Birding Without Borders

An Obsession, a Quest, and the Biggest Year in the World

By: Noah Strycker

Narrated by: Luke Welland

Length: 8 hrs

Publisher's summary

Noah Strycker set himself a goal: to become the first person to see half the world's 10,000 species of bird in one year.

With an itinerary covering 41 countries, spanning all seven continents, and armed with a backpack, binoculars, and a series of one-way tickets, he sets out on the greatest adventure in the birding world. Along the way he meets a colorful cast of fellow birders—and discovers a world of blood-sucking leeches, chronic sleep deprivation, floods, war zones, ecologic devastation, and conservation triumphs.

Vivid, charming, and full of wonder, Birding Without Borders is a celebration of passion, exploration, and the birders' ethos that, if you keep your eyes and mind open, you never know what you might see.

©2017 Noah Strycker (P)2022 Noah Strycker

Critic reviews

One of the Guardian's Best Paperbacks of November

"Astonishing.... If by chance you can't meet these 6,042 species yourself, this book is a close second." (Jennifer Ackerman, author of The Genius of Birds)

"Even readers who wouldn't know a marvellous spatuletail from a southern ground hornbill will be awed." (Publishers Weekly)

Speedy birder with details, well narrated

was a pleasure to listen to. Noah shares the planning and execution of his big year in detail. This book is about birding travel adventure, less ornithology.

Birding and travel. Win win.

Sometimes I forgot the author wasn’t reading the book. Great expression and the reader obviously had a connection with birds. I will probably listen again which is something I seldom do. The author’s tone was sharing his adventure. Not bragging or just listing birds. I felt as if I made the Big Year with him.

Very enjoyable

I really enjoyed listening to this book. I would recommend it to any birder no matter their experience level

Inspiring Story

As a fairly new birder and not-yet world traveler this was such an interesting read!

Entertaining account

Every chapter of this book was interesting and entertaining. Wonderful to go on a virtual world birding tour.

Highly recommend!

Loved this book! A travel story with humour and purpose. The narration was so fun too!

Great balance of travel & ornithology

This thoughtful book is by far the best (and the first) of 2 recent narratives devoted to international adventuring to explore the birds of the world and to set a new birding record in 2015. This author is intent on learning as much as possible about far-flung species and less about winning his friendly competition with prior "Big Year" birders.

Action packed, delivered with beautiful prose, celebrating diversity... this is the one to read.

Fine narration by Luke Welland & an excellent preamble by the renowned birder Kenn Kaufman (an early extreme birder) complement this joyous travelog by author/scientist Noah Strycker.

{Not to be missed is a five minute video of the best clips of the journey on his informative website.}

One of the best yet!

Listening to audiobooks the narrator can often make her break the story. However, this book is the exception! I highly recommend listening to the audible, as a storyline is well written, the narration is one of the best as you can imagine yourself on the journey with Noah as he tracks across the globe in his quest to see and record the most birds internationally in one year.

A Magical Bird Watching Adventure

The author sweeps you away to experience his grand, year-long adventure, traveling the world to see or hear and identify as many birds as possible. Beyond this, though, he also captures the collective spirit of many who regularly choose to be mindful in the presence of birds, experiencing this particular type of wonder, delight, serenity and community. And to make it even better, the narrator of the audio book brings his own passion for birding to his performance. I highly recommend this book and audio book.

Entertainment, not insight

This is basically a yarn with some vivid scenes. There’s little of the intelligence you get in the best nature writing (like Yong, Macfarlane, Nicolson) or the insight you get in Gooley, MacDonald, Weidensaul. Major omission: any woman trying to do this would face vastly greater danger, and this is never mentioned. Not once, despite the author constantly bringing up dangers. This is embarrassing to see in 2023. It’s also on the shoulders of the editor and first readers, who should be nudging the author to think about the other half of the world’s perspective.

I wasn’t going to mention the class blindness until hearing the maddening ending, where he says anyone can take a year to travel the world, if they just give up having an SUV. I’ll just leave that statement there.

Awareness that extends beyond privilege could have made this a much, much better book. Who knows what insights were missed in this journey…

Narration was well done, the usual sprinkling of weird pronunciations and cringey accents but well done tone/emphasis.