BirdForum is the net's largest birding community dedicated to wild birds and birding, and is absolutely FREE!

Register for an account to take part in lively discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lerxst" data-source="post: 3656090" data-attributes="member: 118326">:t:Well, I think I will start it a bit early to capture some of Ecuador*. But my plan for late Dec 2018 is to hit New Zealand. So I cannot trade away too many of those days.We will be in the Galapagos Dec 25-28, then east of Quito for Dec 30,31, and Jan 1. While I expect Galapagos to be extraordinarily high in birding quality, it won't offer as much in quantity as the same amount of time in NZ would.* Ecuador is still probably our number one destination. We have done about three weeks total in mainland Ecuador in the past, split over two trips. Once down the west slope from Quito, the other time down the east and into Amazonia. In those two trips we got almost as many bird species as after 24 years of birding in the USA...----------------Again, thanks to everyone for this discussion. I don't intend this thread to be about my specific trip, although if people want to hear about it I am happy to share. I'm really more interested in ideas related to novel, friendly 'competitions' that more people can take part in. Perhaps, as some have pointed out, what I am proposing here is even more hectic and stressful than doing a proper big year with an entire year free from work. We will see!The Green Big Year is certainly a novel concept. To my knowledge, this is always done on a bicycle. How about a Big Year on Foot?Or a Big Year using only public transportation? Or only using a train?I recently realized that here in the USA, there is a group of people that have, as their goal, to visit every county (there are over 3000) in the country. Not exactly a 'green' undertaking, but it would be a fun quest to bird every US county. I'm sure it will be done at some point. How long would this take? I think a year is out of the question.When I retire some day, I dream about doing what I think of as a 'Thoreau Year' - spend a year in one spot, a sort of personal Walden, that has good birding and bird for at least several hours a day, everyday, regardless of the weather, etc.What other ideas are out there?</blockquote>

Verification