ABA Big Year 2016 (1 Viewer)

[NYCbirder]

Here are the updated lists, as I have them. I've added Olaf's Yellow Grosbeak, but not the Intermediate Egret, as I don't believe the egret is showing up in his eBird total. I know the grosbeak has been there for quite a while, which is why my previous spreadsheets showed one fewer species than his eBird tally.

Joe

Regarding the potential Yellow Grosbeak drama (and any more heretofore unreleased sightings by Olaf), I'm going to speak in defense of Olaf. When John started the year "undercover" and went months w/o revealing he was doing a big year or publicizing any of his sightings, he set the standard for info-sharing in this competition. Just because Olaf has been open from Jan 1, does not mean he is bound to that openness throughout the year. Sure, we spectators would prefer to know the right score at all times, but Olaf was put at a disadvantage by John early on, and thus I support his option to decide on how much info to share in an attempt to regain an advantage.

-Ethan

 

[drewweber]

...I'm going to speak in defense of Olaf...

-Ethan

Hear hear! The level of openness and sharing from Olaf, warts and all, has made this entire big year much more fascinating to follow. I find it hard to criticize him for holding things back when his sharing is a 10 on the TMI scale much of the time

 

[DMW]

Regarding the potential Yellow Grosbeak drama (and any more heretofore unreleased sightings by Olaf), I'm going to speak in defense of Olaf. When John started the year "undercover" and went months w/o revealing he was doing a big year or publicizing any of his sightings, he set the standard for info-sharing in this competition. Just because Olaf has been open from Jan 1, does not mean he is bound to that openness throughout the year. Sure, we spectators would prefer to know the right score at all times, but Olaf was put at a disadvantage by John early on, and thus I support his option to decide on how much info to share in an attempt to regain an advantage.

-Ethan

That makes no sense. How was Olaf put at a disadvantage by John not revealing his hand early on? It has always been up to Olaf to chase whatever vagrants are out there and are available, and if he didn't put 100% effort into doing so because he didn't know he had a serious competitor, then that's his fault, not John's.

I have no issue with any ABA big year competitor being coy about what they have seen, or even the fact that they are doing a big year, if they want to play it that way. If that is all Olaf has done with the grosbeak, then no big deal.

On the other hand, if there has been deliberate suppression of a vagrant for no other reason than to gain an advantage over others, then that is simply shoddy behaviour, and not how birders ought to behave.

 

[janinmt]

New blog post from Christian:

http://www.thebirdingproject.com/blog/2016/12/6/december1-7

Bird Count: 748 +2*

Jan in MT

 

[r_bruce]

That makes no sense. How was Olaf put at a disadvantage by John not revealing his hand early on? It has always been up to Olaf to chase whatever vagrants are out there and are available, and if he didn't put 100% effort into doing so because he didn't know he had a serious competitor, then that's his fault, not John's.

I have no issue with any ABA big year competitor being coy about what they have seen, or even the fact that they are doing a big year, if they want to play it that way. If that is all Olaf has done with the grosbeak, then no big deal.

On the other hand, if there has been deliberate suppression of a vagrant for no other reason than to gain an advantage over others, then that is simply shoddy behaviour, and not how birders ought to behave.

Amen.
I never understood the drama created about John's starting the year quietly. If he had decided to bail on the year early on, for whatever reason, there would have been no explanations needed. Bradley is a hugely outgoing, self-promoting person (I have NO problem with that), but their personalities could not be more different. John is respected by every single well known birder in Oz as well as many that I know in the US including past record holders. I will stake my reputation on John. He is a great guy, but even though he is promoting his amazing Devil Ark project through his Big 'Yearing,' he remains mostly a shy and quiet individual.

Big Years do not have disclosure rules. You do not have to announce on 1 January, "I am officially doing a Big Year."

I kept a couple's year list with my wife in Oz last year and I started it on 20 August 2015 and ended it on 19 August 2016, just for the joy of seeing how many birds we could see as a couple (without pushing, although we occasionally twitched, but also skipped some easy ticks). We were traveling all of the continent and birding, so why not? Our list was only 638, and as I said, we did NOT bird it like a big year. We just had fun and kept track. I am also writing a book about it. It was interesting... couple in their 60's in a pop-top Troopy for a year and we are still together.

