In May 2001, we will attempt to set a record for the most number of bird species seen in one calendar month. We will visit 9 countries and log over 50000 miles in the air and another several thousand on the ground. We should identify somewhere between 1600 and 2000 species in over 160 families, depending on our luck and persistence.

As far as we can tell, this has never been attempted before. “Big Days” are common, and many birders keep year lists, but for some reason there is a lack of one month records.  We have asked many people and so far the largest one month total we have heard of is around 1100, which seems a little low. Without too much sweat, you should be able to get to 1300, but after that it gets exponentially harder.
 
 

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June 20, 2001:
FINAL UNOFFICIAL TOTAL: 1674 SPECIES IN ONE MONTH

We still have to go through the list carefully making sure we didn't omit anything or make any mistakes. We've kept good records throughout, so the final total will probably be within 1-3 species of the unofficial total.

The trip is finally over, and while we didn't come very close to 2000, we can't call it a failure. It is still a world record after all! People might criticize us on the route we took, but it is more complicated than you might realize. Unless you can afford to pay an absolute fortune on airfares (we couldn't and didn't), you are very limited on the places you can go and the flights you can take. The entire trip, including airfares, cost around US$5000 each, and it will be difficult to beat our total spending less than that. Also, May isn't the ideal month to do it, but it's the only month we had available since it is the low season in Ecuador.

We were VERY lucky in 2 respects: First, we had ZERO cancelled or delayed flights, which is pretty unbeleivable considering how much flying we did. Second, the weather was almost PERFECT for the entire month. The day in Sydney was the worst weather, and that only cost us a few species. We had some rain in Ecuador (you can't avoid it), but nothing that really badly affected the birding. Even with a perfect itinerary, if you have a couple flight cancellations or a few rainouts you will lose loads of birds.

It will be interesting to see if anyone tries to beat us. I hope some intrepid birders try. After all, what is the point of setting a record if no one wants to try to beat it? Good luck to any takers!

DAYS 29-31: New South Wales, Australia: Down to the last few days. There  weren't many birds left for us to see, and unless we did something crazy like fly to India we weren't going to get really high numbers. We didn't have the cash or the inclination to do that,
so we had to make the best of the situation. David Siems, an old friend of Iain's, met us at the airport and helped us out during the last few days by doing most of the driving and by having previously gathered a lot of information to help determine which sites to visit. We started in Sydney, fighting rain during the first morning
in Royale National Park (Superb Lyrebird!), then hitting various sites in the city for coastal birds like Pied Oystercatcher and Australian Gannet.

The remaining few days we spent on the other side of the mountains in central New South Wales. Every bird was a struggle, but since the numbers weren't very high, we could at least enjoy the birds that we were seeing, with terrific views of some specialties like Rock Warbler, Glossy Black and Major Mitchell's Cockatoos, Shy Hylacola, Freckled and Pink-eared Ducks, and a score of honeyeaters.

We added only 106 new species during this period, to put us at 1674. For Australia we had 268 new species out of 292 total in about a week, way below our (unrealistic) expectation. Australia had the same problems as Argentina. The birds are spread out over too large an area, so it takes too long to get to them. Also, during this time of year not many birds are breeding, so they aren't calling, and many species have migrated.

Days 25-28: NE Queensland, Australia: Australian Quarantine officials had a field day with us as they went over everything we carried with a fine-tooth comb. But then, they don't often get people who have been to 8 countries in the previous 3 weeks... Once we finally got out of the Cairns airport, we headed for the Esplanade and did well on the waders, getting Far Eastern Curlew, Terek Sandpiper, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, and a few others we had missed in Europe and Africa.

