Birding without borders An obsession, a quest, and the biggest year in the world

Review by New York Times Review

RED CLOCKS, by Leni Zumas. (Little, Brown, $26.) This highly absorbing novel imagines a near future of America in which abortion is illegal in all 50 states. Zumas has a perfectly tuned ear for the way society relies on a moralizing sentimentalism to restrict women's lives and enforce conformity. HERE IN BERLIN, by Cristina Garcia. (Counterpoint, $26.) In a series of short quasi-fictional encounters, the Cuban-American novelist uses a chorus of voices to explore the long, ghostly reach of Germany's history, in which the remembered or purposefully forgotten past seems as alive as the present. THE NEWCOMERS: Finding Refuge, Friendship, and Hope in an American Classroom, by Helen Thorpe. (Scribner, $28.) Thorpe spent a year with teenage refugees in a Denver school's "newcomer class," documenting their lives as the presidential campaign stirred up nativist resentment. Partly a story of assimilation, it also details her growing awareness of other cultures. THE LARGESSE OF THE SEA MAIDEN: Stories, by Denis Johnson. (Random House, $27.) Johnson's long preoccupation with mortality culminates in a posthumous collection. "It's plain to you that at the time I wrote this, I'm not dead," one character says. "But maybe by the time you read it." TRUMPOCRACY: The Corruption of the American Republic, by David Frum. (HarperCollins, $25.99.) Frum argues that the Trump presidency is not only about Donald Trump but also about the deeper structural problems of America in general, and conservative America in particular. He thinks that what the country faces is nothing less than a threat to the democratic order. THE YEARS, MONTHS, DAYS, by Yan Lianke. Translated by Carlos Rojas. (Black Cat, paper, $16.) A pair of novellas in which the noted Chinese novelist (and frequent target of government censorship) paints a darkly satirical portrait of stranded characters adrift in a depraved society. BIRDING WITHOUT BORDERS: An Obsession, a Quest and the Biggest Year in the World, by Noah Strycker. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $27.) Follow one young birder as he spends an entire year traveling the world to see as many species of birds as he can - a number that ends up being a record-breaking 6,042. JEFFERSON'S DAUGHTERS: Three Sisters, White and Black, in a Young America, by Catherine Kerrison. (Ballantine, $28.) Kerrison follows the lives of the third president's three daughters, including Harriet Hernings, born to his slave Sally Hernings. GORILLA AND THE BIRD: A Memoir of Madness and a Mother's Love, by Zack McDermott. (Little, Brown, $27.) McDermott spent years battling bipolar disorder with the support of his Midwestern mother, who didn't quit even when he was in a psych ward. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [January 6, 2019]

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Review by Booklist Review

With a nod to Tennessee Williams, Strycker did indeed depend upon the kindness of strangers when he planned his ambitious year of crisscrossing the globe in order to see half the world's birds in 365 days. Through emails and listserv messages, Strycker created a network of local guides who could help him hit the ground running no matter where he landed, cavort up mountain tops and hack through rainforests to capture a fleeting glimpse of species found only in that place at that time. His trek began on January 1, 2015, with spotting the Cape petrel in Antarctica and ended with the silver-breasted broadbill in India's Assam province a year later. In the course of seeing 6,042 birds, far surpassing his goal of 5,000, Strycker traveled from Australia to Argentina, China to Cameroon, Peru to the Philippines, carrying only his backpack, binoculars, and the merest essentials. With ecotourism becoming increasingly popular, especially among birding enthusiasts, Strycker's straight-ahead tale of his big year will appeal to like-minded devotees and inspire armchair adventurers.--Haggas, Carol Copyright 2017 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Strycker (The Thing with Feathers), a birder and adventurer, chronicles the record-setting year he spent trekking the globe, succeeding in his aim "to see 5,000 species of birds-about half the birds on Earth-in the ultimate round-the-world journey." He begins in Antarctica on Jan. 1, 2015, and ends on December 31 in Australia, traveling to every continent and spotting more than 6,000 species. Strycker traces his lifelong interest in ornithology to his Pacific Northwest childhood and a fortuitous set of bird-related events that took place in his life at age 10. In this volume Strycker tracks what he saw during his "big year" and describes his planning process and the ground rules he established. Every bird he counted, for example, would need to be "seen by at least one other person." His companions had to be local, too, "living in the same country where we went birding together." This would prevent loneliness on his solo trip and help to give him the inside scoop. Even readers who wouldn't know a marvellous spatuletail from a southern ground hornbill will be awed by Strycker's achievement and appreciate the passion with which he pursues his interest. Photos. Agent: Russell Galen, Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

