Birding, new world record

Arjan Dwarshuis in Costa Rica

This photo from Costa Rica shows, in the middle, Arjan Dwarshuis, the new birding world record holder.

Dutchman breaks world birding record

Today, 13:17

Dutch Arjan Dwarshuis (30) broke the world bird watching record. He thus beat the record set last year. Then a US American spotted 6042 birds in one year. Arjan photographed yesterday bird number 6119: the Buffy-crowned Wood Partridge.

This video says about itself:

31 December 2015

Buffy-crowned wood partridge (Dendrortyx leucophrys) family in the highlands of Costa Rica, San Gerardo de Dota, 2600 mts.

The NOS article continues:

He is very proud, he says from a rainforest in Costa Rica. “I am here with three of my best friends. They travel along for a few days. They were there yesterday when I broke the world record. That was fantastic.”

Records

For decades avid birders have been trying to break each others’ records. Participants go a year looking for as many different species as possible.

Arjan started on 1 January with bird watching. In the Netherlands he found 161 species and then he went abroad. Especially South America is full of different species of birds. In Brazil he spotted 552.

Photos

Since the beginning of his journey Arjan keeps track of where he spots the birds. The results he publishes on a website. Other birders also note on that website what animals they have seen.

“I try to document as much as possible with pictures and sound recordings. And there is always a local expert with me checking that I actually see all the birds.”

Threatened

Spotting the birds is not just for fun. Arjan does what he does to draw attention to species that are threatened in their very existence. He gets money from sponsors, which goes to BirdLife International.

Arjan has reached his goal, but he is not going to come back to the Netherlands now already. He has one month and half time to get an even higher record still.