Breaking the silence.

Spring migration is almost over. I've spent a total of about 6 hours of it birding. This year is so different from the last. I'm starting to miss doing a big year. I'm watching friends do them this year and they've already blown well past my measly 234. If I were to bring up the idea of another big year it would surely be the end of my marriage. And really, it ain't worth that to see a few more birds.

For those that enjoy reading this stuff, I'm sorry for being so absent. There has been a crushing amount of work with my job this year. Now that I'm with a new partner at work I feel a renewed sense of commitment to doing the best possible job of advertising I can. I had grown lazy in my old partnership. My work was ok but certainly not great. And let's face it, every one of you hates to see ads. Shit, I hate seeing them. The only thing that can make them bearable is if they don't completely suck ass. So I'm trying not to bombard you with complete shit advertising. Instead, I'll bombard you with better than average ads. Not sure that's so much better really.

A moth on our back door. Anyone know the species?

At home, things have not been so great this migration season. Sure we are still a happy family but Shep is not well. Nothing terrifically serious, no tumors or anything life threatening like that. But when your child is uncomfortable it weighs heavily on you. My son has developed this issue with his adenoids, whatever the f**k they are. He is living a generally miserable life right now. His adenoids are big I guess. Imagine the worst allergies/head cold you've ever had and multiply that by ten and then, think of having it 24-7 for nearly 6 months. The other day he sat next to me on the couch. We were watching some avengers cartoons. He asked if he could whisper something in my ear. "Of course", I said. Very softly he asked me this, "Dad, will I be sick like this forever?" It made me cry. He feels so shitty, and has felt this way since about December (right around his 4th birthday).I felt really helpless and so sorry for him. It's as if he has begun to resign himself to feeling shitty for the rest of his life. I never even considered he'd think that he would live a long life. He seems to live so day-to-day. I'm constantly amazed by his ability to grasp the scale of life.

The new sandbox with anti cat-litter covering.

There is an operation he can get. Pretty standard stuff. They go in through the mouth and up into the nose area and just scrape out these adenoid things. Seems easy enough but he needs to be put completely under and might need to be in hospital over night. Right there. That makes me freak out. Hospitals are full of capable people but even capable people make mistakes. I'm sure it'll be fine but if you have a kid(s), you know that feeling of helplessness. I just wish I was a mutant that could remove his problem and take it into myself. Then, I could get the operation and he could just go back to being a kid and stop thinking his days from now on would be filled with feeling miserable.

Georgia doesn't have this issue. Way back, 2 years ago, she had a little issue with one kidney. Again, nothing too crazy. One of them was smaller than the other and was backing up a bit. I remember freaking out at the time but we dealt with that. During migration season this year she developed a pretty crazy cough. It was so insistent. There was no clearing her throat. She would literally cough until she puked. This went on for over a week. It seems to be letting up finally now but it was really intense around our place for a couple weeks.

Took a moment out to shoot my toy along side my dad's.

Shep's issue was really flaring up and with Georgia sick too, Rachel and I got about three hours sleep a night for a long while there. This takes it's toll on a family. Everyone was generally tired and miserable all the time. Things are looking up a bit now at least for the kids. Last night was the first night Rachel and I both slept right from midnight to 6  am. It was really amazing. For a few days there it was like when these two little people first came home with us. Sleep for a couple hours, wake up, deal with issues and then sleep another hour or so. Then go to work or in Rachel's case, draw for the kids book she's currently working on. It's been really nuts.

To top it off, our dog Lucy seems to be going insane. She has taken to shitting/pissing all over the house, generally right after going out for a run in the yard. She has also started biting the kids and us for no reason at all. We think she may be blind and deaf as she doesn't seem to see you unless you're right close to her, then she bites. She also can't hear you even when you yell her name unless she looking directly at you. She's always been a good napper but these days she just wanders the house aimlessly at all hours of the day and night. Last night Rachel let her out into the yard and she just ran off and didn't come back. I went looking and found her in the woods behind the house with a cut on her forehead. She took one look at me and bottled off into the forest. I chased her about for a while. She actually got tired and stopped running so I tackled her as gently as I could and carried her home. She spent the entire trip violently chewing on my hands. Crazy. She's an old girl though. 14 or so years old. A chihuahua.

Breakfast Rachel made me while I was working in the garden.

