Eastern kingbird

Whenever I see a kingbird I think of Kingbird Highway by Kenn Kaufman, the legendary book he wrote about his 1973 attempt to see as many birds as possible in a year. It’s one of my all-time favorite birding books (admittedly, not the most competitive category) and I often come back to it in the dead of the Michigan winter.

In birding, these projects are called Big Years and they’re about listing, which is less a matter of appreciation or gratitude or being in touch with nature and more about seeing and hearing as many different birds as possible in a given time: it’s a numbers thing, an optimization problem. As a society, we have a pathological thing for optimization, so it’s not surprising to me that the most popular mainstream birding media are always about Big Years - Kenn’s book, the recent cult classic Youtube documentary Listers, the David Frankel film with Jack Black literally called The Big Year.

I see the appeal, because I too love some structure and a goal and constraints. But the quote I like the best from Kingbird Highway is this one, from an older birder to a young Kenn at the peak of his listing competitiveness: 'Here’s what’s different about it, though. The list total isn’t important, but the birds themselves are important. Every bird you see. So the list is just a frivolous incentive for birding, but the birding itself is worthwhile. It’s like a trip where the destination doesn’t have any significance except for the fact that it makes you travel. The journey is what counts.'