We spent the heat of the day on a trip out to Green Island, where we had hoped to get a lot of seabirds that you can't get from shore, but this turned out to be a mistake, as we only got a couple of terns and Brown Booby. After spending dusk near some mangroves we headed north to spend the night at Kingfisher Park. The next two days we covered a lot of ground, birding upland rainforest, dry eucalypt woodlands, riverine forest, and a few wetlands. Unfortunately the going was very slow. We were getting the birds, but not as fast as we needed to keep up the pace. Not much was calling, and the nightbirding was terrible. Apart from Lesser Sooty and Barn Owls, we heard nothing. On the evening of the 27th, we headed to Mission Beach to spend the night, and spent the next morning in lowland rainforest.  We got lucky when 2 juvenile Cassowaries waltzed through a clearing, but the birding was again depressingly slow. After the early morning hours it was
dead everywhere we went, and out of desperation we changed our flight to Sydney to this afternoon, hoping to do better down there. At least on the way back to the airport we had a productive one-hour stop at the Cairns Crocodile Farm, with White-browed Crake and Lewin's Rail being the highlights.

We gained only 162 new species in about 3 and a quarter days in Queensland, much less than anticipated. That puts us at 1568 with only a few days to go.

Days 22-24: Malaysia:  After a LONG flight from Johannesburg to Kuala Lumpur via Hong Kong, we finally arrived in Malaysia, ready to take on a new continent and hopefully lots of new birds. We only had about 48 hours birding time here, so we had to pack a lot into our visit. Oii Chin Hock and his friend Lao were kind enough to take us to all the sites, and we did fairly well. First stop was Kuala Selangor, with lowland secondary forest and mangroves for kingfishers, bee-eaters, sunbirds, etc., then a quick jaunt through a rice paddy at dusk for Yellow and Cinnamon Bitterns, Baya Weaver, and a few more. After that we
drove through the evening to Fraser's Hill to catch a couple hours of sleep.

The next day and the following morning we scoured Fraser's Hill and The Gap, doing especially well with the babblers but not so well on the nightbirds.  We had a couple of stunning broadbills, and distant but good views of Rhinoceros and Helmeted Hornbills. On the way back to the airport we stopped at one more site where there was a spectacular pair of Blythe's Hawk-Eagles, a couple of Red-headed Trogons, and we got lucky with a Rusty-naped Pitta calling, though didn't have the time to try to see it.

We had 165 species in Malaysia, 156 of which were new for the month,
bringing our trip total to 1406.

Day 21:    Always a troublesome day, the only birding was going to be 2-3 hours in and around Joburg before we had to catch the flight to Malaysia. We made our way to Suikerbosrand Nature reserve. Highlights were both Orange River and Greywinged Francolins and finally, we heard a Crested Barbet calling. Surely no twitchers have managed over 350 species in the region without seeing this species? It was a welcome deletion to the bogey list. Overall, we saw 380 species, with Keith getting an extra 14 that we were not able to get on to, and 350 additional birds on the world list, which now stands at 1250.

Days 19&20:   After arriving in the late morning, Keith's hunch that the recent rains would have the birds pumping was dead on, and this made up for much of what we missed in Natal. Becasue we had only 1 and a half days here, we did not expect time for anything other than the Waterberg National Park. But after arriving there at 16h30 in the afternoon we had racked up over 90% of the specials in an hour and realised that an extra morning here would be a waste. We had to make a plan.  The result was a rushed dinner at the park restaurant pouring over maps an checklists, deciding where to head; half an hours nightbirding produced a nightjar and five owls before jumping into the car for the evening drive to Etosha.We knew Etosha was an insane addition to the plan, as well as being a bit of a gamble as it resulted in a five hour haul back to Windhoek in the middle of the day, but within 2 and a half hours it was apparent we had made the right decision, adding Sandgrouse, vultures, larks and a host of other passerines to the list before high-tailing it to Windhoek. We almost had to drive past Nick's lifer Elephant, as time was tight, but were able to give him a couple of minutes with the gentle giant before heading bak to the airport for our return flight to Joburg.

