Yes, once again, I am back on the road again. Welcome back to the Big Year Podcast, I remain and am still Robert Baumander and you’re well, you. And thanks for being you and taking the time to listen. Today we’re taking a little break from Big Year Birders and talking to a few birders I’ve met on the road and talked to over the past year. I think you’ll find their stories fun, interesting and maybe even a little bit inspirational. Of course, my favourite questions when meeting birders in the field, are, “Have you seen the bird?” and “What was your spark bird?” I spoke to birders from as far south as Point Pelee National Park, and as far north as Thunder Bay. I even have a special guest at the end, that you’ve heard about but have never heard from. And now, against my own personal desires to keep talking, I’m going to keep this short and just get on with the show.

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.

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