A “Big Year” in birding terminology is trying to observe tons of different species of birds in a calendar year. It’s a personal challenge some birders do and I decided to attempt a Big Year this year in order to dive deeper into birding.
This lead me to walk around a man-made lake in Los Angeles in 96°F heat in the middle of the day to see a bird listed as “Provisional”, meaning it was introduced and is currently not completely “Naturalized” and living on its own, breeding and surviving. It’s not an exciting bird by any means and I’ve seen it at this lake before.
It’s an Egyptian Goose. It looks like this.
When I spotted a few of these avians, I thought to myself, “This is silly.” Walking around to see a bird I’ve seen before and then saying I saw it.
Check!
This info is kept mainly to myself because while I have supporters, no one really cares as deeply for my goal as me.
And it is silly. A bit foolish.
Yet it got me out of my car while waiting for a particular dog of mine to get her semi-annual grooming in heat I don’t like while spotting a bunch of other birds (all of which I have already seen their kin in 2026).
Birding, the kind without much contribution to scientific research, is a bit foolish. Seeing things so you can say you saw things of a certain color or pattern. In a certain location.
Pure folly.
And I love it.
I’m at 241 out of my goal of 500. That’s a lot of birds.