Days  17 & 18:  The Western Cape went very well and we managed almost all the endemic specials of the Cape and Karoo region in little over a day, before heading to Natal.  The coastal forests of Mtunzini and St Lucia were active, which looked good for the woodlands, but unfortunately, Mkuze was uncharacteristically slow, and in an area where we had bet our bottom dollar on racking up a long list, we really struggled, and even dead-cert birds such as Yellowbilled Hornbill and Grey Go-away bird were just not there.  In fact, this was some of the slowest birding of the trip, and we left for Joberg and Namibia a little dissapointed.

Day 16: South Africa

After 16 days Iain and Nick have broken the one month record of 1080 species.  By now they have a  total of 1092.

South Africa is going really well!!!!!

They will be in Mkuze for the next two days and after that they will be heading to Namibia

Days 12 and 13:  Spain and The Netherlands

We arrived into Madrid tired, disappointed, and lacking much enthusiasm.  This didn't last long though, as we had 2 Great Bustards flying across the road 40 minutes after touchdown. So we sank some Cokes and got into it.   Although we had to be back at the airport at 4pm, and we had lost our notes for Madrid, we had a fun day driving randomly around the steppes East of the City, and saw some some really cool birds, including Little Bustards, Bee-eaters, Montague's Harrier and lots of other goodies we won't get elsewhere.

We hopped off the plane to Amsterdam and were immediately met by an incredibly enthusiastic friend, Pierre, who took us speeding through the night so we could nab Tawny Owl and Long-eared Owl before hitting the sack at 1:30am.  Today was just a fantastic birding day, with a reasonable migration for raptors and seabirds.

Despite not getting into some decent woodland because we only had just over half a day, we managed to get 90 new species. For the very short time we had in Europe, we got 145 species added to the list.

We leave now for South Africa feeling revitalized and looking forward to nailing A LOT with Keith Barnes. The list after Day 13, after a complete audit, stands at 898.

Day 9-11:  Argentina

We arrived into Argentina late on the 8th and met up with Mark  Pearman. We set off for a tiring 8 hour drive into Corrientes province where we birded the next day. We had some great birds like Yellow Cardinal and Strange-tailed Tyrant but not high numbers for a completely new area. 80 new species today.

After sleeping in the car we got up early and drove to Entre Rios. This day was an absolute disaster. Birding was very slow and we used most of the  day driving between sights. We  managed only 23 species getting huge overlap with the previous day. On the 3rd day, we had very little time, because we had to get to the airport by noon. We only visited 2 sights and picked up a few species like Diademed Tanager.

Argentina turned out to be an even bigger mistake than Chile and we expected far more than we actually got. We know now that you just shouldn't go to the Southern Cone to get decent amounts of species in a short time. The birds are just spread out over too large an area, and you can't get to the sites even with all-night drives.

The biggest lesson is that you just cannot go into an area blind, having no previous experience, in a trip like this. We had 125 new birds in Argentina to bring the total to 754.

Day 8:    This day was basically a disaster. We almost got the car stuck in a ditch at dawn, lost some important notes, and when it finally did get light the birds just didn't cooperate. Not much was singing, hardly anything was moving. Depressed, we headed down to the coast and had similar luck in a few sites near Con Con before finally getting a bunch of seabirds near the point. Humboldt Penguin and Inca Tern were the highlights, but also Red-legged Cormorants, Guanay Cormorants, and Chilean Seaside Cinclodes on the shore. We were out of time though and had to head back to the airport where we wrote this message. Chile was definitely a mistake. We knew the numbers wouldn't be very high, but they were less even than our pessimistic estimate. With the 25 species added today, we got only 68 in Chile, 32 under our estimate of 100.  We definitely hope for better luck in Argentina.

Total after 8 days: 627 species. Still 27 species above the twitchagraph, but we overestimated Argentina and might lose that cushion soon... Lets hope the European birds are cooperating and we rack up large numbers in the Netherlands.

Day 7:    We had a good start to the day with a Magellanic Horned Owl south of Punta Arenas, but things quickly slowed down to a near standstill. There simply aren't many birds in this part of the world, and even less in winter. The seabirding wasn't good either, probably because of the dead calm wind. The day may have been a disaster for numbers, but we did luck out with an incredible pair of Magellanic Woodpeckers and some Magellanic Penguins. We caught an afternoon flight to Santiago and drove to La Campana national park where we heard a Rufous-legged Owl before going to sleep in the car. Only 15 new species for the day, by far the worst yet.