 

[NYCbirder]

That makes no sense. How was Olaf put at a disadvantage by John not revealing his hand early on? It has always been up to Olaf to chase whatever vagrants are out there and are available, and if he didn't put 100% effort into doing so because he didn't know he had a serious competitor, then that's his fault, not John's.

My point was more that John, by his own admission, made a deliberate strategic move with respect to disclosure of his activities early in the year. So judging both competitors by the same standards, there should be no hand-wringing about Olaf holding disclosure of some of his own sightings or even giving a false impression on his blog about what he might have missed (maybe he got the Cuban Vireo after all???). I agree with others that it doesn't feel quite right, but also think John created that very dynamic by staying under cover for months specifically for the purpose of gaining an upper hand. I don't like the precedent that sets for big years, especially when it's so easy to communicate (see: Olaf).

 

[Sandy73]

My point was more that John, by his own admission, made a deliberate strategic move with respect to disclosure of his activities early in the year. So judging both competitors by the same standards, there should be no hand-wringing about Olaf holding disclosure of some of his own sightings or even giving a false impression on his blog about what he might have missed (maybe he got the Cuban Vireo after all???). I agree with others that it doesn't feel quite right, but also think John created that very dynamic by staying under cover for months specifically for the purpose of gaining an upper hand. I don't like the precedent that sets for big years, especially when it's so easy to communicate (see: Olaf).

If John did publicity announce his plans what would Olaf/ Bradley do differently?

Regards

 

[Mysticete]

Well there are a couple of issues here:

IF the yellow grosbeak was suppressed, I don't think it's fair play. Every other code 3 bird from the lower 48 was essentially found by other birders and reported, allowing them to chase it. So suppression is a violation of the spirit if not intent of the rules.

The other thing, for both people, is that big years have always relied upon an honor code, regarding records. Hiding records only to reveal them later comes off as sketchy. If John announced on January 1st that he saw 780 birds, and then Olaf says...Oh...well I actually saw more than that, and proceeds to list a bunch of birds from earlier in the year he kept hidden, it calls into question the validity of his record.

Honestly...whether a birder does or doesn't announce they are doing a big year isn't a huge issue. But Olaf for whatever his faults, has been open about it and most importantly has steadily adding his checklists to ebird throughout the year. That means that his record is actually providing some degree of scientific value, and he is also adding more back into the community.

Personally I don't really care too much for either of the two big year folks in the lead. I am much more excited about Christian and Laura breaking the previous record.

 

[guy_incognito]

I mostly agree with the above. It is nice to know what birds the Big Year birders are getting in real time, but it certainly is not necessary. I'd argue that Olaf (and John) is not really adding much scientific value with his eBird reports, though. Chasing known rare birds is not contributing to scientific data, and him saying I saw the bird please see my blog in his eBird reports isn't adding to the community.

At least John and Laura did help the birding community recently by being the first to start getting public access to the La Sagra's Flycatcher at Bill Baggs. Kudos to them. They did it the appropriate way by working with the park staff. I can't help but recall how Olaf admitted to faking an injury so that he could look for the Grassquit in Florida earlier this year. He also did some similar shenanigans lying to the airlines to gain an unfair advantage. These kind of behaviors from Olaf have put me off.

Like mentioned previously, there is a huge difference between not reporting known birds, and suppressing an unknown bird. I don't know that John has suppressed a bird that Olaf didn't know about. But, Olaf suppressing the (unconfirmed) Yellow Grosbeak is a totally different story since that was an unreported bird, and the suppression kept anyone else from being able to try for it.

 

[Paul Chapman]

So people can't work out that if you are seeking to set a yearlist record then you need to beat the previous record and any opponent in the year and your pace in the year will be set by the information that you have?????

Also if Olaf heard about one bird, twitched it and did not put the record out publicly, this is worse than John doing the same thing dozens of times. Really????

Don't get me wrong. No time for suppression in whatever form so I expect to be appalled by Olaf's behaviour once I know what happened - which I currently don't - but I don't recognise withholding information as reflecting the hobby within which I have been engaged for thirty years.

