The year was 1969. I was a month shy of my ninth birthday. It was way past my bedtime, though it was only 10pm. In my memory of the event, it was the middle of the night. Along with my family, gathered around the black-and-white television in my parent's bedroom, we watched the broadcast of the Apollo 11 moon landing. At 10:56pm EDT time we witnessed, along with the rest of the world, a grainy, gray-scale image of Neil Armstrong stepping onto the lunar surface and say, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Neil left out a single syllable, word, “a”. He had meant to say “That’s one small step for A man.” That man being him. Still, it didn’t matter to anyone watching or listening at the time. The universe had changed. Humans from earth had stepped foot onto another world.

Thousands of kids at the time wanted to become astronauts and join the space program. I wasn’t one of them. Yes, I loved all things space, watched Star Trek, and followed every NASA launch. I remember Skylab and Mir, the Space Shuttle and Hubble. I geek out on videos from the International Space Station and have followed the Artemis program for years, finally seeing Artemis II launch, orbit the moon and splash down safely this April, nearly 55 years after Apollo 17, splashed down in December of 1972, ending human missions to the moon for over half a century.

My life took a different path in 1969, having watched the Miracle Mets win the World Series and see them celebrate on the field, on that same black-and-white television in my parents bedroom, a couple of months later. I chose to pursue a life that would eventually get me on the field at some nebulous future date, when a team I was involved with won a World Series. I made it to that dreamed of future from my childhood in October of 1992, as I ran onto the field when the Toronto Blue Jays won their first World Series. Today’s guest, on the other hand, did everything in her power to become an astronaut and earlier that same year, flew on the Space Shuttle Discovery, mission STS-42, as the first neurologist and Canadian woman in space. I even crossed paths with Roberta Bondar when she threw out the first pitch at a Toronto Blue Jays baseball game, soon after her shuttle flight.

Two people from very different walks of life, with two very different goals, take different paths and end up in the same place all those years later. But it didn’t end there. In 2022, when I was up in Sault Ste. Marie, I discovered that Dr. Bondar was born there and they had celebrated her shuttle mission with a flower garden built into a scale model of the Space Shuttle Discovery. The following year I heard she was giving a talk about her new book, "A Space for Birds", and I knew I had to go. This time it was two birds, not Blue Jays, that brought us back into the same space. After the talk, I spoke to her agent and we made arrangements for this very podcast.

I’ve come a long way from that kid who loved space but wanted to live a childhood dream of winning a World Series, and Dr. Bondar has travelled to exactly where she wanted to be. To fly in space. Each of us, in different ways, didn’t just wish and hope for these things to happen. We focused our lives and energies toward our goals. My mother used to say, “if wishes were horses, we would all ride.” That was an important lesson to learn as a kid. Don’t wish, do. In an era when young people think that “manifesting” a dream will just make it happen, the people who are successful at achieving their goals, like Dr. Bondar, put in the hard work. Me, I just got lucky.

Stop the presses! In a wonderful bit of serendipity, just days before this episode was due to air, with Dr. Bondar on the podcast to talk about Whooping Cranes, an actual Whooping Crane showed up in Northern Ontario. The next morning I hopped in the car and drove 6 hours north to the small town of Bruce Mines, and along with a who’s-who of Ontario birders, waited until sunset to see this intrepid young female. She was born of wild parents at the International Crane Foundation in Wisconsin. After being released, Sinclair,(yes they get names and band codes), she joined a group of adults who migrated to Florida for the winter. Her spring migration home to Wisconsin went slightly of course and she has joined a flock of Sandhill Cranes in Northern Ontario. I was lucky enough to share the experience with many of my birding friends who also made the trek to see this intrepid traveller, who will hopefully contribute to the future of this endangered species.

So join me, along with Doctor Roberta Bondar, as I live my life long dream to talk to a real, live astronaut about space, birds and A Space for Birds.

Extro.

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.