Day 6:    This was mostly a travel day as we didn't arrive into Punta Arenas until noon. Punta Arenas is at 53 degrees South Latitude and May is NOT the best time to be going here. Fortunately, the weather was actually quite pleasant with hardly any wind. Loads of Lesser Rheas were the highlight here, but numbers weren't high. We managed 28 species this afternoon before collapsing into a hotel for a much needed long night of sleep.

DAY 5:    We managed to get to a terminal before catching the flight from Ecuador to Chile. So far we have had 5 days of AMAZING luck on the twitch. The day
around Tandayapa started slowly because we were washed out, but we managed to add 112 species to the list, and with an 84 species day today around the lower west slope of the Andes, we managed to beat our (almost unrealistic) target of 500 by 59 species.

Besides having most of the stakeouts, we creamed today because Paul Coopmans and Jonas Neilson pitched up at the hotel last night, wanting in on the days birding. With us going absolutly non stop, there was not too much that escaped us, except we did poorly on the woodpeckers, and missed two absolute dead certs.

Normally you either have to be blind or dead to dip on the Masked Water-tyrant around Pedro or the White-winged Brush-finch around Tandayapa. Where we made up the numbers yesterday was at the hummer feeders. In 15 minutes at the Tandayapa Bird Lodge feeders we nailed 13 species, then racked up two more up the hill at Bellavista, the Velvet-Purple Coronet at Mindo Lindo, and then three more in Mindo.

Besides doing crazy hours and not getting any sleep, we are fine and looking forward to sleeping on the plane tonight.
 

DAY 4:    Iain and Nick did very well in the Tandayapa area despite the rain.  The went along the the Old Nono-Mindo road, visited Mindo Lindo and finished the day around Mindo town.

Birds for the day 115 species, total number of species  475.
 

DAY 3:    After the exceptional days at Sacha, (264 species) we woke on the Loreto Road on the lower East Slope expecting the     luck to continue. It did not.

The morning was dreadfully slow, with no flocks.  After a few hours that seemed like days, we headed up slope, where the rain started, however we did get crippling views of the Amazonian Umbrellabird from the side of the road.

We arrived at San Isidro at 12:30 where things picked up the moment we arrived, with a large flock welcoming us.

From there we went to Guango Lodge finishing with a huge bang at Papallacta, needing to spotlight species to keep birding until 6:30.

New birds for the day 96 species, bringing the 3 day list to 360.
 

DAY 2:   264 Species at the Ecuadorian Amazon (Sacha Lodge)
 
 

May 1 – May 5, Ecuador
 

Toucan Barbet: a near-threatened Choco endemic that we will see because it is now calling at Tandayapa

During this section we will be joined by Robert Jonsson who is trying to set a one-week record for Ecuador. We start in the Amazon basin with a day and a half at Sacha Lodge. The first few minutes will be owling and getting to the night roosts of some of the harder diurnal species. Daytime birding will begin in the canopy tower, and the afternoon will be spent on the trails around the lodge. The next morning we will cross the river and hit the antswarms before being met by the boat at 1pm. Amazon birding is hard, but with the help of David and Oscar, friends currently working as guides in Sacha, we will hopefully score well here. We catch a boat back to Coca, then on the third day we bird all the way up the Andes from the lower Loreto Road towards Papallacta Pass, then drive overnight to Tandayapa Bird Lodge, where we might catch a few hours of sleep.

On the fourth day we spend the morning around Tandayapa (hopefully cleaning up on the hummers) and the afternoon down closer to Mindo. The good news here is that after a few months of rather subdued activity at the feeders, they have picked up like you cannot believe in the last week, and we should score about 16 without even paying attention to them.

