- Bob Hargis of Riverton is one of the best bird watchers in the world.

And if you doubt it, check out the more than 6,000 species he's logged.

The majority coming since he moved to Wyoming 25 years ago.

I'm Steve Peck of Wyoming PBS.

Birder Bob, Part 2.

This is "Wyoming Chronicle."

(upbeat inspirational music) - [Presenter] Programming on Wyoming PBS is brought to you in part by Wyoming Humanities, enhancing the Wyoming narrative to engage communities with grants and programs across Wyoming for more than 50 years.

We proudly support Wyoming PBS.

- [Steve] Spanning 60 years of watching, seeking, listing, and appreciating birds, Bob Hargis has been happy to build a big part of his life on birding.

He's seen the world, met the people, sampled the cultures, and assembled one of the bigger bird lists on earth.

He's aimed his binoculars at birds on six continents, 65 countries with thousands and thousands of confirmed sightings.

The white-fronted bee-eater in South Africa, the grey-breasted prinia in India, the black noddy in Australia, the black and white monjita in Uruguay, the purple-throated euphonia in Argentina, the spotted kestrel in Indonesia, the least auklet in Alaska, the acorn woodpecker in Arizona, and this tiny winter wren near Sinks Canyon, Wyoming.

Forever good natured and curious, Bob Hargis is known and appreciated as one of America's great birding ambassadors, assisted always with a heaping dose of modesty and self-deprecation.

- (applauds) You guys are too good.

- Well, gosh.

- Why did you have to waste your energy on this?

This porky visage?

- When we visited Hargis in April at his rural home, along the Wind River in Fremont County, we wanted to know how many different bird species he had seen and verified.

How many birds have you identified authentically in your birding career?

- Well- - I'm at 60.

Where are you now?

- Uh-huh.

I think it's, the total on eBird is 6,075.

- [Steve] Check that, one month later, Hargis has added another half dozen birds to his list.

His ever growing list.

The son of a military man, Hargis spent much of his life in California.

Then more than 25 years ago, the decision to relocate to the mountain west.

- Southern California.

My dad was in the military, so we moved around a lot.

- Why come to Wyoming?

- Suzanne's parents were aging and were staying with her sister, family over in Dr. Ford, Michael Ford, and living there.

And it was getting, the house was getting full.

They had two kids and Suzanne came out to visit.

- Who's Suzanne?

- My wife, my beloved wife is standing over there.

Anyway, her folks were here.

We bought the house out here, planning to come out, and I could retire in '98 from teaching and take a big hit, and Suzanne could retire from nursing.

And so, we bought this house and moved out.

- What a house to find for a bird person, right?

- [Bob] Oh God.

Like, living in a tree house, isn't it?

- I don't know you super well, but I've been acquainted with you for years.

You probably don't remember how we first encountered each other, but I'm going to remind you of it.

And it leads us to another point.

I was in the newspaper business for a long time.

I was looking out my rear window and there was an apple tree and there was a big blue bird in it that I'd never seen there before.

I wasn't sure what it was.

We had the mountain bluebirds and the buntings and, but this was five times that size or more.

So, I took a picture and I got to work, trying to figure it out with my book, and I realized it was a Steller's Jay.

Blue with this dark, almost black head.

And so, I took the picture and we ran it in the newspaper a day or two later.

Not a big breaking news front page thing, but somewhere in there.

So, a day or two after that, I'm sitting at my desk, I'm within earshot of the front door, but I can't see it.

And someone comes in and says, "I wanna talk to the guy who says he saw a Steller's Jay."

And I thought, "Oh boy.

Here's somebody wanting to come in and have an argument with me," because that was a big part of my life in that job.

- (laughs) I imagine.

- And you walked in.

- Uh-huh.

- And I'm so glad it was you because you didn't wanna have an argument.

You wanted to ask me when I saw it, where I saw it, what the tree was, what time of day it was, what the temperature was, was it windy?

And more or less, generally congratulate me on seeing it and make a new acquaintance with me over a bird.

That must have been, I would imagine, knowing you as I do, that's gotta be one of the best parts of your whole birding career, isn't it?

- Well, I think it certainly is.

It certainly is.

I think that just as exciting as it is for a birder to see a new species, and I like to do a little lifer dance.