In 2015, Strycker traveled to 41 countries and seven continents, setting a record of viewing 6,042 bird species in one year, while surpassing the old mark of 4,341 and his personal goal of 5,000. This compelling account of his epic quest is a tribute to the author's thorough planning, record-keeping, and personal endurance-showing that this accomplishment was more than a personal stunt. The narrative is full of humor, descriptions of places, and encounters with unforgettable individuals. While in the field every day, Strycker maintained a blog and kept in communication with family and friends. Relying solely on numerous in-country birding guides, the author took 112 plane flights, covering 100,514 miles, along with multiple other modes of travel. His varied journeys were fraught with discomfort, danger, and uncertainty, but there were triumphs and achievement as well. Strycker is an excellent writer and provides a comprehensive analysis of his trips' results, though the book would have been improved with a map of his routes. -VERDICT Highly recommended for anyone interested in travel, natural history, and adventure.-Henry T. -Armistead, formerly with Free Lib. of Philadelphia © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Discovering the universal nature of humanity's kindness while pursuing a birding world record.In 2015, Birding magazine associate editor Strycker (The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human, 2015, etc.) set a goal to see half of the world's bird species in one year. Though his journey took him to all seven continents and over 40 countriesand he eventually clocked in at 6,042 species sighted, surpassing the 5,000 he aimed for when he set outthe author's travelogue focuses less on the counts than on the moments that made up his remarkable journey. He discusses the evolution and historical context of ornithology and birding, noting that it moved from a process of taming the wilderness through discovering, collecting, and categorizing to a way to rediscover nature "at a time when significant chunks of society rarely venture outdoors." Through his knowledgeable viewpoint, Strycker celebrates the creatures he followed, avian and human alike. With impressive attention to detail and a sharp eye, he conveys a sense of optimism even as he notes the ecological challenges faced not only by birds, but also by the other animals that occupy different habitats. If anything, cynics might struggle to believe in the spate of generosity embodied in the global village of birders as seen through the author's eyes. Nonetheless, Strycker's description of a year "expanded to its maximum potential" will inspire readers to explore the world, "from the tiniest detail to the biggest panorama." In the appendix section, the author includes a list of his gear, a "Big Year Snapshot," which lists the total days in each country and number of birds sighted, among other data, and a 50-page list of each of the birds he saw and when and where he saw them. Colorful but unassumingand unexpectedlessons for living life fully, presented from a birder's-eye view. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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1 End of the World   On New Year's Day, superstitious birdwatchers like to say, the very first bird you see is an omen for the future. This is a twist on the traditional Chinese zodiac ​ --  ​which assigns each year to an animal, like the Year of the Dragon, or Rat ​ --  ​and it's amazingly reliable. One year, I woke up on January 1, glanced outside, and saw a Black-capped Chickadee, a nice, friendly creature that everybody likes. That was a fantastic year. The next New Year, my first bird was a European Starling, a despised North American invader that poops on parked cars and habitually kills baby bluebirds just because it can. Compared to the Year of the Chickadee, the Year of the Starling was pretty much a write-off. So it was with some anxiety that on January 1, 2015, I looked around to see which bird would set the tone for the next 365 days. I already knew this would be no ordinary year: I'd just quit my only regular job, broken up with my girlfriend, spent most of my savings, and then, cramming all my possessions into a small backpack, made my way literally to the end of the Earth. Now, at the stroke of midnight, on top of a Russian ship in the frozen reaches of Antarctica, with a bottle of champagne in both hands and binoculars dangling around my neck, I was in a hot tub with a Scottish historian, a penguin researcher, and a geologist. What bird could possibly tell where all of this was heading? With any luck, it would be a penguin. I'd gone to great lengths to engineer this New Year celebration just so that, right after the obligatory countdown and toast, 2015 could be declared the Year of the Penguin ​ --  ​which, karmically speaking, couldn't possibly go wrong. In the previous week, I'd spent a lonely Christmas night on the floor of the Los Angeles airport, traveled from the United States to the southern tip of Argentina, caught this ship, sailed across the tumultuous Drake Passage, and positioned myself for this moment, this pivotal moment when fate would set in motion the biggest year of my life, and possibly of international birdwatching history. The goal was simple: in the next twelve months, I hoped to see 5,000 species of birds ​ --  ​about half the birds on Earth ​ --  ​in the ultimate round-the-world journey. After leaving Antarctica, I'd spend the next four months in South America, then migrate north through Central America, the Caribbean, and Mexico, reaching the United States in May. If things went well, I'd