Birding Without Borders: An Obsession, a Quest, and the Biggest Year in the World

There are 10,000 species of birds in the world. Noah Strycker set himself a goal: to be the first person to see half of them in one year. Armed with a backpack, binoculars, and a series of one-way tickets, his journey takes him to 41 countries and all seven continents in the greatest adventure in the birding world.

It was never going to be easy: Noah encounters blood-sucking leeches, chronic sleep deprivation, floods, war zones, and ecological devastation. But there are also conservation triumphs, a colourful cast of fellow birders, and the sheer joy of encountering a magnificent species by being in the right place at the right time.

Birding Without Borders is a celebration of birdwatching, a call to adventure, and a lesson in living life to the full: if you keep your eyes open, you never know what you might see.