It's not as, it's pretty creaky now, but the joy around the world in birding, I think that there's a joy in the local people who are keen on birds showing somebody new and their joy of seeing it.

- What are the characteristics, if there are any?

Is there a list of what makes a good birder?

What do you know how to do, Is what I'm asking.

- Right.

- That I don't.

For example, we were out on your, - Oh.

Well- - Porch trail just now and you said look.

- I think it's just year.

It's just like, you know?

Teaching school.

When I first started teaching school, I think back, "God, how could I have been so?

How could I know what to do?"

you know?

And then, after 20 years of working with kids at risk and loving it to the, never left teaching angry or burnt out.

It's called burnt out.

But you just get better at, just feel more comfortable, I guess.

I don't know what to say.

You notice things.

- Yeah.

- Your eyes are different.

- [Steve] Viewers who watched Part 1 of our interview with Birder Bob will recall that he interrupted the conversation to call our attention to a bird he spotted right outside his living room window.

A sharp-shinned hawk that we caught on camera.

Later, he nearly did it again.

- Had a book signing in San Francisco, and she presented it to me.

Oh, oh, sorry.

Terrible addiction.

(chuckles) - It's all right.

- Nobody's ever recovered from it.

- That's why we're here.

- Yeah.

(laughs) - [Steve] For birders of any and all levels of experience, Hargis has a two-word recommendation for gaining knowledge and making friends.

Bird festivals.

- Bird festivals are the greatest thing in the world for a new birder to try to get better.

And they're cheap.

No, not cheap, but they're- - Affordable.

- They're affordable compared to going with a bird company, you know?

Spending thousands of dollars to go to a place.

But you can go to, you know, there's a Jackson Hole Bird Festival.

- Coming up here soon.

- In May 22nd.

I think.

- Yeah.

- You've got 20 enthusiastic or maybe a hundred enthusiastic birders and giving presentations and taking you on field trips.

My God, what better way to learn birds?

- This festival that you talked about in, up in Teton County, coming up just later in here in the Spring of '25.

In Wyoming, a bird festival in Teton County, It's gonna draw some real heavyweights in the field.

- Oh.

Absolutely.

And the festival organizers around the country.

I mean, they're thinking like a Limpkin Festival down in Florida.

Limpkin, you know?

Funny little marsh bird.

It's got a beak that's weird.

But the Whooping Crane Festival, for example, down in Texas.

Yes, they say we're gonna start a festival.

And they get together and they get Pete Dunne, they get somebody, David Sibley, or somebody to come down and be a keynoter.

And then, you've got 20 or 30 people that they ask to come over there to be guides.

Not 20, but say 10 people, to guide trips around the area.

They're wonderful resource.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- To have people get acquainted with local and to meet local birders.

- Yeah.

And the local birding is where it's at.

- It is.

It is.

- A lot of times.

- It is.

Jackson has a huge group.

We have a huge group in this county.

We've got about 30 people that are serious.

- We need younger people in this county.

- Oh yeah.

It's a geriatric festival.

- Yeah.

- Except that our, best key birders are in their '20s, late '20s.

- Good.

Thanks significantly to Bob Hargis, Wyoming has a better bird knowledge base than it used to.

But it took a while.

- When you used to read Peterson Field Guides and the field guide, early field guide, even the early national geo, they would have the line for where the species is, and they would go around the state of Wyoming.

They'd make a little notch in the place because it was unknown if the bird appeared there.

- Not that the bird wasn't here, it just hadn't been documented.

- It just hadn't been, you know, there were no good records at the time.

But that's been fun.

And that's certainly changed with Game and Fish, hiring non-game biologists for, that are permanently affixed to keeping records plus the university, incredibly knowledgeable world species.

They were ornithologists.

So, there's another thing that we could get into, but- - [Steve] Now, you're not an ornithologist.

- Oh, no.

But I appreciate their efforts.

- Yeah.

- That's for sure.

- So, what do they do that you don't?

- These people, yeah.

They are people that are, have a specialty in one particular family of birds or behavior, or gosh.

It's genetics of birds, of speciation, of habitat, of... An ornithologist really specializes in one particular species or group of birds in a particular habitat.

- Yeah.

- And that's not very accurate completely.