We'll spend the fifth and final day in Ecuador in the Choco lowlands, birding mainly around what remains of the forests of the Pedro Vicente Maldonado and Silanche sites and then the foothill forest around Los Bancos. We will finish here, and although we have to leave Los Bancos at 6pm, the Ochre-breasted tanagers should have started calling before we leave for Quito to catch a late flight to Santiago.
Expected species: 450-530
 

May 6 – May 8, Chile
We have to fly through Santiago to get to Buenos Aires, so we decided to have a day here. Then we couldn't resist throwing in a day trip to Punta Arenas in the far south of Chile… It didn't add anything to the price of the ticket, and who knows when we will get another chance to go there. The numbers here won't be high, but the birds will be mostly lifers, so it should be a blast if we don't freeze to death! In Santiago we'll drive through the night to be at Cerro La Campana National Park predawn, and should score a Rufous-legged Owl and a bunch of near endemic tapaculos. Then we scream down to the coast for the seabirds, waterbirds, and some specialities like Chilean Seaside Cinclodes. We have to be back to Santiago for an evening flight to Buenos Aires.
Expected new species in Chile: 60-130
 

May 9 – May 11, Argentina

We meet up with Mark Pearman who is going to accompany us for the Argentina section of the trip. Not really knowing Argentina, we asked Mark for some suggestions, and judging from what he has come up with, he is very much on the same wavelength…..Hectic.
 

We get into into Buenos Aires mid evening, and drive like crazy through the night to Esteros de Ibera. We will bird all the following day there and then again drive overnight to the South-eastern Entre Rios Province. The next day will be birding this area and staying in a hotel nearby, where we can clean up a bit. The next day will be a mornings birding the Parana Delta before collapsing onto our plane to Europe.  The birding will be mainly savanna grassland and marshes, Acacia and Prosopis woodland, and some gallery forest in that order. Expected new species: 200-220

Chalk-browed Mockingbird- A fairly easy species in Argentina, and almost a dead cert for the twitch

 
 

May 12, Spain
We have a direct night flight from Buenos Aires to Madrid. We've got less than a day here but plan to make the most of it, looking for species we won't be seeing in the Netherlands. That means hitting the savannah area east of Madrid for bustards, sandgrouse, and raptors, then spend time in some gallery forest for the passerines and waterbirds.

May 13, The Netherlands
You might not think of The Netherlands as a top birding spot in the world, but this could easily be our highest one day total for the trip! Iain’s friend Pierre Van der Wielen is doing a day with us that should get us well over 100 new species. Unfortunately we have to cut the day short to get to the airport for our flight to South Africa. So we have to start owling as soon as we get off the plane, and keep going for 20 hours. The plan is to start of with dawn marsh birding, then head to the dunes, spend the late morning in woodland, and then hit the marshlands again close to the airport.

Expected new species in Spain and the Netherlands: 120-180
 
 

May 14 – May 21, Southern Africa
 

Black-collared Barbet- It is going to be fun to compare species suchas this with their Neotropical cousins only days apart.

This part is going to be a blast,  if we can stay awake. Keith Barnes, a bird guide in Africa and Asia and a friend of Iain’s for way too long for their own good, will be joining us for this part. We have an itinerary planned that makes us tired just thinking about it. 2 days cleaning up around Cape Town then a night flight to Durban, followed by a 5 day marathon of the north of the country.  STOP PRESS- With only a few days before we start the twitch, Keith and Iain had a discussion where it was found that the 7 1/2 day twitch around South Africa could actually be undertaken in 6 days if sleep was avoided completely. The result is that we are now going to fly to Namibia for a day and a half to try and rack up another 80-100 species.  Expected new species in Southern Africa: 400-500

 

May 22 – May 24, Malaysia
We waste A LOT of time on a long flight to Kuala Lumpur, but hopefully we can make it up over the next few days. Oi Chin Hock, a noted local guide, will be helping us here. He will grab us at the airport and then head for Kuala Selangor, before continuing to Frasiers Hill where we will try to get some sleep. All of the next day we bird Frasier’s Hill. The next morning will be at The Gap and maybe stopping at Templer Park on the way back to the airport. This place REALLY deserves more time than this, but we were stuck with this timeframe because of flights.

