One of my saddest memories from when I was rehabbing birds was when I received a call from the animal shelter in Superior. They had been brought a Snowy Owl, and called me. The bird was in its final death throes when I picked it up, and it died in my arms. It went down to the Twin Cities for necropsy, but I didn’t get the results. Starvation isn’t all that likely in Snowies in our area, except as a side effect after an injury, poisoning, or disease. Their exceptionally thick plumage makes it difficult at best to search out wounds and injuries, and I was so sad holding this tragic figure in my arms, so huge but so astonishingly light, that I didn’t have the heart to stretch out wings and legs and feel its bones to tell if it had a break. I couldn’t help but feel the keel bone—the bird was emaciated, its flight muscles so atrophied that the keel under the loose skin of the breast felt like the front of a canoe.

People have lovely, romantic impressions of this astonishingly beautiful owl, but how can they not with Harry Potter’s memorable Hedwig? And real Snowy Owls are ever so much more thrilling than their fictionalized versions.

This year turns out to be a huge Snowy Owl invasion year. Snowy Owl invasion years sometimes happen for two or three years running. The first year usually occurs not when the birds’ prey is depleted but, ironically, when it’s been most abundant. The favorite prey of Snowy Owls, and the one they most feed their young, is lemmings, which undergo huge population swings. Why does a year of plenty precede an invasion? In most years, a pair of Snowy Owls produces about 3–5 young. In years when lemmings are exceptionally scarce, they produce only 1 or 2, or sometimes none at all. But in years when lemmings are exceptionally abundant, a pair of owls may produce as many as 7–11 in a single brood. Come fall in those years, when Snowy Owls become territorial, there are just not enough territories available for so many birds. The adults can chase off inexperienced younger birds, and the immature females, being much larger than the immature males, can chase them off, so most sightings of them that first year of an invasion usually involve immature birds, mostly males. But as with any generalization in the natural world, this is not universal. In February 2012, late in the stages of the first year’s invasion, Russ and I visited New York City and brought our Katie and Michael to Rockaway Point right next to the town of Breezy Point, where we saw two Snowy Owls. One was an immature male, but the other bore the immaculate, white plumage of a very mature adult male.

This year the invasion includes many more adults in the mixture—at this point, it looks like the lemming population is at low ebb, and so more owls are leaving their familiar home grounds and are turning up in a great many places. Snowy Owls are a true tundra species, unfamiliar with trees, and adept at hunting in open areas near water, so they gravitate to cities, especially at airports and along beaches. A bird bander from Massachusetts Audubon has already trapped and relocated at least 20 from Logan International Airport. Airplane-bird collisions are always dangerous to people, and always lethal to the birds, so removal is essential. Indeed, Logan was the site of the worst airplane-bird collision ever in terms of human lives lost when, in 1960, an Electra jet collided with a flock of starlings—the crash killed 62 people.

At least 5 airplanes have already collided with Snowy Owls in the three New York airports this year. Snowy Owls weigh less than 5 pounds, and these particular collisions caused very minor structural damage to the planes even as they killed the owls. But bird-plane collisions can cause expensive damage and the loss of human life, too, so the New York and New Jersey airport authorities started shooting the birds. There really is no advantage to killing them over simply relocating them, and public outcry, mostly spearheaded by birders, was huge. Yesterday they issued a press release saying they are now working with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to relocate the birds. I love when people get out of debate mode, don’t dig in their heels, and actually work together to solve problems. Makes me think there’s hope for our species yet.

I’ve been having a great time in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona this month. Since leaving on November 3, I’ve added 26 species to my Conservation Big Year list and visited some of my favorite, time-honored birding spots. But November 19, 2013, may have been the best day of all down here. I added three new species, but I’ve seen that many or more several days this year. What made this particular day so special was that I spent it birding my favorite way—walking by myself, moseying along and paying attention to whatever caught my eyes or ears, with no expectations or hopes at all.

Doing a “big year,” or anytime a birder spends a limited time in a new area, the goal is to see as many species as possible. That promotes a frenetic pace and mindset. In heavily birded areas like the famous Madera Canyon, birders passing one another tell each other what they’ve seen. When you hear about an Olive Warbler or Arizona Woodpecker about an eighth of a mile down the road, you forget all about the little band of Bridled Titmice you’ve been enjoying to rush off while the potential new bird is still around. This can be exciting and fun, and I’ve done my share of that kind of birding this year. I end those days with a nice big species list, but somehow don’t have the same deep pleasure and happy sense of contentment that I do after a day of moseying, finding my own birds and having long, pleasant encounters with them. I seldom unearth heart-stopping rarities on my own, but I get a better feel for what birds are in an area and how they spend their day.

