This story originally appeared in Larson Newspapers’ Spring 2021 edition of Lifestyles of Sedona magazine.

In birding, a Big Year is an attempt to see as many species as possible in a specific area over a one-year period. Big Year birders might focus on one county, one state, or maybe a country. A few devoted birders attempt world Big Years.

In 2020, Cottonwood birder Janie Stewart had a Big Year, breaking the record for the number of bird species sighted in Yavapai County in one year, with 303. Through a “perfect storm” of factors, as Sedona birder Rich Armstrong says of the year, Stewart shattered the record of long-time list leader Steven Hough, of Sedona.

The idea of a year devoted to chasing birds, with all its chal­lenges, surprises, disappointments and thrills is a romantic one. A Big Year rivalry was documented by author Mark Obermick in his 1998 book “The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession,” which was turned into the 2011 film “The Big Year,” starring Steve Martin Jack Black and Owen Wilson.

It’s one of Stewart’s favorite movies.

In 2017, Big Year birder Noah Stryker visited the Verde Valley to speak at the Birding and Nature Festival. Styker spoke about his record-breaking 6,000-bird world Big Year and memoir of the adventure.

The talk intrigued Stewart.

“It puts the thoughts in your mind. ‘I could do Big-something like that. Maybe not on that large of a scale, but anybody can do it.’ That was an exciting thing for me to hear,” Stewart said.

But 2020 wasn’t the time, Stewart thought going into the year, even after a rare ring-necked pheasant appeared in Cottonwood on Jan. 1, giving Stewart a rarity on Day One.

“We all go see this bird, and it kind of like just kicked off the whole year,” Stewart said. Four days later, Stewart and many other Yavapai birders bagged a rare yellow-throated warbler at Bubbling Ponds Fish Hatchery in Page Springs on a cold, icy day.

But even with the auspicious start, Stewart limited her 2020 ambition to beating her per­sonal best record of 268 birds in Yavapai County from the year before.

Then in February, the coro­navirus arrived. The restrictions put a stop to Stewart’s other passion, running half marathons, as organizers canceled events of all kinds. Moreover, during the pandemic, Stewart’s husband had to travel to Michigan to attend to his construction business there. She found herself alone in the house taking care of their dog and horse.

That’s when Stewart’s birding “intensified.”

“Everything kind of came to a halt. And we just said, or at least I did, ‘I’m going to just keep going.’ I have to have something to do, that was the main thing,” Stewart said.

Stewart threw herself into birding Yavapai County. Though the county is large, she could go out and chase birds on day trips and still come home and take care of the animals.

But often birds come to you: Stewart photographed some of the rarest birds on her list in her yard. She carried her camera everywhere just in case she saw a rare bird, as happened when she photographed an elf owl while taking out the trash.

Stewart also signed up for rare bird alerts on eBird, a popular online bird recording site. The site sent her an email every time a special bird was reported in the county.

“Everybody was here [during the pandemic], and they were birding, so birds were getting reported, and anytime there was a new bird that came up, we were out there,” Stewart said.

The other person who Stewart often refers to discussing her Big Year is her birding partner Heather Hofling, also of Cot­tonwood, who she met doing Audubon Society bird walks.

In “The Big Year,” two birders, played by Martin and Black, decide to team up, and they end up being able to get more birds together than separately. That seems to be the case with Stewart and Hofling

“Heather and I kind of teamed up, and we just went after every­thing,” Stewart said. “When Heather and I got together, she’s got a [Toyota] RAV also, and we used to say, you know, ‘we’re RAVenous.’”

When either partner spotted something special, they would notify the other. They also traveled together to remote parts of the county to find a specific species. In June, the pair took Hofling’s high-clearance pickup truck 18 miles on a “precarious” road with creek crossings to Pine Mountain Wilderness south of Camp Verde. The wilderness is the only place in the county to spot Mexican jays and dusky-capped flycatchers.

“It was just a great time. It was her and I. I don’t think we saw anybody else out there,” Stewart said.

Besides the practical help, Stewart said birding with Hofling made the year more fun, making even a ruddy dove “stakeout” in the Village of Oak Creek on a freezing cold December day enjoyable.

“That was a fun time. Her and I together,” Stewart remembers. “That’s what’s so neat is when you have somebody else who’s on the same page, you’re looking for the same thing, and you get to share it. We had a lot of adven­tures. A lot of adventures.”

Stewart says Sedona “is a great place” to bird.

In Sedona, Stewart spotted a northern pygmy owl and a Mexican spotted owl. During a spring “fallout” event, when bad weather drove numerous migrating birds to land at Sedona Wetlands to wait out the storm, Stewart picked up almost a dozen rare birds.

Stewart and Hofling spotted their Mexican jays on June 6, giving Stewart 269 birds, beating her personal record. Realizing she still had half the year left, Stewart finally decided to go for the county title.

“At that point then it was like, ‘it’s on,’” Stewart said.

The year was not all birding for Stewart. She said her son was laid off from his job organizing triathlons when the pandemic hit, and he had to have surgery during the year, and she was able to travel to help. During the interview, she gets emotional and has to stop for a moment. She said later that the magnitude of the isolation in 2020 struck her suddenly as she thought back. She said birding helped keep her going.

“[Birding] takes your mind completely away. It’s like going to the movies. Even that stopped. You had no outlet. But for me, birding is just totally therapeutic,” Stewart said.

Stewart and Hofling kept birding to the last day of 2020.

“Once we got to that 290, I kept going further and further, and it was getting close, and I kept thinking, ‘if anyone goes over me, I want it to be Heather.’ The two of us,” Stewart said.

At midnight on Jan. 1, 2021, Stewart had sighting 303 birds, beating the previous record for Yavapai County of 288 birds held by Hough. Hofling bagged 300 birds for the year.

Stewart says she’s birding more casually this year, not having to jump in the car and chase every rare bird, and she’s enjoying that. She’s turned off the bird alerts this year.

“My phone right now, it’d be dinging off the hook,” Stewart says on an early spring day at Bubbling Ponds, as the vanguard birds of the spring migration stop for a rest among the trees and ponds.