Expected new species in Malaysia: 160-250
 
 

May 25 – May 31, Australia
Iain grew up here, so hopefully he remembers most of the birds! We fly right in to Cairns and spend 4 days in Queensland, which has the highest bird diversity of all the Australian states and then to Sydney.

The basic plan is to get into Cairns at 8.30 am, pick up a car and head to the Esplanade for some easy ticks before getting on a reef boat for the afternoon trying for the sea birds. The boat gets back at 5pm, so we can scream down to the crocodile farm for dusk.
 

After dark we head west to Georgetown, which is about 850 kms and a very long overnight drive. We plan to bird the dam area just west of town, and the dry scrub, dotted with termite mounds. Here we will pick up LOADS in the first few hours. During the middle of the day, we start to head east very slowly, stopping along the way.  The next two days are concentrating on the southern Atherton Tableland and around Kingfisher Park near Mt Lewis. In the middle of the day it may be worth heading to Hasties Swamp, depending on what we dipped on at other wetlands.

We finish with a little lowland birding close to Cairns before flying to Sydney, arriving at 8pm. We are linking up with an old friend of Iain, David Siems. We will try and get some sleep before birding the Royal in the morning, starting at Curra Moors, heating to Wattamolla for some quick seabirds, and then back to Lady Carrington Drive for some species such as the Superb Lyrebird. We will continue through Cumberland, and finish the day around the lagoons in the Windsor Area.
 

An overnight drive will bring us to Glen Davis where we will spend the next day, racking up lots of the semi-coastal birds before the LONG drive west.

LAST DAY, and we will wake at Round Hill Nature Reserve, where most of the species seen will be new. With a lot of luck we will get lots of the passerines needed, before driving slowly east to Lake Cargelligo to finish the month getting the inland wetland species.

Expected new species in Australia: 370-450

For those who will try to beat us, and if people do not try soon, we will be somewhat disappointed, here are the rules that we will follow. After serious discussion, we decided that we will count heard birds for the month list. Our final total will be the total number of birds seen and heard during the count period.

The count period will be exactly one calendar month, starting at 12:00 AM on May 1st and ending at 11:59:59 PM on May 31st. These times will be measured based on the time zone in which the trip begins. In our case, we begin in Ecuador (GMT –5) and end in eastern Australia (GMT +10), therefore our count period will end at 2:59:59 PM local time on June 1, since it will be 11:59:59 PM on May 31st in Ecuador.

A species will be counted as seen only if both of us see the bird AND at least one of us identifies it with 100% certainty. We will not count a bird if someone traveling with us at the time identifies the bird and we are not able to verify the identification based on our own observations.

A species will be counted as heard only if both of us hear the bird AND at least one of us can identify the call with 100% certainty based on his own experience or if we can verify the call by listening to a reference recording

Important point. We will not count species that are identified by someone we happen to be traveling with unless we can independently verify the identification from the features we see on the bird, or in the case of heard birds, we can play a recording of the species and verify on our own the identify of the calling bird. This could severely limit the amount of heard birds counted in some localities, but this is the only way we can defend any record to anyone wishing to query it.

We will show our lists for each area to a local expert who will check our list for (hopefully very few) questionable sightings. Any doubtful sightings that we cannot substantiate will be deleted from our list. If in the end, the local judge is not satisfied, the bird does not get counted.
 
 

Ok, for those who wish to do this, we can give you some words before we undertake the twitch.

Flights. The cost is NOT the airfares if you are Australian or South African, however if you are from the States or Europe, you are going to pay a FORTUNE!!. We tried almost non-stop for three weeks to work on an itinerary. Most of the American agencies (and we contacted a lot of them) did not even respond and the British quotes were astronomical. The highest quote we had for the airfares was $8900. Also forget the internet, because unless the trip is very straight forward, they just cannot come up with a ticket. As sad as it was, by far the cheapest way to do it was to fly to Australia from Ecuador on the first half of a return ticket (US$1800), then buy the around the world ticket in Australia (US$1900) and fly back to Ecuador on the first portion of this RTW ticket. The little twitch starts in Ecuador and finishes in Australia, so after the twitch is over, we return to Quito on the return portion of the original ticket. Confused? We don't blame you.

