Season 4, Episode 1: Josh van der Meulen’s 2012 Ontario Big Year

The Big Year Podcast April 1, 2026

 

It is April 1, 2026, I’m Robert Baumander and welcome to season 4 of The Big Year Podcast.  My 4th season?  Really?  So glad to be back again.  Miss me?  It’s been an exciting journey and this season promises to be the best ever.  Maybe. Or not.  I’ll let you be the judge, when it’s all said and done, but boy am I looking forward to some of the guests I’ve already lined up.  In addition to Big Year birders, you’ll get to hear from a real live astronaut, who is involved in bird conservation and a paleontologist who will educate us on which of the dinosaurs that survived the great meteor impact became the birds we know and love today.

Last time you heard my voice, I was settling in for winter, and beginning work on my book, The Trans-Canada Jay Highway.  I was planning to stay local for the winter, focus my ADHD brain on just writing, and this podcast, but word of an amazing rarity in Montreal Quebec hit the birding world in January.  It was a very unlikely visitor from across the pond, a European Robin.  Wowzers.  That was a bird I wanted to see.  I waited a few days; one, to make sure it was sticking around and more importantly, for a good weather forecast that wouldn’t have me driving through a blizzard or looking for the bird in minus 40 temperatures.   

After a seven hour drive, including a slow trek through Montreal construction traffic in the rain, I arrived at a quiet, snow covered neighborhood, to find a small group of excited birders who had just found the robin.  Everyone in the neighborhood was welcoming to all of us who came to see their celebrity bird, including one woman who was putting seed out for the weary traveller.  When another birder showed up shortly after I arrived we both looked at each other, with the merest glimmer of recognition, but couldn’t quite place from where.  It was Josh Gant who figured it out.  Josh was a guest on this very podcast, talking about his New Jersey state Big Year.  He also drove 7 hours to get to Montreal.  We arrived within minutes of each other and got to celebrate this amazing once in a lifetime bird, together and with other birders who had made the trek to Montreal.  None of us, however, had travelled as far as the European Robin.

 

European Robins are not related in any way to our American Robins.  European Robins, I discovered, are in the Old World Flycatcher family and American Robins are thrushes. Our robin’s name was given only because of their similar red breast.  Many birds that are known as robins also sport this feature.  A better name for our robin would be Red-breasted Thrush.  So, the European Robin is not a thrush and the American Robin is a thrush.  And don’t get me started on all the other “robins”.

Moving on.   Today is not just an exciting day for bird lovers, and lovers of birding podcasts, but also space exploration.  Artemis II is on the launchpad, with four astronauts, including  Canadian Jeremy Hansen, and is scheduled to blast off at 6:24pm this April 1.  As someone who is old enough to have watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon and is nerdy enough to build NASA Lego sets, including the Artemis, this is an exciting day. 

As for this episode, my guest is Josh van der Meulen.  You might know him, might have birded with him, but may not know his Big Year story.  If you remember back to last season,(and if not, why not?   I urge you to go back and take listen), I spent an hour or so talking to Andrew Keaveny.  Back in 2012, Andrew and Josh were doing Ontario Big Years.  I was a birdy-eyed beginner doing an ABA Big Year.  I relied on both of them to help me find birds when I was birding in Ontario, while they competed for Ontario Big Year supremacy.  I likened their competition to that of Kenn Kaufman and Floyd Murdoch’s 1973 Big Years.  

Though it was a competition, Andrew and Josh kept things civil between them and even birded together and helped each other along the way.  I was on the scene when Andrew missed the Townsend’s Solitaire and found the only Red Knot of my Big Year, thanks to Josh.  14 years later, both of them are good birding buddies, who I’m always glad to run into, usually when stalking a rare bird.   

So, now that we’re all caught up, let’s once again travel back in time to 2012, which seems to be the nexus of modern Big Year birding, and get on with the show.