(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — A Chicago bird watcher has made history.
Tarik Shahzad, 27, broke the Cook County Birding Big Year record, sighting his 294th confirmed species for 2024 at Montrose Beach.
His 294th was a rare seabird, either a sooty shearwater or short-tailed shearwater, the first spotting of either in the state.
He told WBBM he's happy to work in nature and defy stereotypes.
“I'm a younger birder. I'm 27-years-old. I'm an environmental advocate. I'm a person of color. And the birding community right now is, I think, undergoing a transformation where we're seeing not only so many more people getting into the hobby, but more diverse folks and folks from all different walks of life,” Shahzad said.
Shahzad is an environmental policy advocate with the Nature Conservancy.
“I did this record while working full time for the Nature Conservancy, so every morning and every evening before and after work, I would go out bird watching as, as quick as I could.
“If my boss let me, I'd go chase a rare bird if it was during work hours. And then every weekend, every single moment of my free time, I spent trying to break this record.”
Shahzad also says Chicago is a hot spot for sighting rare birds because so many of them stop here when they're migrating to other parts of the world.
The record was previously held by Matthew Cvetas, who spotted 293 in 2022. A 14-year-old Peter Tolzmann spotted 291 species of birds in 2023, according to the Nature Conservancy.
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