A Big Year is an extreme birding event, certainly so this year in more than the usual way.
During a Big Year a person tries to identify as many bird species as possible in a defined geographic area within a defined time period. It's usually North America in a calendar year.
2016 is an extreme year for these extreme efforts. Big-time records are being set.
I recently read a book entitled "Lost Among the Birds" by a birder named Neil Hayward of Cambridge, Mass. It recounts his record Big Year, 2013, when he recorded 749 North American species. It's a pretty good book, his birding stories mixed with the tears of his sweetheart who cries whenever he leaves town on another bird quest, which is often.
The previous record was 748, set 18 years ago by a guy from New Jersey. Hollywood made a lousy movie of his adventures and those of two other men on the same journey. It was titled "The Big Year."
Hayward's 749 effort impressed me. His miles traveled, days away from home, hours on a boat, money spent — all were big numbers. Hayward worked at this deep into December that year.
Then, on Sept. 2, I read in The Washington Post a story about two birders who have buried Hayward's record, and did so by early August of this year. That's five months ahead of closing day. No one can guess what their final numbers will be.
Australian John Weigel, 60, had recorded 760 species in little more than half a year. He is closely followed by a 50-year-old man from South Dakota using the pseudonym Olaf Danielson, who has 759. Those are big, big numbers with months to go.