But they're specialists.

Like, Dave McDonald for example.

He's a world knowledgeable about the Manakin group of birds.

They're 40, little 40 or 5, or 50 species of little birds that display like birds of paradise in New Zealand that we're all kind of familiar with from National Geographic, from Wyoming Public Television, for British BBC.

Where they display, particularly the male courtship, and the female's completely different in looks.

- Continuing just for a moment on Wyoming, is there a bird or couple of birds or type of bird here that we might not realize is just terrific because we see it all the time?

That you would recommend or point out to someone coming from outside the states say, if you wanna see?

- Oh, sure.

Little Jessica Roberts who was a Riverton girl in elementary school, who was eight years old, and her mother said, "This little, my little daughter has a tremendous interest in birds and I don't know what to do."

She wants to meet a bird watcher.

And she was just a little tiny kid.

And well, Suzanne and I take her out.

And we, well, I realized that this kid had memorized Peterson's Field Guide to birds of North America and had a little sound, sound of, DVDs or...

Anyway, but she's now gone on to law school.

But anyway, she hadn't seen a sagebrush sparrow, which arrives here in the last two weeks.

They're out in the sage habitat and we took, showed her that bird so.

- Found it.

Yeah.

Another thing, sagebrush obligate birds and even mountain species that are common here or commoner than there are in most other places.

Lark bunting, biomasses of them.

They're threatened in a lot of places.

- But here?

- Here they're good shape.

- It's easy enough to see.

You show me around your house a little bit and you've got lots of objects related to birding books and equipment and clothing, and other notebooks.

And you said going to a bird festival would be a great way to advance in birding.

If you had to buy one thing or if I asked you, I wanna to take the next step or begin.

Take the first step.

And I wanna know something because I wanna get my hands on something that I could acquire, something I could buy to make me a better birder.

Is there one thing where you would start or think I ought to?

I think I might know the answer to this, but I wanna hear it from you because you- - Well, optics are important.

Binoculars are good.

But I don't think, I think, I don't wanna sound like a heretic here, but all of the optics, (clears throat) all the commercially available optics from $300, $250 up are good enough.

- Yeah.

- Whereas 20 years ago, or 25 years ago, you need to spend 600 to 1,000 bucks to get quality optics that are one-half as good as the $200 pair of binocular.

- So, that's really been an advancement in recent years?

- Oh.

Incredible.

And a field guide, bird field guide, absolutely.

For the region.

With good photos and with good maps of that area.

eBird.

- Yeah.

- Of course.

- That you can carry with you right on your phone.

- Can carry with you on your hand.

- So, there's been huge advancements in technology that's available now to just about everyone.

And I'm right in, there's something that you can, that will help you identify the bird just because by the sound that you hear.

- Oh yeah.

- Yeah, yeah?

- Merlin is an app that is out with via Cornell.

- Yeah.

- And- - Cornell - eBird Cornell University.

- There's a great name.

- Which is yeah.

- Right?

- Yeah, that is- - Yeah.

- About the best university and it's certainly in the States, along with McGill in Canada and University of Mexico in Mexico City.

But yeah, it's amazing device.

And it can make a, you know, you can just take your phone around.

- Yeah.

- And play it and it'll identify.

But there are glitches in it and- - Of course.

- Yeah.

And a lot of people are turning into the record committee.

Well, Merlin said it's a Eurasian Jackdaw.

And we'll have to say, "I'm sorry, you'll need something else to-" - Besides.

- Beside that identification.

- But for uh- - But for learning.

My God.

Nothing better.

- A seat-of-the-pants birder person.

A great, great thing and it keeps you interested.

- Well, absolutely.

- Yeah.

What was that?

- Oh.

- At least can have an idea.

As mentioned, Hargis rates bird guidebooks among the indispensable requirements for good birding.

And he practices what he preaches.

He's the owner of a sizable library of field guides, workbooks, histories, and memoirs on birds and bird people.

The shelves seen here are only part of it.

- Oh my god.

Red-billed tropicbird.

September 12th, 1982 in San Diego, San Clemente Island.

Wow.

Ashy storm-petrel.

(paper rustling) Cool.

- [Steve] A book called "Birds of China" would have to be thick.

- It's amazing.

And they're so spectacular.

