New bird species identified in Alabama as birdwatching community of all ages comes together

A high schooler’s goal to explore as many birds in the state as he could before he headed to college has led to revelations that have changed what we know about birds in the state of Alabama. 

Thanks to the efforts of Mason Currier, a current freshman at Samford University, and Andrew Lydeard, program coordinator at Alabama Audubon, several birds that are unusual to find in Alabama were added to the state record — including one that had never been spotted in Alabama before, with help from the birding community.

The teen birder

At the beginning of 2025, Currier was finishing off his senior year of high school in Mobile when he decided to take on a “Big Semester.” In the birding world, a “Big Year” is a casual competition or personal goal of identifying as many birds as possible within the span of a year. Currier didn’t expect to stay in Alabama for college, so he wanted to make his remaining months count. 

What he didn’t expect, however, was how quickly he’d start racking up birds. 

“The coast is the best area for birding in the state, so between classes and on off-days and weekends, I would go around searching for specific targets. From January 1, it just went so well, just shockingly well. I kept finding these amazing species… I think we had like 122 species within the first week.”

By the time he finished his semester, Currier had found 328 birds — just shy of the state record at the time of 334, so he and Lydeard figured they may as well keep going. 

Stand-out birds from 2025

At the very beginning of the year, January 4, 2025, Currier and Lydeard received a call from a fellow birder, Daniel Redwine, about a “weird longspur” that he couldn’t quite identify.

“(That’s) always a good thing to hear from a very good birder. Mason and I drove quickly to see this bird that sat just feet from the group. Incredible find, and again, a one-day wonder. Mason and I were in the right place at the right time, just ten minutes from Daniel when he called initially.”

Andrew Lydeard

They spotted the first thick-billed longspur recorded in Alabama. The bird, which is generally found between Montana and Mexico, is a “red alert tipping point” species, meaning that it has “lost more than 50% of its population in the past 50 years, has a perilously low population, and has shown steep declining trends,” according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Other notable birds on their lists this year include: 

• Sprague’s pipit (first state record since 2019) in Mobile County
• Glaucous-winged gull (third state record) in Baldwin County
• Harris’s sparrow (first state record since 2018)
• American goshawk (third state record) at Wheeler Dam 
• Western grebe (less than 10 state records) in Marshall County
• Fulvous whistling-duck (less than 10 state records) in Mobile County
• Black-whiskered vireo (Caribbean bird, difficult to find in Alabama) in Fort Morgan
• Connecticut warbler (about 5 state records) at Ruffner Mountain

Breaking the record

Spending months in a friendly competition, Lydeard and Currier set off with a group of birders to get 60-65 miles off the Alabama coast to find birds that don’t normally make it to the shore.

They spotted several birds, including one which tied the two of them and pushed them over the edge for the total annual record for the state of Alabama.

“Before we left, we saw three pomarine jaegers, which was his 338th bird that he (tied with me at 338). It’s so crazy to be both have broken the record on the same day. That is unheard of. We broke it in August, which is unheard of. Just such blessing, so amazing.”

Mason Currier

Although they are competing to some degree, Currier says he will be thrilled if Lydeard walks away this year with more birds. After all, birding is about the community and sharing joy in discovery.

“I’ve learned so much. I can’t tell you how much I’ve learned about the state, learned about its people, gotten to connect with an amazing community. There’s some great people doing this, and I’m looking forward to what’s going to happen over the next few months. We’ll see what the number says on December 31. I’m excited.”

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