Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Mark Obmascik was the lead writer for the Denver Post’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Columbine High School massacre. He has been writing on strange characters and the environment for many years. He is an avid outdoorsman and recently admitted to his own growing obsession with birds. He lives in Denver wit his wife and two sons.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

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The Big Year

Random House Large Print Publishing

Chapter One

Sandy Komito

Sandy Komito was ready. It was an hour beforesunrise, New Year's Day, and he sat alone at anall-night Denny's in Nogales, Arizona. Heordered ham and eggs. He stared into the blackoutside the window.

At this stage in his life, he knew men wholusted for a new wife or a Porsche or even ayacht. Komito had no interest.

What he wanted was birds.

For the coming year he would dedicate himself toa singular goal - spotting more species ofbirds in North America than any human inhistory. He knew it wouldn't be easy. Heexpected to be away from home 270 of the next365 days chasing winged creatures around thecontinent. There were ptarmigans to trail on thefrozen spine of the Continental Divide inColorado and hummingbirds to hunt in the heat ofthe Arizona desert. He would prowl the moonlightfor owls in the North Woods of Minnesota andwade the beaches of South Florida at dawn forboobies. He planned to race after birds by boatin Nova Scotia, by bicycle in the AleutianIslands, and by helicopter in Nevada. Sleep wasnot a priority, but when it came, he would betossing in the army bunks of Alaska and turningon the rolling waves of the Dry Tortugas.

This was, after all, a competition, and Komitowanted to win.

He ordered his second thermos of coffee andspread paperwork across his place mat. One sheetwas an Internet printout of a North Americanrare-bird alert from Houston. The other was aregional alert from Tucson. Komito smiled. Therewere more rare birds spotted last week insoutheastern Arizona than anywhere else on thecontinent.

His gut told him that this chain restaurant wasthe right place to start. He'd eaten in so manyDenny's over the years that he didn't have towaste time with a menu. Besides, other birdersreported that the trees around this Denny's wereroosts for the great-tailed grackle and blackvulture. Either of these fine local birds,Komito decided, would be a wonderful launch forhis year.

From his window Komito watched the horizonlighten with the gray promise of dawn. Littlemoved.

Across from the restaurant, though, a freighttrain suddenly rammed through the quiet. All theruckus made something take wing outside and landjust beyond his window.

Komito's heart raced: it was his first bird ofthe competition!

He lurched forward for the identification.

Plump ... gray ... head bobbing.

"It's a damn pigeon," he muttered.

Every year on January 1, hundreds of peopleabandon their day-to-day lives to join one ofthe world's quirkiest contests. Their goal:spotting the most species of birds in a singleyear. Most contestants limit themselves to thebirds of their home county. Others chase birdsonly within the borders of their home state. Butthe grandest birding competition of them all,the most grueling, the most expensive, andoccasionally the most vicious, sprawls over anentire continent.

It is called the Big Year.

In a Big Year, there are few rules and noreferees. Birders just fly, drive, or boatanytime, anywhere in the continental UnitedStates and Canada, to chase a rumor of a rarespecies. Sometimes birders manage to photographtheir prey, but usually they just jot downsightings in notebooks and hope othercompetitors believe them. At the end of theyear, contestants forward their self-reportedspecies totals to the American BirdingAssociation, which publishes the results in amagazine-sized document that generates moregossip than an eighth-grade locker room.

In a good year the contest offers passion anddeceit, fear and courage, a fundamental cravingto see and conquer mixed with an unstoppableyearning for victory.

In a bad year the contest costs a lot of moneyand leaves people raw.

This is the story of the greatest - or maybethe worst - birding competition of all time,the 1998 North American Big Year.

Nutting's flycatcher is a small, plain, grayishbrown bird, native to Central Mexico. Its cry isdistinct. It says, "Wheek." The last time thisrarity was confirmed in the wilds north of theborder, Harry Truman was president and JackieRobinson was slugging his first home run in anAll-Star game. But in mid-December 1997, abirder hiking along an irrigation reservoir nearNogales, Arizona, saw the flycatcher andreported it to the local Maricopa Audubonchapter in Phoenix.

Maricopa Audubon flagged the news on theInternet; the Tucson Rare Bird Alert posted amessage on its twenty-four-hour phone number;the North American Rare Bird Alert in Houstonstarted phoning people on its High Alertsubscriber list.

From 2,400 miles away, at his home in Fair Lawn,New Jersey, Sandy Komito answered the call. Itwas the sighting of the Nutting's flycatcher,above all other birds, that had convinced him tobegin his Big Year in Nogales.

He left Denny's and drove through the hills ofprickly pear and mesquite until reaching thegates of Patagonia Lake State Park.

A ranger greeted him.

"Five dollars, please," she told Komito.

Komito had already spent hundreds of dollars onairline tickets, car rental, and motel room justto be here. But he had worked years as a NewJersey industrial contractor and he knew how toget things done. So he put a little sweeteningin a deep voice that, back home, could startlework crews on the far end of a factory rooftop.

"Oh, I'm just a birder," Komito told the ranger."I'm here to look for one bird. I'll only behere ten minutes. Do I really have to pay fivedollars?" he asked, trying to take advantage ofthe park's unofficial policy of free entry forpeople who drive through and stay less thanfifteen minutes.

The ranger stared him down. His bargainingroutine hardly ever worked, but he still made agame of it.

From the Web, Komito had downloaded preciseinstructions on how to find the bird: "Turnright at the bottom of the hill and go throughthe campground. Where the loop turns around,there is a trailhead and about four parkingspaces. Park here and walk in about one-third ofa mile. On the left is the lake and willows; thebird is usually on the right in mesquite."

Komito found the parking area and felt suddenly,uncharacteristically nervous. His car, for onething, was all wrong. For years, he had rented aLincoln Town Car on all out-of-stateexpeditions. This helped pigeonhole hisreputation among birders as the loud wisecrackerfrom New Jersey who barreled around in a giantland barge. For this Big Year, though, Komitohad converted to midsize rentals. His thinkingwas simple: to stretch his travel budget, hewould spend money on miles, not comfort, and aless prestigious car was cheaper than a Lincoln.Still, birding was all about classifyingcreatures - long-eared owls always had longears, and short-eared owls always had short ears- and now he was abruptly changing his ownpersonal field mark. Was the birding world readyfor Sandy Komito, Ford Taurus man?

There was another complication. All four parkingspaces were filled; more cars perched along thenarrow shoulder of the park road. The othervehicles had telltale stickers: SacramentoAudubon, Tucson Audubon. Komito wondered: Am Ilate? I hope I'm not too late.

The trail wasn't exactly a trail. It looked morelike a hard-packed cattle run - and smelledlike it, too. Meadowlarks darted through thebrush, but Komito ignored them. He had only onebird on his mind.

Three hundred yards up the path, two men werecrisscrossing the mesquite. They looked as ifthey were searching for something - a lost hat,maybe, or even a flower or a butterfly. Komitoguessed otherwise.

"Have you seen the bird?" he called to...