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A big year is an informal competition among birders to see who can see or hear the largest number of species of birds within a single calendar year and within a specific geographical area. A big year may be done within a single US state, a Canadian province, within the lower 48 continental U.S. states, or within the official American Birding Association Area (defined as the 49 continental U.S. states, Canada, and the French islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, plus adjacent waters to a distance of 200 miles from land or half the distance to a neighboring country, whichever distance is less. Excluded by these boundaries are Bermuda, The Bahamas, Hawaii, and Greenland). ==History== The wide publication in 1934 of the first modern field guide by Roger Tory Peterson truly revolutionized birding. However, in that era, most birders did not travel widely. The earliest known continent wide Big Year record was compiled by Guy Emerson, a traveling businessman, who timed his business trips to coincide with the best birding seasons for different areas in North America. His best year was in 1939 when he saw 497 species. In 1952, Emerson's record was broken by Bob Smart, who saw 510 species.〔Kaufman, Kenn: ''Kingbird Highway: The Story of a Natural Obsession That Got a Little Out of Hand''; Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1997, p. 16.〕 In 1953, Roger Tory Peterson and James Fisher took a 30,000 mile road trip visiting the wild places of North America. In 1955, they told the story of their travels in a book and a documentary film, both called ''Wild America''. In one of the footnotes to the book Peterson said "My year's list at the end of 1953 was 572 species." In 1956 the bar was raised when a 25-year-old Englishman named Stuart Keith, following Peterson and Fisher's route, compiled a list of 598 species. Keith's record stood for 15 years. In 1971, 18-year-old Ted Parker, in his last semester of high school in southeastern Pennsylvania, birded the eastern seaboard of North America extensively. That September, Parker enrolled in the University of Arizona in Tucson and found dozens of Southwestern U.S. and Pacific coast specialities. He ended the year with a list of 627 species. In 1973 Kenn Kaufman and another birder, Floyd Murdoch, went after Parker's record. As recounted in the book ''Kingbird Highway'', both broke the old record by a wide margin. Murdoch finished with 669 in the newly described ABA area (North America north of Mexico, essentially) and Kaufman had 666. Kaufman set a North American record of 671 species, with the addition of five species that he had seen in Baja California. Murdoch's record was broken in 1979 by James M. Vardaman, as recorded in his book ''Call Collect, Ask for Birdman.'' Vardaman saw 699 species that year and travelled 161,332 miles (137,145 by airplane; 20,305 by car; 3,337 by boat; 160 by bicycle; and 385 by foot). Benton Basham, in 1983, topped that with a total of 710. 1987 marked the second time that there was a competition during a single year, with Steve Perry ending up with 711 and Sandy Komito setting a new standard with 721. In 1992 Bill Rydell made a serious attempt at the record and ended with 714 species for the year. Big year competitors of 1998 were the subject of a book, ''The Big Year'', by Mark Obmascik. Three birders, Sandy Komito, Al Levantin, and Greg Miller, chased Komito's prior record of 721 birds. In the end Komito kept the record, listing 745 species〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Attu Island )〕 birds plus 3 submitted in 1998 and later accepted by state committees for a revised total of 748.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Interview with Sandy Komito: 745 or 748? )〕 The book was adapted for the 2011 20th Century Fox film ''The Big Year''. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「big year」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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