Probably the rarest bird I saw in January, this RBWO had been seen sporadically along this stretch of Boulder Creek in the Walden/Sawhill Ponds area since early Fall 2022.

Still feeling pumped from a Big Green Year in 2022, where I fell 12 species short of Scott Somershoe's 285 in 2021 (surpassing my personal best of 281 species in 2020), I decided to give it another go.

I've been keeping Big Green year lists since 2008, inspired by a challenge proposed by British-Canadian Richard Gregson to leave the car behind and spend a year birding by self-propelled means. For the first ten years, my lists ranged from 96 to 182. It wasn't until 2019 that I was able to commit more time and effort, and finally cracked 200 species. Then in 2020, with the pandemic shutting down my job performing with the Colorado Symphony, I turned to birding, as many others did, to cope and stay positive and healthy. Over the years I've gradually moved away from birding by car, to the extent that I now bird almost entirely by biking and hiking, with rare exceptions once or twice a year to see birds such as the Yellow Grosbeak or Garganey that showed up along the Front Range here in Colorado.

My approach with green big years has been atypical, I suppose, in that I haven't ever really fully committed to the project at the outset. I have either started late (e.g. April in 2020), or just gone with the flow, seeing what turns up, inspired and excited by success, and becoming more committed as the year progresses.

This year (2023) was marked by a chance meeting with Dorian Anderson, legendary green birder, photographer, and now author of Birding Under the Influence ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/137238993-birding-under-the-influence). While Dorian was in town for several days this spring, we just happened to cross paths at Walden Ponds and ended up birding and talking for a couple of hours. In recent years, I've been looking to expand my range to multi-day trips, and meeting Dorian inspired me to go for it, resulting in several overnight trips to the mountains, and a 6-day trip out to NE Colorado.

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January Stats

New Species: 86

Miles Biked: 222

Miles Hiked: 17

Miles/Species: 2.8