On the up side of things, we got lots of work done on our first long weekend of the summer. The vegetable gardens are nearly complete. We planted beans, peas, broccoli, tomatoes, zucchini, and many more. Our strawberry patch is filling in nicely as are the raspberry bushes. And all this time spent outside is spent around birds. There have been so many great birds in my back yard this year. For nests, I've managed to find White-breathed Nuthatch, House Wren, Robin and Great-crested Flycatcher. I also built the kids a sand box to play in. It's about the only thing that can keep Shep happy and unbothered by his nose issue. There's really nothing I like better than sitting in my garden with Rachel listening to the birds and watching my kids play together in the sand box.

My beautiful Georgia.

As an aside, there is some really very exciting news around Punk Rock Big Year. Of course, I can't mention more than that right now but you'll be the second to know when I can talk about it more. Rachel will be the first to know. Hope everyone's spring migration is going great.

Paul Riss

Punk Rock Big Year

Audubon Rules!

You all know I'm heavily tattooed. You may know that my right upper arm is covered in John James Audubon's paintings. I guess you could say he has left an impression on me both literally and figuratively. Well, now I can say I've made an impression on Audubon. Not him obviously but his namesake organization. I'm really proud to say that Punk Rock Big Year is on the Audubon Magazine's main website. How cool is that? It feels like a lifer of a different kind. http://www.audubonmagazine.org/articles/birds/don-t-stereotype-birders Visit, read, leave comments. Punk Rock Big Year Paul Riss

I'm a shit birder.

Eastern Wood-Pewee by Henry McLin.

Among my friends, I'm a birding genius. Among my birding peers, I'm tall and have tattoos. See, my friends don't know anything about birding and therefore I seem to know everything about it. But I'm going to make a confession to them. I suck, SO hard at birding. And punctuation I guess. A few weeks ago, with a brief early summer, people were seeing birds ahead of schedule. I was hearing them. I'm walking down main street Orono and I clearly hear a Pewee. Peeaweee, peeaaa, he sang. Impulsive as ever and thinking you all hang on my every tweet, I posted it. I was promptly corrected and told this was impossible in March. Like never has happened in history impossible. But it was that song. There've been no sightings of Mockingbirds on main street that I know of, not lately anyway. Still, the entire Ontario birding world would have descended upon me if I were right. I found the starling the next day singing from the top of a neighbour's. If I knew the lyrics to a culling song, that starling would've taken a dirt nap that night.

Alder Flycatcher by jerryoldenettel.

A few days later I see a flycatcher in the tree behind my home (to be fair, I had no bins and it was a good 45 ft away). A good birder would've went right to Eastern Phoebe based on where and what date. A shit one like me went right to Empidonax flycatchers upon hearing it sing to make an ID. Of course, like an arse, I tweet that I have a Alder Flycatcher in my yard. Not paying enough attention to the call, which would've put me squarely on Eastern Phoebe. Again I'm politely corrected. Much eye rolling I'm sure by several good birders nice enough to give me the time of day, despite my clear and monumental retardation.

Eastern Phoebe by kenschneiderusa.

Anyway, I could go on about stupid mistakes in ID that I've made if you have a few days to spare, but instead, I'll focus on how severe and public embarrassment is a great learning tool. Those two mistakes alone will help me ID three birds correctly from now on (four if you count the starling). I guess the key to learning bird ID is f**king up the first few times.

European Starling by Kelly Colgan Azar.

Punk Rock Big Year

Paul Riss

This is getting ridiculous

Bohemian Waxwings by Bill Bouton.

You know I did a big year last year. You know I got 234 species. You know I had some great successes and terrible dips. But the one thing that keeps eating away at my brain is the bird you see above this text. I have developed a really annoying jinx bird. I'm probably making it worse by admitting it here and fixating on it. But the Bohemian Waxwing clearly hates my guts. Until last year I never really chased them much. I was content with my many sightings of Cedar Waxwings. They are splendid birds. But do an Ontario big year and they quickly turn to a junk bird.

