Several weeks ago we mentioned the world-wide Big Year effort of an American birder named Noah Strycker. In 2015, he saw 6,042 bird species, breaking the previous record by more than 1,500 species. He visited 41 countries in his quest, getting his last bird on the year's last day. His account of this is at

http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/stryckersummary/