Lost Among the Birds: Accidentally Finding Myself in One Very Big Year

We are obsessed with records. If it’s possible to quantify something, then we will keep records for it to see who has done it the best or the most or whatever. One has to look no further than the perennial popularity of the Guinness World Records books or the mind-blowing number of books and websites devoted to baseball statistics. Birding hasn’t escaped this fixation. It’s most common manifestation is the “big day” or “big year”, where you try to see (or hear) as many birds as possible within a certain geographic boundary in the set amount of time.

For those of us in the United States and Canada, the most celebrated of these is the ABA-area big year. The “ABA-area” is the area covered by the American Birding Association – essentially the Lower 48 states, Canada, and Alaska. The record had long been an amazing 748 birds seen in 1998 by Sandy Komito. There are only a handful of people who have seen as many as 700 in a single year! Given that, and the fact that in order to challenge this record you have to find some great birds at some of the most amazing and storied, not to mention remote, locations on the continent, you can easily see why this particular pursuit has so captured our imagination.

It certainly did so for Neil Hayward, who took a run at the ABA-area big year record in 2014 and chronicles that adventure in Lost Among the Birds: Accidentally Finding Myself in One Very Big Year.

Before getting into how many birds Hayward managed to see, we need to deal with a more pressing matter – is this book even needed? After all, there have been many previous big year narratives and even a movie produced about it. What can be added? Well, every big year is different, with different birds seen and different places visited. But, while that can add some spice to the story, it’s not really justification to publish another entry on this topic. More and more, big year stories will succeed or fail based on the non-bird part of the story.

It’s here that Lost Among the Birds shines. The focus isn’t on the birds, but on Hayward himself. This may sound odd coming from a reviewer of bird books, but this book is the better because of it. Hayward finds himself in a financially rewarding but ultimately unsatisfying job. So he quits. He starts 2013 not with a goal of breaking the big year record, but wanting to discover what he wants to do with his life. Only, he doesn’t have a clue what that is. All he knows is that, as the rest of his life makes less and less sense, birding brings him peace. It’s still fun. And so he goes birding. A lot. So much so that he finally admits to himself that he is doing a big year.

Another source of uncertainty in Hayward’s life is his girlfriend, Gerri. He doesn’t want to lose her, but at the same time cannot commit to her. The birding doesn’t help – it keeps them apart a significant amount of the year and, even when they are together, provides a distraction.

This story works because you find yourself cheering for Hayward. You want him to see more birds, of course, but even more than that you want him to emerge from his depression and make it with Gerri. Another reason Hayward’s story works so well is that it was never a pursuit of numbers. He didn’t start his big year on January 1, and even when he did eventually accept that this was a big year, he didn’t have any expectation of breaking the record. This showed in his attitudes toward the birds he was seeing. They weren’t just numbers, and he actually took time to appreciate a new bird rather than ticking and running. Even upon seeing his milestone 700th bird, he reflected, “It was a bird, not a number, and I suspected that if I ever considered them merely ticks on a list, then all the joy would be extinguished from this mad hobby.”

Even though numbers weren’t the driving force behind Hayward’s year, he reports some staggering numbers at the end of the book:

After 250,000 miles, fifty-five rental cars, twenty-eight states, six provinces, fifty-six airports, and 195 days away from home (fifteen of which were spent on a boat, one in a kayak, and one up a tree), I’d seen 747 species.

Well, not so fast. Two of his provisional birds were later accepted by the ABA, which put his official tally at 749. He broke the record by one bird.

Recommendation

Lost Among the Birds is the perfect title for this book. It reflects the fact that, for the vast majority of the year, Hayward was indeed out among the birds. But ‘lost’ also reflects how the author viewed his place in life. His big year was remarkable for the number of birds he saw. However, the changes it wrought in his outlook on life (along with the help of medicine and the support of an unbelievably patient partner) were of even greater consequence. That story, told in an entertaining, witty style (I can’t believe this is Hayward’s first book!), make this a most pleasurable read, even for those who aren’t hard-core big year listers.

Postscript: Hayward’s record didn’t stand for very long. Not one, but two birders have already broken it this year as I write this in 2016. But something tells me Hayward doesn’t mind too much.