Last year, I drove about a total of 500km trying to find BOWAs. Last year, I drove about a total of 500km trying to find BOWAs. Writing that sentence twice isn't a mistake in editing. It's on purpose. That statement keeps ripping through my mind like a really annoying but catchy song. To most people it's just pure insanity. It is to my wife and most of my friends that aren't birders. To hardcore birders, it's clear that I didn't work hard enough at it. Glenn Coady drove to Rainy River from Toronto over a weekend. Yes, he left work at 5pm and drove directly there, birded as long as he could spare and drove back arriving just in time for work Monday morning. Rainy River is 20 hours and 39 minutes drive from Toronto. Now that's crazy but I guess that's why he has the record for most species seen in Ontario in a single calendar year. 338 birds I believe.

Back to my BOWA situation. I would get calls from all my birder friends all season long telling me where they were. I'd go there as soon as I could, most often only a few hours after the call. At most a day. But with BOWAs, that's often too late. As their name suggests, they always move around. I would regularly visit places they SHOULD have been. Berry bushes around my home. The list-serve that I follow religiously would have posts about them. I'd read it over a morning coffee, be there only hours later to find trees stripped of food but never a BOWA. Once, on the advise of Margaret Bain, I zipped about 30 min. north-east of my hometown. Her directions were very specific. A friend of hers had them in her back yard but would be at work that day. I was granted permission to wander around her yard as they were seen in the back of the house near the back of their land. I was told that her husband, who would be asleep in the basement after a night shift, would have no problem with a total stranger punk with a Mohawk wandering about the property in knee-deep snow. I couldn't help having the death fantasy of him waking, wandering into the kitchen and dispatching the punk trespasser with a 22 from the safety of an open window.

I came close that day. I heard them. I took out my Sibley app and listened to be sure. It was them! I was excited. Kind of like a super-juiced-up version of that feeling you used to have on Christmas morning when you were a kid. You know the one, just after your eyes crack open but just before the explosion of pillows, covers and stuffed animals that finds you bounding downstairs to the tree. I mean, I had already chased them so many times. I just couldn't find them that day.

Another time, I drove to a place north of Pickering where people were regularly seeing them. Some conservation area. The weather was starting to turn bad about half way there. By the time I got to the spot, it was a full-on blizzard. Snow was ripping sideways across the parking lot. So I did what any birder would do, got out and went looking. The snow was deep. I put on my snow shoes. I wandered into the field, over some hills and into the forest. I got to the spot but there were no birds. Like zero birds. I couldn't even rustle up a nuthatch out there. It was a miserable waste of time.

On yet another occasion, just a couple weeks ago, I went birding with Margaret. She had seen BOWAs on the Saturday, but when we went to the area Sunday, they were of course gone. By that time, I had just settled in to the fact that I wouldn't see them again this winter. I don't know what their problem is. I'm not doing a big year anymore so they should be ok with me seeing them. Unless they plan to become a full-on, long-term jinx bird.

So now I'm not even trying anymore. The season for them in our area is over now. I've always got warblers to see now. But dammit I've seen all but two or three of them. Certainly I have all the ones we regularly get here in southern Ontario. Then, my writer partner, Adam, goes off to visit his dad in Red Deer Alberta. What does this have to do with the story? Well, he texts me this message, "Huge flock of really cool birds at my dad's house. Very much like a Cardinal but mostly gray. With some bright colours on the wing and tail." I reply, "Waxwings. What colour are they under the tail?", not even really thinking they'd be BOWAs. He sends back, "Kind of red. My guide says Bohemian Waxwings. Really cool birds. About 1000 of them."

*^#@*%!!!!!!!!!!

Punk Rock Big Year

Paul Riss

Work, Work, Work!

Seems all I do is work and cough these days. I haven't been birding in a couple weeks. This is killing me. BUT, I am spending as much time watching raw footage for Punk Rock Big Year in any tiny bits of free time I might have here and there. There's an awful lot of footage to tear through and I am making some headway but not as quickly as I'd like to. My time is so eaten up by day trips to NYC for a meeting (Yes, I leave my home at 5:45am to get to the airport, Fly to NYC, go to a meeting until 6pm, then eat quickly and go back to the airport, wait on Air Canada's flight delays and usually arrive home again about midnight. Not so fun). Then there's the business of thinking of new ways to sell things to people. Don't get me wrong, I do like my job but like any high-stress career, sometimes it can be a real killer. Top that off with a sick son, daughter, wife and even myself and you have a recipe for feeling defeated. Anyway, enough crying like a baby; while viewing footage, I came across this bit from last spring where I was birding and Margaret Atwood, yes, the famous Canadian writer, tweeted about me and PRBY. I was a bit excited. She's kind of a big deal. Enjoy a tiny bit of the film. Plus, I'm including a very short clip from the trailer with music by Bradley Mac Arthur.

