It's still snowing here in Maine as we usher in the first day of 2008. There is so much snow that birders here in Maine have now started keeping snowshoe and ski bird lists. We haven't had snow like this since I was a kid and we had 15-foot high snow banks all winter.

My House in the Snow

The birds too remind me of birding decades ago. Flocks of Pine Grosbeaks, Common Redpolls, and Bohemian Waxwings are everywhere (sadly the massive flocks of Evening Grosbeaks I remember are not) and it is not unlikely to find yet another Northern Shrike every couple of days. Matt Medler, our Boreal Songbird Initiative science coordinator, has written an excellent article about this year's mega-irruption of Boreal birds that I recommend (click here to read it).

Being snowbound and nestled in here at home is nice for me because the last half of 2007 was a whirlwind. After years of work, my book, Birder's Conservation Handbook, finally appeared on book store shelves (I started it when my 5 year old son was 6 months old!) beginning in October. Scott Shalaway was nice enough to invite me to appear on his two radio shows in October to talk about the book and Boreal birds (click here to listen to one interview).

Then I had the pleasure of doing my first book presentation in October ("Three Conservation Secrets Everyone Should Know") at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences for the oldest bird club in the U.S., the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club (DVOC) which was established in 1890. The DVOC may be one of the oldest clubs but its meetings and members are some of the wildest and funniest I have ever run in to on my travels. Bring lots of puns with you and be prepared for some zingers if you stop by their next meeting--and watch out for past-president Adrian Binns and current vice-president Paul Guris as they will have you signed up for life membership and several field trips before you even sit down.

While in the Philadelphia area I did a brief TV appearance on Delaware public television and met with one of the editors of the Philadelphia Inquirer resulting in my being invited to place an op-ed in the paper (click here to read the op-ed). Before coming home I gave another book presentation and signing at another historic birding location (an amazing hawk watch) and one of my favorite places, the Audubon Center in Greenwich, Connecticut. Here I met two women who, inspired by the Boreal Beat Ecogangstas, were going to dress up as their own version of Ecogangstas for the upcoming office Halloween party as a way to push for more recycling and use of recycled products at their workplace.

In early November I phoned in for an interesting interview with Larry Meiller of Wisconsin Public Radio and then headed out to Seattle. Early Monday morning all of the Boreal Songbird Initiative staff met at the Seattle waterfront for some birding—in how many cities can a downtown birding excursion offer sights like 500 Surf Scoters, 50 Western Grebes, and dozens of other species including Barrow's Goldeneye, White-fronted Goose, and even a few Rhinocerus Auklets? The outing and a strong cup of coffee was the perfect preparation for a chat with Steve Scher on "Weekday," his call-in show for Seattle Public Radio followed by a visit with an editor from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (yup, another op-ed placed) and then a wonderful interlude with the amazing folks behind the BirdNote radio show. The next day after an intense BSI planning meeting and a memorable Italian dinner, I had a presentation and book signing at Elliot Bay Books (this is an incredible independent book store that you should visit if you are in Seattle).

By the next afternoon I was in the San Francisco Bay area for presentations at Audubon California's Emoryville office that evening and for Santa Clara Valley Audubon in Cupertino the following day. Sadly, just a few hours before I arrived at the Oakland airport a ship had bumped the supports for the Bay Bridge and spilled 58,000 gallons of bunker oil into the water's of San Francisco Bay—one of the world's most important places for birds including many types of waterfowl and shorebirds. In fact, a large proportion of the world's Surf Scoters (83% breed in the Boreal) normally winter in the Bay. These birds, many of which had just arrived after a two-thousand mile journey from the Northwest Territories, were some of the first oil casualties reported after the oil spill. To see my op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle about this click here and for some related media stories click here.

A few days later I was in Washington, DC for a lunch presentation at The Nature Conservancy's office in Arlington and then an evening event with noted author Scott Weidensaul at the Amazonia Building of the National Zoological Park. Thanks to Scott and to hosts Ellen Paul of the Ornithological Council, Caroline Kennedy of Defenders of Wildlife, and Russ Greenberg, Pete Marra, and Scott Sillett of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center for a fun evening.

Later in November the BSI offices were a bee hive of activity because of the announcement of one of the largest and most significant bird conservation actions in history—the protection of over 25 million acres of Boreal habitat by the Canadian government! Can you imagine protecting an area 11 times larger than Yellowstone in one fell swoop? That amounts to nesting grounds for tens of millions of the birds gracing American backyards, parks, bays, and marshes this winter. Click here for more info and here to send a thank you to the Canadian government.


Map of Land Protection in the Boreal Forest

We glided into December with interviews for BEEKS - A Birding Geek's Radio Delight with Bridget Butler of Audubon Vermont, the Berkeley Groks Science Show, and the "207" tv show here in Maine. Things were capped off with a book party in a snowstorm hosted by Derek and Jeannette Lovitch at their WildBird Center Store in Yarmouth. It was especially meaningful to me because several cousins and an uncle braved two-hours of slippery roads to make it down.

It was a memorable exciting year and I want to thank you all for your interest and support and for all you do and have done for birds and our environment!