News

On Returns and Big Ideas

Thomas Moore

13 May 2025 — 1 min read

I know things have been quiet on the Big Year front. For the past few months, I’ve taken an unintentionally intentional step back from birding and from writing. This isn’t the time nor the place to dive into the details, but in that distance, I’ve been rolling a lot around in my head—the importance of the natural world and my small place in it, what birding means to me, and the meaning inherent in those trips to nature.

I’m not really any closer to completing any of those thoughts or answering the seemingly limitless questions that have come with them. I am ready to step back, however.

In light of a shift in my focus, I’m going to broaden the focus of this newsletter. The next edition will introduce the smallest sprout: reflections on nature and life. I hope you enjoy it.

In the meantime, thanks for sticking with me through A Big Year.

the smallest sprout

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death —Walt Whitman The largest living organism is a fungus. While groups of Armillaria ostoyae caps sprout here and there, the vast majority of it lives its life out of human sight, sprawling four square miles under a Pacific Northwest forest floor.

Shrugging off the Listlessness of Summer

It’s been a slow few months on the bird front—summer is like that. The migrants are off making babies, and those that stick around tend towards languidity. I’ve also experienced a certain amount of listlessness when it comes to bird watching. It’s an odd feeling to

The Uncertainty of Bird Watching

Birds, as I’ve learned time and again, don’t care about my schedule. I’ve planned trips, obsessively checked eBird lists, bumped a rental car down paths that are roads in name only, waded through mud, and been over my head in prairie grass—and the birds just aren’

The Fall and the Rise

It’s a moment of pure power, focus, and grace. A moment when all of the bird works together for a singular purpose. The head is set, the eyes locked on their prey, even though the body is in motion. In the dive, their wings remain outstretched, and tail feathers

Read more

the smallest sprout

Shrugging off the Listlessness of Summer

The Uncertainty of Bird Watching

The Fall and the Rise