Night-flights maximise birding time but are often hard to organise. On the cheap tickets that we have, there are some horrible connections such as the South Africa- Malaysia flight which takes us all the way over to Hong Kong before returning to Kuala Lumpur. At least we have 2 hours in Hong Kong to stare at gulls for a while - or maybe we would be better off sleeping.

Programme. The route that we have chosen is questionable to many people. The fact that we did not include North America is a function of flight schedules, and the cost of the RTW flights that include North America. Being May, will have forgone all the Neartic migrants and endemics. Other points include the birding of Southern Africa rather than East Africa, and the exclusion of India. While the numbers would have been higher in East Africa, the risk of serious delays would have been too high. After working in underdeveloped countries in Africa for three years, Iain absolutely refused to risk the whole trip through problems that would almost certainly arise through flight delays or cancellations or car hire problems or hassles with police or more than likely, a combination of at least two of these. India could have presented the same hassles, so we decided to do Malaysia instead. The choice between the two was a hard one, and the deciding factors were the flight scheduals/reliability and the numbers of new birds in close proximity to the main airports. Sri Lanka could have been a great compromise, if the flights had have worked better.

A best case scenario for replacing Chile with Texas, replacing Southern Africa with Tanzania and replacing Malaysia with India, would be about $2000 added cost, possibly 250 more species, and almost certain problems with flight schedules. For those with the cash and guts to take the risk- We wish you well.

Birding. Have you ever tried to memorize 3600 species? Maybe if you have months of time with nothing else to do that is a possibility, but we have been so busy the last 2 months that it has been impossible to make even a good start. We are going to be cramming in airports like you wouldn't believe, and still looking many things up in the field guide. We will be seeing 100+ species a day in some places, and sometimes these will be completely new. Can you say overload? It is not going to be easy!

Books and gear. One of the biggest changes we have made is for Iain to leave the Marantz recording gear at home, and only to go with Nick's Mini-disk system. We have prerecorded most of the Amazon, Western Ecuador and Northern Australia onto mini-disk, so when a bird call is suspected, we can quickly reference the calls. The tapes just take TOO long to handle with such large numbers of species. In South Africa, Keith Barnes has sorted the calls into habitat type, so we can quickly get from species to species within the one area.
Because we are both only taking hand luggage on the trip, the books have been kept to a minimum, with relevant sections of site guides and larger texts being photocopied for ease of use. These will be discarded after use in the relevant areas.

Stats. The simple statistic that we are working on is 2000 species in a month, means that we need to average 65 new species every day. When we have taken flights, airport time and nighttime into account, we came up with a figure of a new species every nine and a half minutes of possible birding time.
 
 

Iain Campbell
Iain Campbell is an ex-geochemist, who after being sent to Ecuador to work on a gold exploration project in 1999, resigned and got some friends together to buy cloud forest and build the Tandayapa Bird Lodge. He now manages the lodge, and guides birding trip around Ecuador. After growing up birding in Australia and working in West Africa for three years, he has experience with many of the species expected on the twitch, though is hoping to see 390 new species to crack 4000.

Nick Athanas
Nick graduated in 1995 from Rice University in Houston with (for reasons he no longer quite understands) a degree in physics. He went into geophysics  because it offered a chance to travel. Over the next 5 years he spent time working in Venezuela and on survey ships in the Gulf of Mexico and Europe. During this period he became interested in birds, and went on many birding trips throughout the US and the Neotropics. He eventually quit his job and moved to Ecuador to work as a bird guide at Tandayapa Bird Lodge. He is one of the owners and leaders, for a new bird tour company that will start operating in 2002.