fly over to Europe, do a big U-turn through Africa, bounce around the Middle East, zigzag across most of Asia, and island-hop Down Under to ring in the following New Year. While the Earth completed one full orbit of the sun, I would visit forty countries with no days off. Nobody had ever attempted such a trip, and bird-brained experts argued about whether it was even possible to spot 5,000 species in one calendar year. By the end, the journey would surpass even my own wildest dreams. But for now, all I knew was that the clock started ticking at midnight. * * * The world's most frequent fliers don't have platinum status, free upgrades, or even passports. Every hour, millions of these undocumented immigrants pour across major political borders, and nobody thinks of building walls to keep them out. It would be impossible to anyway. Birds are true global citizens, free to come and go as they please. A few years ago, two British scientists tackled the question of how many individual birds are living on Earth ​ --  ​a sort of global avian census ​ --  ​and calculated that, at any given moment, between 200 and 400 billion feathered friends share this planet with us. That works out to something like forty birds for every human, spread from here to Timbuktu. Birds occupy almost every conceivable niche of our world, from the wild Amazon in South America to the heart of the Bronx in New York City. Even places that seem lifeless lie within their reach: intrepid birds have been recorded at the South Pole, winging over the summit of Mount Everest, and soaring across the open ocean hundreds of miles from land. As of 2015, 10,365 bird species had been identified on planet Earth, a number that only begins to hint at their sheer diversity. The smallest, the Bee Hummingbird of Cuba, could perch comfortably on the toenail of the largest, the Ostrich. Birding is a state of mind more than anything else, which makes it hard to define. Roger Tory Peterson, generally considered the father of modern birdwatching, once observed that birds are many things to many people: a science, an art, a sport. They can even, as Peterson's friend James Fisher added with a wink, "be a bore, if you are a bore." It's a tough activity to pigeonhole, though many have tried; birding is hunting, collecting, and gambling rolled into one. Nobody can decide whether birdwatching constitutes an addiction, a release, or just a game played by khaki-clad eco-nerds. My own interest in birds was sparked innocently enough at the age of ten, when my fifth-grade teacher suction-cupped a clear plastic bird feeder to our classroom window. That same year, my dad helped me build bluebird houses and took me to a birdwatching festival in eastern Oregon. Pretty soon I was dragging home rotting deer carcasses to attract and photograph Turkey Vultures, then deferring college to go study bird nests in Panama, then eschewing a nine-to-five job entirely, introducing myself as a "bird man" whenever anyone asked. From the beginning, the pursuit gave me a sense of purpose. By watching the skies, I began to see the world in different and unfamiliar ways, letting curiosity lead me to new places. By my mid-twenties, I'd spent more than a year and a half occupying tents in various remote corners of the world, in between avian research projects and expeditions, and accepted that there was no going back. I also had a growing, slightly uneasy sense that even if I kept it up for the rest of my life, there were just too many birds and too little time. The feeling of urgency seems to be everywhere. Psychologists call it FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), conservationists call it habitat loss, and Hollywood directors call it The Apocalypse. In terms of connecting with the outdoors, we live at an interesting moment. A hundred years ago, people watched birds in hopes of finding new species, but the golden age of ornithological discovery has mostly passed; virtually all birds are now thoroughly, scientifically described, and tucked away as musty specimens in museum collections. Today, people are drawn to birding for the exact opposite reason: to rediscover and celebrate nature at a time when significant chunks of society rarely venture outdoors. It's poignant that, just as record numbers of people are paying attention, the birds themselves have never faced a more uncertain future. This planet is being cleared, flattened, tilled, drilled, paved, and developed at an unprecedented rate. What that means for birds, humans, and the rest of the world is unclear. As easy as it is to get discouraged, birders are a particularly optimistic, action-oriented group. They know that you won't see much if you stare at the wall all day. They also know that some experiences can't be duplicated digitally. There is a special joy in watching an actual Scarlet Tanager instead of looking at a virtual red bird, however spectacular, on a phone screen. And by setting their sights on the freest creatures in the world, birders have a unique perspective about how their subjects stitch together even the farthest parts of our globe. Birds teach us that borders are just lines drawn on a map ​ --  ​a lesson we can all take to heart. As my thirtieth birthday loomed, a grand plan emerged: to travel the planet, meet its most passionate birders, perhaps set a fun record, and take a unique snapshot of Earth, all in one swoop. I set out to see the world, one bird at a time. Excerpted from Birding Without Borders: An Obsession, a Quest, and the Biggest Year in the World by Noah Strycker All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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