And the mountains of China.

You think of China as being nothing but a biomass of humans and nothing, and modern technology and fast trains and people pillaging all of the last of the sea shoreline, the migration zone.

But they've got wild places.

- Yeah.

- From Sichuan and Hunan and places that are just really tough.

Wish I could go back.

- Something that's occurred to me, because I know I'm never gonna do it.

I'm not gonna travel the world building a list, but- - Why not?

Oh, sorry.

- Well, if I've built one of 60 and maybe I'll continue with that.

I wonder if someone who has done that might come to feel differently about birds compared to the very beginning.

Well, I have a list of thousands and I really wanna keep growing that.

And does it, is there a risk, I guess I'd say, of losing just the pure, the basic pleasure of seeing the birds.

You hit on this before.

You still have that, right?

- Oh yeah, yeah.

And I think a lot of birders and eBird proves it are still into reporting and increasing knowledge locally.

There are multiple ways to enjoy birding without... - Flying to New Guinea.

- Flying to New Guinea.

- Yeah.

On that theme, Hargis stresses that it's not only the world travelers who contribute to higher scientific knowledge of birds, local hyper observant bird watchers are crucial to the effort.

- For example, there's a gentleman in this county, who prides himself and is proud of and is honored for having posted 8,000 days in a row on eBird.

Now, he posts things that are things in his backyard and also from his forays out daily.

And he is really, what he has done is really document what is here and what is unusual and when it shows up.

- Every day of the year.

- Every day.

And so that's the thing that we, that Suzanne has done, you know, with the feeder.

We don't know when a towhee's gonna show up, a spot a towhee's he's gonna show up.

- One piece of equipment I think you might recommend would be a feeder, correct?

And you have had- - Yeah.

- People who've been to your house have seen the great- - Yeah.

- Feeding setup that you've had.

- My wife Suzanne has taken bird feeding to the Olympic level.

(both laughs) Yeah.

We've gotten a lot of birds that most people don't get.

- [Steve] Hopping from continent to continent has provided Bob Hargis with many unforgettable bird sightings.

But two of the best happened in Wyoming.

One near Ocean Lake, the other, right off his back porch.

- We got a call in March, which is very late, from Game and Fish of bird watching friends said, "Bob, I know it's your dream bird and you've never seen it.

It's a snowy owl.

There's one that showed up over at Ocean Lake."

And I went, "Oh my God."

I was shopping at Smith's with my cart, and I abandoned.

I did a- - You abandoned the cart?

- I abandoned the cart in the middle of produce section.

And we went up to the place and I got up and I saw this white spot.

And yeah, that was cool.

But that was a, my last North American bird and continental bird.

- Really?

- The rarest bird though happened right in that tree there.

I came out here one morning at dawn and looked out the window, covered my eyes, and I put my binoculars 'cause I saw that bird look different.

It was a Harris's hawk.

- [Steve] Harris's hawk.

- A desert species that hunts jackrabbits with three or four hawks together, chasing 'em around of a bush, and one will pretend it's not looking and the other, and rabbit tries to run away and they catch 'em and they eat together.

Anyway, a Harris's Hawk was here and I said, "That doesn't occur here."

And so, we had a crap camera, but we did later.

But that very day, Jim Taylor, a doctor in town here, he called and said, "Is it possible that a Harris's Hawk would ever show up in this town?"

And he said, "I got some pictures of one out in the yard."

And I said, "Thank God," 'cause- - You just seen it.

- But yeah, that was really rare.

And we were, of course, looking for all kinds of evidence that it had been a captive, you know, a falconer's bird.

You know, with the little tags on its leg and all that stuff.

And I even threw a dead mouse that we found on the deck, on a string out on the lawn, on a piece of fishing line.

Threw it out in the middle of the lawn and dragged it, you know?

- Couldn't get it.

- Couldn't get into it.

- How would a bird like that happen to come to Wyoming?

Is it- - God knows.

We thought maybe it was captured illegally, maybe.

And let it go or got away.

- Still have a few on your holy grail that you haven't- - Oh.

- That you- - The bird I haven't seen.

- Yeah, a lot of those.

- That's a holy, I got a lot of holy grails.

- Any Wyoming bird that you haven't seen yet that you think you'd like.

