It takes great passion, courage and determination to gather binoculars, camera and daypack to race across the World to find birds. How do you describe someone who can spot more than 1000 bird species in a Calendar year? Certainly a World record breaker and you would be surprised how some individuals have even surpassed the record of 1000 birds spotted in a year. The World’s Greatest Birder is Arjan Dwarshuis of the Netherlands who set a World record of over 6,852 birds spotted in 40 countries within 366 days (a calendar year). Interestingly, there are around 10,700 recognized bird species, hence it takes geniuses to spot and identify two-thirds of the entire World birds in one year. Arjan’s record beats the 6042 bird species record set by Noah Strycker in 2015
Similarly, the North American Big year record was set by John Weigel, a US native staying in Australia, who in 2019 spotted over 840 bird species in North America. A Big year is a an Individual challenge or informal contest among bird enthusiasts who pull out all the stops to spot as many bird species as possible by their unique sound or instant sighting within a single Calendar year and it’s done within a particular geographical area. This competition is made popular within North America and done within certain US States as well as Canadian Prairies although can extend to larger areas.
Arjan Dwarshuis, the World Record holder joined big year and passionately watches birds to raise awareness on birds and their ecosystems as well as to raise funds for BirdLife. The BirdLife Preventing Extinctions Programme is the most popular charity Organization with main focal point being the most threatened birds in the World.
There are about 10,700 birds species recognized in the whole World and the 10 commonest (most populous) species include the domesticated chicken believed to have a world population of over 22 billion birds, the red-billed quelea, the mourning doves, American Robin, Common Pheasant, the red-winged blackbird, Chipping Sparrow, Common starlings and common swifts.
