In Antarctica, Noah, boat cruise bird guide and associate editor of Birding magazine, hoped to start his year with a penguin but met a Cape Petrel first. The intrepid traveler next hit up South America's indigenous wildlife. The preparations he made might seem scanty, but worked: bird spotters and researchers went out of their way to find and assist him. They put him up in their homes, drove him around and hiked up the Andes. Noah says that the internet has spread knowledge of and communication about birds, as he can now search on websites and the eBird app, rather than trying to find a written record somewhere. By the seventeenth day, Noah had spotted 300 species, due to the aid of locals who knew where to go.

Travel wasn't always easy, despite extensive prearrangements and carbon offsets. Noah spent over $2,000 on visas and had more thousands in advance bookings stolen by fraud. He digresses to explain the history of birding and life lists or year lists, rewarding niche tourism industries with canopy walks and providing even more justification for keeping natural habitats pristine and un-logged or un-drained. Noah warns that developing countries have dangerous roads, causing deaths; among them Phoebe Snetsinger, the first person to see 8,000 bird species, who was killed in a road accident in Madagascar in 1999. Birders have been shot, abducted, caught diseases or, in happier cases, found lifelong partners.

My favourite scenes include the slog and wait to hope for a harpy eagle in Brazil. I recently read The Man Who Climbs Trees by James Aldred, who had to ascend to a harpy nest hundreds of feet in the air. But the manic chase around Peru to see the Black-Spectacled Brushfinch in a high altitude cloud forest and the Golden-Backed Mountain Tanager holds its own dramas and kindnesses. Best of all, though, has to be meeting a woodcutter who makes far more money from bird tourism than he could have dreamed, just because he stopped felling trees and started feeding birds.

Dawn birds and night birds, hummingbirds and emus; forty-one countries and exhaustion illness. Blogging progress and photos daily, making new friends, learning that a rival was hoping for the same goal. BIRDING WITHOUT BORDERS by Noah Strycker is remarkable, fun and hopeful. I'd love to do it, but perhaps not at that speed. For those who would like to see them, a gear list and species list are at the end.