Marsha C. Salett
I first learned about Neil Hayward and his accidental Big Year in the summer of 2013 when a colleague got me hooked on his blog accidentalbigyear2013 An accidental Big Year—how audacious and impulsive. What stamina it took to travel so much, so far, and to sleep in so many rental cars. There was the suspense: would Neil beat Sandy Komito’s Big Year record (he did). And how could one not help cheer on a Cambridge, Massachusetts, resident—albeit a transplanted Brit. But best of all, Neil’s blog entries were a joy to read: humorous, personal, articulate.
I had to have Neil’s story for Bird Observer and wasted no time in 2014 contacting him about writing an article for the April issue. I doubt he had recovered from the rigorous pace and exhaustion of his Big Year by our February 1 deadline and he surely had book offers in mind, yet he graciously agreed to write “An Accidental Big Year” (Hayward 2014) gratis, as all of our contributors do. In the biographical sketch for the article, Neil wrote that he
grew up near Oxford, England, where, at a young age, he first became obsessed with birds. After a PhD in genetics at Cambridge University, he moved permanently to the United States in 2005 to head up the US operations of the biotechnology company Abcam. He left in 2011 to pursue a consulting career as owner of Cambridge Blue Consulting. (p. 87)
His book Lost Among the Birds: Accidentally Finding Myself in One Very Big Year came out in 2016 with excellent reviews.
Fast forward to 2017 when Marj Rines announced her retirement as Bird Observer’s Bird Sightings Editor, putting the board of directors into near panic because we could not imagine anyone else in the position. No sooner had I advertised this volunteer position when, to my surprise and delight, Neil Hayward responded. His credentials were impeccable: he could handle logistics and deadlines, he was knowledgeable and passionate about birds, and he was a terrific writer.
Neil seemed entirely unfazed about taking on the complicated and time-consuming job as Bird Sightings Editor and the transition was seamless. For the past six and one-half years, he worked with staff compilers and other contributors to produce the master Excel spreadsheet from which he and Bob Stymeist curated the notable-observations essays for each two-month sightings period. As an added bonus, Neil created the feature “Bygone Birds,” in which he summarized the best sightings over the past 5, 10, 20, and 40 years.
Working with Neil was an editor’s dream. Regina Harrison, Jeff Boone Miller, and I appreciated his meticulously formatted sightings narratives with wit and style that were so well written they needed a minimum of editing—aside from the occasional British versus American spelling or idiom when he first started. A true professional, he returned our edited versions of the narratives quickly and met his deadlines no matter where in the world he was traveling and birding.
Trevor L. Lloyd-Evans, Senior Fellow at Manomet and a regular contributor to Bird Observer’s sightings, described working with Neil:
Neil has been a member of the Magnificent Three of Bird Sightings Editors. All of us who send in bimonthly compendia for our regions, plus all the contributors who have relied on Marj Rines, Bob Stymeist, and Neil to select the best publishable data in New England, have been truly well served, not to mention the rest of the volunteer staff who put the whole magazine together.
Neil has been polite, but just firm enough with reminders to keep us all on time for each issue—a fairly thankless job akin to herding squirrels on horseback.
Many thanks, Neil, and, as always, good birding.
In late August 2023, Neil moved back to England with his family—wife Gerri, kids Henry Arthur Peregrine (6) and Alexander George Avocet (2), and cats Sally and Khiva. He will be teaching chemistry in a high school near Oxford. The Bird Observer board of directors, staff, and I thank him for his contributions to the journal and the birding community of New England. We wish him and his family much happiness in their new home and, of course, good birding.
Citations
- Hayward, N. 2014. An Accidental Big Year. Bird Observer 42: 2(72–87).
- Hayward, N. 2016. Lost Among the Birds: Accidentally Finding Myself in One Very Big Year. New York, New York: Bloomsbury USA.