big year

How do you become the greatest birder in the world? You have to win the Big Year. What's a Big Year? Here, I'll let this English guy tell you. Well into the 19th century, Americans celebrated Christmas Day with contests to kill the most birds in a single day. In 1900, Audubon Society ornithologist Frank Chapman suggested Americans should count them instead, leading eventually to the creation of the Big Year, a competition to see the greatest number of birds in North America in a calendar year.