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iWhen Carlos was younger, he dreamt of owning a big house, settling down in the countryside with his kids, and earning six figures by the time he was thirty.
Carlos is thirty. Carlos has none of those things. Instead, he has a rivalry with some guy named Oscar Piastri on eBird.
Truthfully, Carlos got into birding by accident. In the thick of lockdown, a small brown bird with a white chest perched on his open window. After ten google searches and two brand new accounts, Carlos finally figured out it was a Bank Swallow.
And when Carlos discovered the leaderboard feature on eBird, he knew he'd just found his new hobby.
He spent the next several (very boring, very shut-in) weeks of lockdown in his apartment complex’s garden taking pictures of every bird he sees, identifying them with Merlin, and uploading the photos to eBird.
Within just a month, Carlos cracked the top ten leaderboard in Monaco. The competition in the principality was weak, he easily overtook them like it was nothing. Whenever he wasn’t cooped up staring at his SQL code and trying to make profit with the ERP, he spent birdwatching. And when COVID regulations became lax, he even went on walks around his block to find birds.
It’s 2025. Masks are no longer mandated and lockdown is no longer enforced. COVID is long gone. His birdwatching hobby persists.
Pre-COVID, Carlos would spend Saturdays hanging out with friends or going to a club. Now, he spends most weekends hiking through the hills of Monaco or on the shores of the Mediterranean sea.
The competition nowadays is tight. He’s 2 behind Oscar, who managed to find a Yelkouan Shearwater and an Audouin’s Gull in a particularly productive Wednesday. Carlos is determined to reduce that gap.
Today, he hopes to find a Dartford Warbler. His Rare Bird Alert is going off like crazy after a bunch of people in Southern France reported seeing it. He keeps his eyes peeled for a small, stout bird with blue feathers on its top half and reddish-brown on its bottom.
Through his hike, he sees some colourful passerines and swifts. Nothing he hasn’t seen before, but he snaps pictures of them anyway for conservation purposes (and because he’s ahead of Oscar in completed checklists and he would like to keep it that way).
Plus, he needs to justify the purchase of his stupidly expensive camera one way or another. He lowers the camera, continuing the hike.
Suddenly, he hears a screech. He halts to a stop, slowly examining his surroundings. He scans every branch of every tree to make sure he doesn’t miss a single feather of this warbler.
Another song—high-pitched, scratchy, unmistakable. He follows the sound carefully, camera already in hand.
There! Perched on a swaying juniper branch, a small female with the telltale long tail held at that jaunty angle. His camera clicks rapidly.
“That number one spot is mine!”
A groan comes from behind him. Carlos jumps, startled by the voice. He meets a man wearing a sports shirt that’s way too tight on the chest and pants that are criminally short.
"Mate," the stranger says, his Australian accent thick with annoyance, "you couldn't have said that any louder?"
Carlos glances back at the juniper. The branch sways empty—his warbler has vanished.
"Sorry. And you are...?"
The man glares, cocking his head up and rubbing his face a little. That’s when Carlos notices the millions of tiny freckles dotting the man’s neck.
“‘M Oscar.” he says deadpan.
Wait, his name is also Oscar. And he’s a birder. No, it can’t be a coincidence.
“Piastri?!” Carlos exclaims. This is the kid who’s been terrorising him in eBird for the better part of 5 years?
“You must be Carlos Sainz, then.” he extends his hand. His small, dainty, pale hand. Oh God. "Pleasure to meet you, mate."
He stares at the hand like it might bite him.
“You misidentified the Eurasian Blue Tit as the Great Tit in last week’s checklist.” he says instead, because it’s easier. ”It was a rookie mistake, their caps are totally different, no?” Carlos informs him. He already tried reporting the misidentified species in eBird but he figured telling it directly to the person would be better.
Oscar scoffs, his crooked, tight-lipped smile faltering. “You missed a European Nightjar in yesterday’s report. It was right there in your photos. Must be going blind, grandpa."
Carlos frowns. “No I did not. I will show you.”