My approach is far more laid-back than what I’d need to be doing for a competitive Big Year. Neil Hayward, a Massachusetts birder doing a real 2013 Big Year, is at 731 right now, after spending 175 nights away from home, flying more than 160,000 miles on 152 flights through 54 airports, driving 49,140 miles, and spending 137½ hours at sea. I’m only at 569, after being away from home 138 nights so far. I’ve driven close to 30,000 miles, but have flown an order of magnitude fewer miles than Hayward to only 4 airports—7 if you count stopovers and Duluth—and spent only about 28 hours on the ocean. I don’t have the money to do a world-class, competitive Big Year, but I also lack the drive and the ambition—I’m sort of the Mr. Rogers of the birding world. I do want to get to 600—that number has had a romantic appeal as a birding milestone since I started birding and read Peterson’s A Bird Watcher’s Anthology, but for me, the fun of birding is only indirectly about the number of species I see. My biggest thrills have come on days exactly like the 19th, when I moseyed along and immersed myself in the present—enjoying each bird and moment without the inner restlessness that comes from anticipating better birds down the road or at the next destination. Ironically, November 19th turns out to be the day that I finally saw my personal Most Wanted Bird of North America—the Montezuma Quail. And it all came about because of my own stupidity and bad luck in not noticing before I left on this trip that my drivers license was about to expire.

Trying to balance my birding experiences this year has been tricky. The blank spots on my checklist have a subtle way of making me want to see those birds more than to take pleasure in species I’ve already seen. I was planning on spending November 18th and 19th at the place I most wanted to go to in Southeastern Arizona—Fort Huachuca, a military installation that encompasses some of the most birdy canyons in the state. For months there’s been an exceptionally rare Sinaloa Wren there, and it’s where people get the most sightings of Spotted Owls and Elegant Trogons. But when I got to the entrance, the guard on duty noticed that my drivers license had expired a week before, and she simply could not let me pass. I was distressed, to say the least, but there wasn’t anything I could do except to call the Minnesota DMV and see if I could get a license from a distance. While I wait in Sierra Vista for their application to arrive in the mail, I’ve had to come up with an alternative plan.

Highway 92 out of Sierra Vista intersects with a few roads that lead directly into other canyons in the Huachuca Mountains. I decided, since I couldn’t get to the places I’d wanted and couldn’t leave Sierra Vista until I’d gotten my license renewal form in the mail at my motel, that I might as well explore some of the lesser-known canyons. So on the 19th I drove to Carr Canyon, arriving with sunrise. November is a quiet month—few birds sing and I was in a subdued mood to match—but the canyon is astonishingly beautiful. It was a little hard to ignore the surveillance blimp always in view high from above the mountain range—it gave me a creepy feeling that I was being observed by an entity far larger and more impersonal than I, and called to mind that creepy big white ball thing on the old TV show, The Prisoner. But I figured that’s probably how birds feel when they see some giant being with binoculars and a huge camera staring at them, and it gave me a certain empathy.

I parked near the entrance to the Coronado National Forest and started walking, up and up. The road is fairly steep and very narrow at the switchbacks as you get near the end of the road, but it was well graded and an easy stroll. Some of the bird books recommend driving up, making a few stops along the way, but the rhythm and pace of walking stir my soul, and I definitely notice more birds on foot than in my car. I came upon flocks of Bridled Titmice, Painted Redstarts, and Townsend’s Warblers along with the ubiquitous Yellow-rumped Warblers.

These were all species I’d seen before, but rather than hurry on toward something more exciting up the road, I took the time to actually look at the individual birds, picking out a Black-throated Gray Warbler (who carefully stayed out of the reach of my camera), several Hutton’s Vireos, dozens of Ruby-crowned Kinglets, and more.

I sorted through flocks of Eastern and Western Bluebirds. It was theoretically possible I’d catch sight of an Aztec Thrush among them—they’ve been seen in some winters at Carr Canyon—but I wasn’t even wishing for that, just enjoying these lovely birds in a spectacular setting.

I heard an unfamiliar chip and looked up to see two Olive Warblers—new for my year. They’re far less common in winter than in summer, and so I was not really expecting to find them at all. I got lots of photos and learned their pretty chip.

When I heard some soft nearby pecking, I searched every tree trunk until I came upon an Arizona Woodpecker—a declining species and one I knew I’d need good luck to see at all this year. Again, I got to stop and watch him, a gorgeous male, until he worked his way deeper into the woods. The lighting was poor in the shadows of the canyon and woods, but I could take my time getting photos.

For five miles I moseyed up, enjoying Bridled Titmice and Bewick’s Wrens and Yellow-eyed Juncos and just about every form of Dark-eyed Juncos. I turned around at noon, but by then bird activity had dwindled and I saw far fewer birds.

As I was getting close to where my car was parked, surrounded by golden grasses and deep green oaks, I heard a soft rustling and looked down to see the back of a Montezuma Quail running through the tall grass. It was just a quick glimpse, but a perfect one. I’ve spent lots of time searching for Montezuma Quail before, without luck, and became fixated on them as my Most Wanted Bird of North America. On the day I was stuck in an area only because my drivers license had expired and I was just moseying around with no expectations at all—there was my lifer! I was still glowing with pleasure when I got into my car and started back to my motel. And suddenly, a bit down the road in the same golden habitat, was a whole flock of quail. I instantly stopped, but they’re skittish birds and hurried into the grasses before I could grab my camera. I slowly walked toward where they’d been, but they felt uncomfortable under my surveillance and all flushed. I felt bad, especially when I looked up at the surveillance blimp, knowing how uncomfortable it feels to be spied upon by anonymous strangers. I didn’t mind not getting a photo—quail deserve their privacy as much as we Americans used to think we did, and I went back to the motel as the sun retreated in the west, satisfied at my most unexpectedly bountiful and beautiful day.