27 January 2022
Well the Joe Roller Memorial Green Big Year is over.
As the year was winding down, the reality of the end of this amazing year started to set in. I admit that I was a little bummed that it was coming to an end. Of course, one person said to just do it again 2022 and let's raise more funds for the Roller Grant. HAHA! I'd be sleeping on the couch if I had considered doing that again! I'm also pretty sure my bikes and body (and leave balance at work) wouldn't hold up either! Joking aside, it was a little bit of a downer as the last days of the year came fast like a Peregrine Falcon on a flock of unsuspecting shorebirds. Suddenly the year was over. I've done 98% of my birding on foot or bike from my house since the pandemic began, so I thought the shifting of gears was likely going to be a shock to the system.
The New Years Eve snow was the first real storm of the "winter". The blanket of snow and frigid temperatures was a fitting closure of the year as ice and snow prevents me from going anywhere on a bike for a bit. The snow storm really helped me mentally close out the year as well.
As the snow started on the 31st, I took one of my boys for one last walk to Clement Park (my local patch) to end the year, and we saw a Bald Eagle. The boy who was willing to go for a walk with me isn't my outdoorsy kid. Ok, he likes to play in the dirt, sand, mud, and get dirty, but he doesn't care about birds. He likes rocks, throwing sticks, building things, smashing things, construction trucks and tools and helping me "fix" everything, including everything that doesn't need to be fixed. He's not the kid that points out birds for me (his twin does that). However, he was super excited about seeing that Bald Eagle. I hold out hope he will have some appreciation for birds when he's older. To me it was just another Bald Eagle as I'd seen them at least 30 times on bike rides and from my yard and patch this year, but capping the year this way was really special.
All that said, I am very delinquent in writing this year-end summary post. The year ended in a flash and suddenly the eBird alerts were ALL TURNED OFF, I kicked my feet up, ate a lot of cookies (I mean a LOT of cookies), and drank some really nice bourbon. I didn't eat ALL the cookies at once though! On New Years Eve, we celebrated the end of the calendar year with some good friends (with no mention of this birding thing), and I just tried to sit back and appreciate the year with friends and family. Come January 3rd, the boys now go to preschool and I'm responsible for drop off and pick up every day. This is a pretty big change in the daily schedule around the house for everyone! There were a lot of changes happening all at once, and change is tough sometimes. I thought a lot about what this year end post would include, but it took a while to write anything down.
As we got through the first week of January, work was suddenly very busy. I love what I do, but it was almost overwhelming. And by the end of the first week of preschool, the boys were congested. Sick already! Sigh. We were just getting into a little bit of a routine, meaning the boys now can't just get up and play for a while, but have to get dressed and eat before I whisk them off to play with their new friends at preschool. They were ok though. We were all a little sniffly, but no other symptoms of anything else.
I kept thinking about this post, what to write, what to include and not include. I started writing this a couple times and never finished for whatever reason. Anyway, we are rolling through the second week of school and are cruising along. I finally decided to go for a little bike ride to see if I could find the continuing Sedge Wren found by Cole Sage several days earlier. Sedge Wrens are extremely rare in the metro, esp. in winter. It'd be a state bird for me, but of real interest was getting it green. I got the bird via bike on January 12th and that day is a story in itself with a broken bike, which later the bike somehow fixed itself, sloppy roads, mud, friends, and more. Sedge Wren was all time green bird #303.
The next day everything went downhill like the barometric pressure in an approaching hurricane. Truly sick kid. There was a work project that got a real kink. And then on the same day, I get word that a coworker in my small program passed away suddenly. What a crappy day. This was a lot to absorb and I still haven't processed it all. It took a couple days to begin to digest what happened. Maybe digest isn't the right word considering the sick kid, but you get my point. I finally started back at this post, and well, the other kids got sick, then I got their stomach bug, we said goodbye to our old dog, and then more snow in which the now healthy kids didn't want to play. What a weird start to 2022. On top of everything that's happened, snow keeps coming and my work load has just gotten bigger. All of this has helped distract me from and quickly broke the constant desire/habit to go birding and has thus prevented the mental low point I expected to hit in mid- to late January. It's honestly been a much smoother mental transition to post-green big year than I expected, not without it's own challenges though!
