Big 40 Birding

By David Simpson

On February 20, I cracked 100 on my Okeechobee County list when a Yellow rail flew from the fire into the fire line. We were lighting off along a slough, a very dry slough, when a strange bird flew from the line of fire creeping through the grass. I watched it as it flew into the fire line and disappeared. I saw the white trailing edge of the bird and realized what I saw. It was pretty far back into the preserve. The interesting thing is that the bird came out of an area with a nearly closed canopy of Live oaks. The ground cover was grassy and there was no mid-story.

This is the second Yellow rail I have seen in Florida. It was a Big 40 Bird for me. What's a Big 40 bird? For those of you who don't remember, here is a summary of how the Big 40 came about. Back in 2000, I decided to do a Big Year in Florida. Prior to this, I had never even kept a year list. I was going to the Tortugas for the first time in 2000, I had a new truck, and I was going to the panhandle and a lot of other parts of Florida. I figured why not practice a Big Year and see if I can beat the record (351) the next year.

I really didn't do much until around March when I chased and Groove-billed ani (#272 that year) up near Ocala. By the end of November I had 331 species. There were many north Florida winter specialties missing due to my lackluster beginning of the year. I put the pedal to the metal and ended up with 352 species that year and plenty of stake outs for the following January, when I did my "real" Big Year.

By the end of the second Big Year, I was pretty much exhausted. I managed to hit 365 before Thanksgiving and that was all I could muster. I had 380 species total during the two Big Years. My Florida list started at 351 when I started the first Big Year. After I recovered from the Big Years, I continued to pursue Florida birds and even began to dabble in Big Days.

Somewhere along the line I came up with the Big 40. The idea of the Big 40 was to see 400 species in 40 months in Florida. The starting point for the Big 40 was October 16, 1999. That was the day I became a chaser again. I had gone through a period where birds were put aside as I learned about butterflies, dragonflies, plants, snakes, frogs, turtles, and basically anything else in the natural world. With the advent of the Flyway Festival (now the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival) in 1997, I began a slow slide back into the world of birds and birding.

October 16, 1999 was the day I drove up to Huguenot Park in Jacksonville to add Long-billed curlew to my Florida list and headed to Honeymoon Island for the first of 11 unsuccessful chases of Elegant tern. (I finally saw an Elegant tern on April 29, 2000 at Fort DeSoto on East Beach.) When the concept of the Big 40 came about, there were about 13 species on my Florida list that I had not seen since the Big 40 began. These became my Big 40 Birds. Species like Bananaquit, Green-tailed towhee, Golden eagle, Red-breasted nuthatch, White-winged scoter eluded me during the Big Years.

On February 13, 2003, three days shy of the end of the Big 40, I got my 400th species. It was a Big 40 bird, Green-tailed towhee, which I had seen in Lake Alfred many years ago. It was on Honeymoon Island where I had unsuccessfully tried for Elegant tern on day one of the Big 40. That was one of the most memorable non-life birds I've seen in Florida.

So that's a Big 40 bird.