He yanks out his phone, scrolling furiously through yesterday's submissions before thrusting the screen toward Oscar. The Australian clicks to the fifth photo and taps a shadowy corner where, sure enough, a nightjar lurks camouflaged against a fallen log.
Carlos groans. How had he missed that? “Ugh, whatever. I’m gonna go this way now. Have a nice day, Oscar.”
Oscar doesn’t even say goodbye. The youth are so rude nowadays.
(At least Carlos is one point up Oscar, with the conflated Great Tit and his shrouded European Nightjar)
It’s another lovely day. The sun’s out and birds are chirping about right outside his office. Carlos stretches at his desk, minimizing the Oracle tab to peer out his office window. A pigeon pecks at the premium sunflower seeds in his bird feeder—the expensive ones he definitely didn't buy with the company credit card. He still suspects Barbara from HR of sneaking handfuls during her smoke breaks.
Just as he’s about to continue working, his phone lights up. That’s weird, he only turns Do Not Disturb off for his family and closest friends. And the Rare Bird Alert, of course.
A Pale-legged Leaf Warbler spotted near his area? His heart races. This was his white whale—a tiny, unassuming bird dressed in olive-green and cream, normally found in Manchuria and Continental Southeast Asia. However, a birder found it stranded all the way in Yorkshire and Carlos’s been dying to find one ever since.
He quickly messages his coworkers on Slack that he’s going to take an early lunch break, before grabbing his gear and speeding toward the location—a scrubby mountain pass just outside Monaco's borders.
The woodland floor reveals nothing but the usual Mediterranean suspects. He works methodically up the trail, checking every shadow, every movement. His lunch hour evaporates before long. No warbler in sight.
He sighs, finally giving up. As he’s making his way down the trail, he hears a trill. A singular, high-pitched trill, just like his warbler.
Hurriedly, he sprints to the origin of the sound. Except, he is not greeted by the sight of a bird, but rather a contemptuous looking Oscar Piastri.
“Ay, you again!” Carlos exclaims. “You cannot be serious!” He can’t get distracted by Oscar, no matter how broad his shoulders are or how cute his bunny teeth are.
“How’s your hunt for the warbler going?” Oscar smirks, crossing his arm.
Carlos raises his eyebrow. “You… How do you know about—”
Oscar merely shrugs, shaking the speaker he seems to have materialised out of thin air. The speaker’s playing… bird calls?
Suddenly, a horrifying realisation crashed into Carlos.
He taps his phone awake again, examining the alert information on eBird. In his haste to drive to the hill, he completely forgot to read the name of the birder.
“You!” Carlos points an accusatory finger at him. “You posted a fake alert!”
“You scared my bird away. This is payback.”
Carlos huffs. “This is far from over.”
Oscar scoffs, "Sure. Well, while you’re plotting your revenge, I've got actual birds to find. Unlike some people, I don't waste my time chasing ghosts."
"What do you mean?"
Oscar’s grin returns, sharp and knowing. "Check your eBird notifications in about... oh, ten minutes."
He turns and heads deeper into the woods, leaving Carlos standing alone in the clearing.
Carlos is in his car when, exactly ten minutes later, his phone pings. A new sighting notification pops up: Oscar Piastri has just logged a Pale-legged Leaf Warbler, complete with GPS coordinates showing he's barely half a kilometer away.
The bastard wasn't lying—he really did know where to find one.
Carlos looks up the trail where Oscar disappeared, then back at his phone. The gap is now three species. He turns his phone off and grips his steering wheel tightly, already planning his next move.
This war is far from over.
Later that night, he receives an Instagram notification, a mention on a post by someone named oskua.p81. Unfortunately Carlos does love a good bird pun.
The post is a singular image of his damned white whale with the caption: “Second-discovered one in Europe. Dedicated to my biggest supporter @.carlossainz55. Couldn’t have done this without you mate.”
Carlos seethes. Oscar is rubbing salt on his freshly raw wound. That’s low, even for him.
Then, a DM from the very same account.
Carlos frowns. It takes him a while, but when he realises the pun he chuckles.