It's Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book and The Big Year film, it's not the behaviour of 99% of birders and twitchers. I'll give an 'opponent' advice and travel options despite chasing him down for decades and he'll do the same because he knows I care about seeing the birds. He understands my same bizarre drive. That's simply what we do.

All the best

 

[etudiant]

I'd cut Olaf some slack on the Yellow Grosbeak. The evidence is that Olaf has tried to act responsibly thus far, posting whenever possible, so there must be more to this not getting reported.

We don't know under what circumstances the bird was seen.
If it was in a sensitive location, on some private property, Olaf may not have been able to disclose anything. The first indication of this sighting afaik came from the article in Audubon, so presumably they knew of the sighting for some time and also did not report it.
In addition, Olaf was not aware of John and his Big Year until later in the year, so there was certainly no competitive push to suppress a sighting earlier.

 

[Paul Chapman]

We don't know under what circumstances the bird was seen.
If it was in a sensitive location, on some private property, Olaf may not have been able to disclose anything. The first indication of this sighting afaik came from the article in Audubon, so presumably they knew of the sighting for some time and also did not report it.
In addition, Olaf was not aware of John and his Big Year until later in the year, so there was certainly no competitive push to suppress a sighting earlier.

Indeed the potential irony is that Olaf may have received an invite because he was public on his Big Year.....

 

[Paul Chapman]

Back to the birds. Olaf has got the Rustic Bunting:-

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S32939396

All the best

 

[Jos Stratford]

He also did some similar shenanigans lying to the airlines to gain an unfair advantage. These kind of behaviors from Olaf have put me off.

That wasn't unfair, that was pure genius Have to say, I thought this little episode of the airlines was one of the funniest accounts of his year :t:

 

[temmie]

I am in no position to judge either Olaf or John.

I could say some good and some bad things about people on the other side of the planet chasing their dreams...

It's entertaining to follow and I learned a lot about US hotspots for certain target birds, and that's it.

 

[trptjoe]

My understanding is that he was not allowed to disclose the location, hence the fact that it's hidden in eBird, although it was entered for the record. That's why it showed up in his number, which, months ago, led to me asking him about the reason my number was one off from his eBird number. Many of you will recall that I ended up doing the same thing with both Laura and Christian, when we (this august body of kibitzers) couldn't reconcile our numbers with what was posted. To their credit, none of the three got defensive about the questions. Quite the opposite, as they're relying on me to be a proofreader, in essence. I've been sending them the same lists I post here, which they've found helpful and passed along to John, who has also been in touch.

Olaf has posted his Hawaii birds to eBird, so you can now keep up with his US Big Year, too. It's been clear for awhile that he's been trying to add to his Lower 48 Year, too, by picking up species he originally got in Canada. You can see those numbers in eBird, too.

Joe

 

[guy_incognito]

Also if Olaf heard about one bird, twitched it and did not put the record out publicly, this is worse than John doing the same thing dozens of times. Really????

Nope, that is not worse...if that is true. Has John had dozens of instances where he saw a bird that was not reported to the public/Olaf? I personally can't think of one time, but then of course, it wouldn't really have been a secret!

I can certainly understand that there are situations in which a report can't/shouldn't be made public. If this is the case, then that is just fortunate for Olaf to be in the right place at the right time. Kudos to him if he is the one that found it. Lucky for him if he was told about it.

Normally, those situations do come to light after an "appropriate" period of time. That "appropriate" time is ambiguous, but generally means the bird is definitely gone. Given that most Yellow Grosbeaks only stay 1-3 days, that bird is surely long gone. It would be nice to get some kind of word out.

One of the prior messages indicated that the ID may not have been confirmed. I don't know of any rule that a bird MUST be accepted by the relevant bird record committee, but given that Yellow Grosbeak is a major rarity, it really should be submitted. The assumption is that it would have been in Arizona. There has been no Yellow Grosbeak submission to the Arizona Bird Committee this year.

Too much speculation, would be nice to get some first hand answers!

Good luck to all four record breaking Big Year birders in their final 3 weeks.

 

[Paul Chapman]

Guy

Apologies to John. I hadn't realised that he was calling in/posting his rarity sightings to the relevant bird alerts/listings.

All the best

 

[trptjoe]

Here's where we are with three weeks to go.

Joe

 

[Mark]

And Christian just got his Barnacle Goose (749+2)