WESLACO — The 38-mile-per-hour gusts of wind made for less than ideal birdwatching conditions Wednesday, but the trees lining the Green Jay Nature Trail at Estero Llano Grande State Park helped provide a barrier from the unrelenting onslaught of fierce winds.
With a Swarovski ATX 65 mm scope slung over her shoulder, Tiffany Kersten of Mission trekked along the narrow trail, ducking at times to avoid the occasional low-hanging branch, and listening intently for the sound of any bird in her general vicinity that may be calling out in song.
But the rustling of the wind in the trees all but overshadowed any songs of nearby birds.
“We could see green jays in here, also black-crested titmice, sometimes altamira orioles, or white-tipped doves,” Kersten said as she trekked further through the trees and shrubland. “There’s 30 species of bird that within the United States are only seen in the Rio Grande Valley, in South Texas.”
That particular leg of the journey did not turn up any bird sightings. She then decided to switch locations — heading toward Flycatcher Trail which leads to Ibis Lake. Kersten isn’t too enthusiastic about her chances of spotting many birds at that particular moment.
“It’s really hard, between the wind and it being the afternoon,” she explained. “(Birds) hide. … They don’t really care for the wind all that much. They’ll just hunker down near a trunk somewhere and not be obvious. Obviously they’re still around somewhere, but they’ve become much less visible.”
As she walked along, a high-pitched chirping could be heard from the trees above.
“That’s a black-crested titmouse calling, but it’s so hidden,” Kersten said without missing a beat. “What it’s doing right now is called a chip note. It’s one itty bitty little sound that a bird gives. It’s not it’s full call or full song.”
Kersten’s encyclopedic knowledge of all things birding was on full display, yet not surprising given her most recent accolade — breaking the record for identifying the most species of birds in the lower 48 states in a calendar year.
She set out to see and identify as many birds in the span of a year, known as a Big Year, and finished the year with 726 different birds. Her efforts broke the American Birding Association’s previous record of 724.
It was the culmination of a birding journey that began when she first took a bird watching class with her mother when she was 12-years-old in her native Wisconsin. She recalled observing sandhill cranes in a field calling and displaying spring courtship rituals. For Kersten, the sandhill crane was her spark bird — the bird that ignited her passion for birding.
That passion led her to a degree in wildlife ecology and eventually to the Rio Grande Valley, where she found herself employed at Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge in Alamo, and where she led birdwalks.
Prior to embarking on her Big Year, Kersten found herself unemployed with a house she’d just purchased and unable to make ends meet toward the latter part of 2020.
“I didn’t know where I was going with my life,” she said. “I had been bird guiding on the side for about 10 years before that. So I figured I’d just take people birding for now until I get a job, something more sustainable to pay the bills. So I started doing that and I got a lot of clients without really trying that hard.”
In January 2021, while guiding a man who was embarking on his own Big Year, she was encouraged to start her own.
“I was like, ‘That’s crazy,’” she recalled. “I have a dog. I have a house. I need to get a job and figure out how I’m going to pay the bills.”
A few weeks later during a solo road trip to Arizona in search of five bird species she’d never seen before, she decided to commit to her own Big Year. She did so without the intention of breaking any records, but simply to try to see as many bird species as she could within her calendar year.
She said that she was hesitant about traveling across the country by herself in pursuit of her Big Year due to the fact that she is a sexual assault survivor. With support from the birding community, she set up a GoFundMe to help with her travel expenses. She was also supported in her journey through She’s Birdie personal safety alarms, which she distributed to women she encountered during her Big Year.
“It’s stressful to travel alone and be in really remote places,” Kersten said. “Sometimes I was driving at night or birding in really remote places with nobody else around.”
With little preparation prior to attempting her Big Year, she said that it was her goal-oriented way of thinking that inspired her to move forward with her endeavor. When she eventually hit the rare milestone of seeing 700 species of birds, she decided to step on the gas and go all in on breaking the record.
“Once I got to 700 (birds), I sat down and I calculated all the ones I’d kind of pushed to the side,” she recalled. “I looked and I calculated, ‘It’s not likely that I’ll break the record, but it’s within the realm of possibility.’ That’s when I started flying for individual birds.”
In total, Kersten took 77 flights and drove more than 49,000 miles across 35 states in her attempt to reach her goal.
“It’s really stressful because you don’t know if the bird is going to still be on the other end,” Kersten said. “A lot of them are rare birds that don’t belong in the U.S. They come across the ocean, or sometimes they come across from Mexico.”
It was a chance she found herself having to take with only one bird left to break the record. While observing a Smith’s longspur in Oklahoma, she was notified about the bat falcon that had been spotted at the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge — the first time that species of bird had been seen in the United States.
“Within two hours, I was on a flight back from Tulsa to Dallas and Dallas to McAllen,” Kersten recalled. “I raced over from the McAllen airport to Santa Ana, and then I ran from the parking lot all the way up to the observation tower there.”
With little time to waste, still wearing multiple layers of clothing intended for Oklahoma’s 20-degree weather in the now tropical 80-degree South Texas weather, she sprinted to the top of the tower.
Once she reached the top, a fellow birder had the rare bird already trained into his scope. Kersten looked through the scope and saw her record breaking bat falcon.
“To have done all of this work and traveled all across the country, for that to be the bird that broke the record — it was just complete serendipity,” she recalled. “I saw the bird. A bunch of my friends were already there and congratulated me. Then I had to go walk down a trail and go cry for a little bit.”
With her goal reached and an overwhelming amount of experience birding, Kersten has since established her own bird guiding company, Nature Ninja Birding Tours. The name was inspired by the nickname her friend bestowed upon her, the Nature Ninja, in observance of her training for American Ninja Warrior prior to the pandemic.
“I’ve been guiding full-time and started my own business. It’s been really amazing,” Kersten said. “I think the universe pushes you into what you’re supposed to do. … This is what I’m meant to do. I firmly believe that.”
To book a tour with Kersten through Nature Ninja Birding Tours, call (715) 209-5751, or send an email to [email protected].
