Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
In the USA, some 50 million people lay claim to being bird-watchers or 'birders', spending over $60 billion on birding-related travel each year and over $560 million on birding-related membership fees. And for a select - and utterly obsessed few - they compete in one of the world's quirkiest contests: the race to spot the most species in North America in a single year. And 1998 wasn't just a big year, it was the BIGGEST. . . THE BIG YEAR is Pulitzer Prize-winner Mark Obmascik's account of what was to become the greatest 'birding' year of all time (freak weather conditions ensured all previous records were broken) as experienced by three of the biggest, most obsessive hitters in the birding world. Levantin, retired vice President of a billion-dollar chemical conglomerate; and Sandy Komito, a New Jersey roofing contractor and holder of the Big Year bird-spotting record for 1987. Oh, and there's the Californian who, too infirm to go out into the field, participates in Big Sits - birdwatching on TV - his greatest fear is those competitors with satellite dishes. . . What becomes very clear through the pages of this classic portrait of obsession is that while our feathered friends may be the objective of the Big Year competition, it's the curious activities and behavioural patterns of the pursuing 'homo sapiens' that are the real cause for concern. It's a contest that reveals much of the human character in extremis - a tendency towards passion and deceit, fear and courage combined with that fundamental craving to see, conquer and categorize, no matter how low the stakes. extraordinary, eccentric triumvirate of obsessive 'birders' he empathises with and eventually succumbs to the all-consuming nature of their obsession. The result is a wonderfully entertaining, acutely observed lark of a read that is destined to rank alongside the best of Bill Bryson.
Includes index and bibliographical references.
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Reviews provided by Syndetics
Publishers Weekly Review
In one of the wackiest competitions around, every year hundreds of obsessed bird watchers participate in a contest known as the North American Big Year. Hoping to be the one to spot the most species during the course of the year, each birder spends 365 days racing around the continental U.S. and Canada compiling lists of birds, all for the glory of being recognized by the American Birding Association as the Big Year birding champion of North America. In this entertaining book, Obmascik, a journalist with the Denver Post, tells the stories of the three top contenders in the 1998 American Big Year: a wisecracking industrial roofing contractor from New Jersey who aims to break his previous record and win for a second time; a suave corporate chief executive from Colorado; and a 225-pound nuclear power plant software engineer from Maryland. Obmascik bases his story on post-competition interviews but writes so well that it sounds as if he had been there every step of the way. In a freewheeling style that moves around as fast as his subjects, the author follows each of the three birding fanatics as they travel thousands of miles in search of such hard-to-find species as the crested myna, the pink-footed goose and the fork-tailed flycatcher, spending thousands of dollars and braving rain, sleet, snowstorms, swamps, deserts, mosquitoes and garbage dumps in their attempts to outdo each other. By not revealing the outcome until the end of the book, Obmascik keeps the reader guessing in this fun account of a whirlwind pursuit of birding fame. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
There is a well-known competition among birders called the Big Year, in which one abandons one's regular life for one whole year in order to see more species of birds in a geographic area than one's competitors. Environmental journalist Obmascik follows the 1998 Big Year's three main competitors--a Newersey roofing contractor, a corporate executive, and a software engineer--as they crisscross the country in search of birds. Whether looking for flamingos in the Everglades, great grey owls in the frozen bogs near Duluth, or Asian rarities on the Aleutian island of Attu, these obsessed birders not only faced seasickness, insects, altitude sickness, and going into debt, they also faced each other. Their drive to win propelled all three past the rarified count of 700 species seen, and the winner saw an extraordinary 745 species--a number that will probably never be equaled. With a blend of humor and awe, Obmascik takes the reader into the heart of competitive birding, and in the process turns everyone into birders. --Nancy Bent Copyright 2004 Booklist
Kirkus Book Review
Bemused appreciation from Denver Post reporter Obmascik of a year-long quest to eyeball or hear as many bird breeds as possible in the US and Canada. The Big Year was 1998, the protagonists were Sandy Komito, a roofing contractor from New Jersey; Al Levantin, a well-heeled businessman; and Greg Miller, a software jock for a nuclear power plant. As enjoyably chronicled by Obmascik, all three went to punishing lengths to tally the highest number of bird species encountered for the year. It was a bit like The Great Race, except that here there would be no fraud or deceit: witnesses would be good, photos even better, but trust was imperative; there would even be instances of "honor among top birders: if one asked for help, the other provided it." Pocketbooks would be stretched, as would the limits of physical endurance, in mad dashes for vagrants, accidentals, and true freaks made public by rare-bird alerts. Sometimes a good sighting was just a matter of being in the right place, or of reaping the bounty served by El NiÑo, and chasing birds via air travel was certainly easier in those pre-9/11 days. The author, a bit of a birder himself, knows how to wring joy out of this birding bender; he vividly conveys the delight in identifying a white-throated robin, a clay-colored robin, a rufous-backed robin, a chachalacas ("that sounded as if Ethel Merman had swallowed a rusty trombone"), a yellow rail ("the Greta Garbo of the bird world"), or "the green microburst of energy called Xantus's hummingbird." Obmascik will light a tinderbox of bird lust in unsuspecting readers who have never given a thought to "Le Conte's thrasher, a notoriously elusive soil-digger of the saltbush desert." You'll gladly add this one to your own list--of surprisingly good books. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.