Punk Rock Big Year
Paul Riss

Heron

This is not mine. I just saw it today and thought it'd give all my birding friends a laugh.



Paul Riss
Punk Rock Big Year

Today is a special day for PRBY. I'm posting the point of view of Richard Pope, author, retired professor and my 2011 (and beyond) birding Yoda. We couldn't look more different if we tried. Margaret Bain was not only a very helpful birder, and now good friend, but also the person that dealt with the Latin name changes for ALL 234 birds for my tattoo list. A feat I personally could never have accomplished alone.

Margaret, Richard and I birding Jan. 2. Image by Derek Shapton.
We all look the same doing this.

​Late December, 2010. Some guy I’ve never heard of phones me out of the blue and says he’s an aging punk rocker interested in doing a Big Year. Why me, I think. Just as I’m about to hang up, he says Ron Tozer told him to call me. He then cunningly mentions that he has read my book, The Reluctant Twitcher, and has become inspired. So I listen a bit, dismiss all the nonsense about tattoos and punk rock, ascertain that he is a middling birder keen to step up his game, and agree to take him birding to Niagara on January 2 to kick off his Big Year. I tell Margaret we will be taking along a young birder who wants help with his Big Year but do not stress the punk/tattoo business – or the Mohawk for that matter. They don’t tend to wear their hair this way in Margaret’s family.

On the way to our Newtonville rendez-vous, I mention a bit about punk rock and Mohawks to Margaret, though I skip over the tattoos, which will hopefully be covered up anyway.

We meet at 6:00am in the dark. A tall, gangly, rather louche “dude” in a bizarre pork-pie hat and light jacket (it’s minus 10C and Niagara promises to be windy) gets out of his vehicle, slouches over towards our car, and I immediately know it’s either Riss or a hung-over trumpet player from some 1930’s Berlin jazz band. I also know we can’t do much about it; just take him out as promised, try not to stare at the hair, avert our eyes if we see the tattoos, and then say so long and good luck.

This is the guy they met before sun up in Newtonville.

I wonder if Richard had his gun under the seat?

It doesn’t work out this way. Margaret oddly seems to take to him, though I can’t imagine why, even evincing a prurient interest in the actual tattoos. We are saved by the fact that she is a born teacher and the guy, no matter how bizarre, seems keen to learn, showing once again that you can’t go just by looks in this world.

He tells us all about his plan to make a video of his whole year and to have the Latin name of every species he sees tattooed on his body. All this, he says, is part of an attempt to awaken wider interest in birding, especially among the younger generation. This all seems quite laudable and immediately begins to seem more serious when we pick up his camera man in Toronto and listen to the two of them talk shop on the way to Niagara. They move in a different world than Margaret and I and appear to live in the fast lane; but at least on the birding level we are on top.

​We have a very successful day in Niagara, see nearly all the desired birds, and Risster the Lister, as he later gets called, gets to meet many of the major Ontario birders and even interview a number of them. Late in the day at Queenston, he finds his own Little Gull, which is a lifer for him. He turns out to have good ears and eyes and to be a quick study.

Little Gull by Sergey Yeliseev. 

Those under-wings stood out among the thousands of other gulls.

We end up getting along - well; too well his wife might say. In fact we end up “bonding,” (I believe this is the term) and birding as a threesome all year. To my surprise, Margaret and I get the bit in our teeth and get really keen on helping him find birds. Knowing he cannot possibly get more than 250 birds with a full-time job, a wife, and 3-year-old twins, Margaret and I settle for trying to get him some good birds – rarities and lifers. Our shared experiences are well-documented in the blog and many are caught on video by his four excellent cameramen.

Us, with guide, in Nicaragua, watching Canadian birds on winter territory.

We get number 234 on New Year’s Eve, a Black-throated Gray Warbler – his last bird. The one before was a Smew, trumping even the Willow Ptarmigan at the nuclear power plant. You get the picture. Pretty good birds. Pretty good blog too, and I expect a pretty good video will result, which will do just what he wants – draw more attention to birds and bird preservation.

​If only he survives the tattooing.