- Oh, that's good.

- Yeah, that's really, a lot of the Eastern Wyoming birds.

You know, I haven't seen a cardinal in the state.

I haven't seen uh... - Are they here?

- Oh, they're in Laramie.

They show up regularly, and up in Sundance.

- Really?

- Black Hills.

- Yeah.

- They nest, I think up there.

- We talked to, went out and did a show with a wildlife photographer a couple of years ago, and he said a California condor has been seen in Wyoming.

- Oh yes.

Yeah.

- And I couldn't believe that, but he said, oh yeah, - Yeah, yeah.

It was seen and it lived only a week.

- Really?

- It was interesting.

It was found in, somebody found it on Laramie Peak up by those lakes.

- Yeah.

- When you take up above Centennial.

Some kids came and got photographs of it.

But it was bad, it was a captive bird that had been raised in captivity in Portland, Oregon.

And it flew the wrong way.

And it was found dead later sadly.

Everybody's looking for birds that are out of range.

- Yeah.

- That's... - Did you ever have to convince somebody or have to be convinced by someone that, "Yeah, I did see this bird and you've gotta believe me."

Or is it- - Well.

- How much going on faith is there?

And should there be?

- Well.

- In birding.

- Now, as you say, now it's very difficult to have something acceptable.

- Yeah.

- To the public and to science, to data.

You better have the first picture.

With the cameras now that are so good and so cheap and so available, you better have a photo.

- Yeah.

- And a photo that shows what makes it special.

But yeah, but it's, then it gets down to credibility of somebody.

And you don't wanna make judgments like that.

That's not fair.

- But if Bob Hargis says, "I saw a gyrfalcon."

- Yeah, I'm sure.

- Which you told me you did.

And got a picture of it.

That's more believable probably than if I said I did.

- Well, no, I don't know.

- If I had the picture, yes.

- On the other hand, if I would fake one out, fake an ID or BS one, I shouldn't say it.

That word, I'm sorry, you can cut.

But to fib about it or claim that you did it and it's found out to be untrue.

- There goes your- - You have lost your- - Your credibility.

And it sounds like it's an old, like a knight chivalry and all that kind of thing.

But it really, in the birding community traditionally, you were persona non grata.

- There's a code.

Yeah.

- Yeah, well, it's not only that.

It's just trying to keep things accurate.

- Yeah.

- Keeping it real.

- You're about ready to leave Wyoming, - Sadly.

My niece and her husband are prominent in Las Vegas in the hospitality trade, and they have a little condo and then- - She's a sommelier, is that right?

- Yes, she's a sommelier.

- Yeah.

- Let's see, a master sommelier, which is very rare.

- That's a wine expert.

- Yes.

- Yeah.

- And she is, and she's worked with a lot of the great chefs of the world.

Jose Andres comes to mind and Emeril Lagasse in Las Vegas.

So, it's a big eating scene.

- Big eating scene.

How's the birding down there?

- Oh, it's great.

- You said your birthday's coming up.

You mind telling us which one that'll be?

- I'm not one of these guys that, let's say it's to be a brush fire of my candles.

I'm 82.

- 82.

- 82.

God.

- Yeah.

- How'd that happen?

- I don't know.

I might have taken better care of myself.

(laughs) - There was a famous birder.

- Oh.

- Who died just last week.

- Victor Emanuel, yeah.

- Victor Emanuel.

- He's got a very renowned guides working with him and they never have left him because he's been so, he's such a kind, he was such a kind fellow and brilliant birder.

- He was a political consultant, I learned from this obituary.

- [Bob] Well, I didn't know.

- He managed political campaigns at a pretty high level.

And there was a point at which he had a chance to be involved in a very high level campaign.

And there was a meeting and someone said, "What about Victor Emanuel?"

And the other guy said, "Well, I asked him, but he said, he's decided he's just gonna get into birding instead."

And this political consultant said, "What a waste of life."

(Bob laughs) Well, a lot of people.

- He disagreed.

- There's a lot of, there's a bird book about this life, "Wasted Life with Birds."

I got one downstairs.

- Not how you see it.

- No.

It's an addiction that nobody recovers from.

- Yeah.

- Or wanted to.

And there's no 12-step program either.

- Yeah.