilst really getting to know birds.

I might sound a little hypocritical there because this blog is about a guy doing a big year. That might be true but I'm not really a lister. I have other ideas that are at the heart of this documentary I'm trying to make; Like removing the myth that birders are all the same, and bringing bird conservation to a new audience. The only real list I have is the one I'm making this year. I do have a collection of google images I keep for myself of every bird I've seen anywhere in the world. But I only use it as a reminder of that day or trip. There's no life list that physically exists.

Now, back to coffee. Has anyone actually tasted that 'road' coffee? It's terrible. Nothing more than dirty water really. And worst of all, it's not good for our feathered friends (or the habitat they live in). I also doubt it's great for the farmers in countries it comes from. Any large corporation will do what they can to seem like do-gooders but they aren't. We'd be naive to think that profit isn't king.

My wife jokingly scorns me for being a snob. Frankly, with certain things, I am. And often, I'm proud of my snobbery. Food is one of them. I won't eat pre-packaged food. It's just not worth the money or the time saved. I'd rather spend every waking moment cooking and cleaning dishes than feed my kids a single meal of pre-packaged food. Not to mention I proudly support the farms that my town is surrounded by. Coffee is the other thing. With coffee, I'm something of a SUPER SNOB! Ask anyone I know, I'm sure they'll tell you at length how I am about coffee. And not in that contrived advertising-created 'coffee moment' way. I just want a better tasting product for my very hard earned money, preferably with less negative environmental impact.

If you know anything about coffee, you know it's naturally an undergrowth plant. Meaning it's meant to grow under the shade of other plants and trees. People being people, we just didn't think we were getting enough yield from that natural way of growing coffee. So, we set about modifying the plant to grow it in massive clear cut fields. We probably knew this was wrong, but profit would go up, up, up. So we started flattening forests and making beautiful (looking) green fields of coffee. Those fields DO look quite beautiful in a photo. Lots of green leaves and so on. The problem is, those beautiful expanses of green are lifeless. Or at least not nearly as full of life as they were when the natural forest was standing.

People started drinking shade grown coffee to 'help the environment'. And that was a good start; at least we were caring. The problem is education. To get shade grown certification, you don't need many shade trees on a coffee farm. And by not many, I mean you could have just one or two - or another crop - none of which actually provides good habitat. That's obviously not enough to make as much of a difference as we need to. It's possible to buy coffee from plantations with, on average, 40% shade trees with a variety of native trees and a variety of heights - makes sense when you think about where you see different birds in the forest. To learn everything you need to know about bird-friendly certification, visit The Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center.

Full-sun Coffee plantation. Looks pretty, but it used to be a jungle.

Certified bird-friendly coffee plantation.

Enter Birds and Beans triple certified coffee. Certified organic, certified bird friendly, certified fair trade and rainforest alliance. They even roast it with Bullfrog Power green energy. These people are environmentalists at heart that found a great way to do some good. Let's face it, if it's good for the planet, it's often viewed as the hard way for people. Not so with Birds and Beans. Here is a way you can do good environmentally whilst getting a superior product in the process. It's good all around; you get a WAY better cup of coffee, the environment gets a much deserved break and farmers are paid properly for their efforts. It encourages farmers to go the organic, natural route and preserve their natural environment as a result of us paying them better. Win, win and win.

	Birds and Beans are certified organic by Ecocert to offer our certified organic coffees.
	They are licensed with the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center to offer Certified Bird Friendly® coffees.
	They are licensed with Transfair Canada to offer Certified Fair Trade coffees.
	And they are licensed with the Rainforest Alliance to offer Rainforest Alliance certified coffees.

Here's my recipe for the perfect cup of coffee. I only make mine with the Aerobie AeroPress. $39 dollars very well spent. Since I got it, I haven't used my drip machine even once.

Boil some water with your kettle. Sure there's a perfect temperature it should be but I don't worry too much. I boil some water and let it sit for 10 minutes in the kettle to cool a bit.

Grind just enough Birds and Beans coffee for that one cup. Two scoops with the AeroPress scoop. Don't you dare buy pre-ground coffee. Do it yourself. And only enough for each cup you drink (enter the coffee snob). Sometimes, on weekends when I have the time, I even grind it by hand using our manual grinder. Warning: this adds at least 10-15 minutes to making a cup but it smells sooooo good, you use less energy and gain a tiny bit of exercise in the process.

Insert the little filter.

Place your press onto the cup you love.

Put your freshly ground Birds and Beans coffee into the press.

Pour your slightly cooled boiling water in.

Stir it with the provided stir-stick for about ten seconds.

Then press it slowly. Take about 15-20 seconds to press it. Don't rush. If you're making coffee this way, you clearly have the extra seconds to spare.

Remove the press, discard the coffee and tiny paper filter into your bucket to go out to the compost in your back yard.

You've just made yourself a perfect espresso coffee. If you prefer a full cup, just fill the rest of your cup with more kettle water.

Having finished that, you can go outside and wait for the birds to wake up while you have your advertising-prescribed 'coffee moment'. The various chirping sounds you hear are the birds thanking you for caring.

You can learn everything you need to about ditching corporate coffee (basically just dirty water) and switching to the better way here. http://www.birdsandbeans.ca.
If you happen to live in the USA, try http://www.birdsandbeans.com.

Images used were provided by Birds and Beans (except the coffee making process, those were shot by my wife, Rachel).