In spite of everything, I'm kind of happy the big year is over. It's a weird emotional roller coaster. I now have huge relief and the self-induced pressure on my shoulders to get birds is gone. It was a fantastic ride, literally, but I've mentally moved on to everything else.
That said, I have so many thoughts about the Big Year, the highs and lows, many untold stories, and more. I'm thankful that I made it through the year without getting burned out mentally or physically. I also avoided injury, outside some back pain after riding to Conifer in early July. I learned to not adjust my bike saddle at 6 am before a ride, because that's flat out stupid and your knees will hurt for 2 months until you get the saddle in the exact right spot again. Ultimately my bikes worked for the whole year, outside that shifter issue in April. The old rides got me everywhere and back, amazingly. I never had a mechanical issue or had to get picked up because I couldn't actually get home. That's amazing! I also only had 2 flat tires (both in mid-Nov), which is remarkable considering how many miles I rode and how much was on gravel and rocks!
With the ups and downs, there really were way more wins this year. It wasn't just a green big year but a green big year filled with Joe luck. Joe definitely had my back this year. I don't know how else to explain the great luck I had relocating rarities, finding so many goodies on my own, and just safe rides all year long. I know Joe would be pleased with what we accomplished in 2021. I hear that his wife and family are tickled with how big this has gotten too. Icing on the cake.
It's now January 27th. I think this is the 5th time I've worked on this post. I think I may actually finish it today. It's time to close this big year out with a couple thoughts about what's next.
So what's next? I'll likely try to keep riding, if anything to keep in shape a little (I did eat a lot of cookies) and be able to chase new birds for my all time green list. My all time Denver area green list is now 303, so working to build that list will be fun and rewarding. Maybe I can wrestle up some local green birders to do a Green Big Day or two in 2022 and see if we can raise some more funds for the Roller Grant. Any additional funds will allow us to build that principle in the investment and allow us to support more grants! Thomas Heinrich and I still need to meet and celebrate our respective green years and do some plotting for how we can do more to promote green birding. I will just be happy if I can just stay fit enough to ride around town in between work, family and even more kid activities (soccer, swimming, etc.) in 2022.
I also plan to write up more stories from the year, if anything for my own memory. Maybe I'll flesh things out with details of life as a Green Big year birder and share more than just the fun bird stories as I have done thus far. We'll see how things go.
In the end, the year was incredibly successful. I could not be happier with how it all turned out. We raised over $40,000 for research grants! This is more than twice what I thought was realistic for this effort! I am working with CFO and a local financial investment group to implement a plan to support grants with these funds in perpetuity, and maybe support additional grants now and again. I'm truly humbled by the support in all aspects of this big year. THANK YOU to everyone who provided support! This effort has been really special and the outcome will have a long lasting impact on CFO research grants and likely support dozens of bird research projects in Colorado. Maybe some of the grants will spur young birders to become ornithologists and ultimately support future leaders in the field of bird conservation in and beyond Colorado. This outcome of this year is pretty special. I look forward to being a part of the CFO grant review committee for a long time, and maybe someday working alongside some folks who received a Joe Roller Memorial Grant!
Next time you see a Peregrine Falcon, think of Joe Roller. Peregrine's were his favorite bird. They may be my favorite bird now too. Sorry, Swainson's Warbler.
Until next time, thank you to everyone who supported me in the Joe Roller Memorial Green Big Year. I couldn't have done it without you (and my legs).
Thanks for reading.
Sincerely,
Scott Somershoe
It's never too late to donate to the Joe Roller Memorial Grant. Thank you.
https://cobirds.org/CFO/Grants/
Just as the snow began on the afternoon of December 31st.
Thanks, Scott! I've enjoyed reading your blog. Impressive species total also.
ReplyDelete