Big Twitch: One Man, One Continent, a Race Against Time: A True Story about Birdwatching

by Sean Dooley

As a self-proclaimed twitcher—a birdwatching extremist who travels around the country trying to catch a glimpse of as many species of birds as possible—the author took a year off in 2002 with the goal of seeing 700 birds and thereby breaking the national record for most birds seen in one year. In this amusing memoir, he recounts his quest, including how he spent all of his inheritance from the untimely death of his parents to make his dream a reality. Populated by unusual characters and interesting species of birds, this part confessional–part travelogue for both bird nerds and the general population follows the author as he works out what it means to be normal despite his unusually avid compulsion toward twitching.

Genres: Birds, Nonfiction, Travel, Nature, Australia, Biography, Memoir

320 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2005

Reviews

[Lisa Harvey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. I learned a lot about birds, birders and birding.
The book was full of humour and the author's skill in telling funny stories came through in every chapter.

It's a travelogue and an adventure. It's an obsession and a passion.

It's a fast moving story, with successes and failure. It's a treasure hunt, with birds as the gems.

[Emily Kestrel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book firmly established Australia on my birding bucket list.

[Dorothy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The record for a "Big Year" in Australia was 633 birds. That was before Sean Dooley decided to spend his year breaking it. Not only did he want to break it, he wanted to annihilate it. He set himself the goal of seeing and identifying 700 birds from January 1 to December 31, 2002.

It helped that he didn't have much of a personal life at the time - no family, no significant other, no one to slow him down. No 9:00 to 5:00 job either. He was a comedy writer in real life, but that wasn't requiring much of his time and effort just then. He was able to single-mindedly devote himself to his obsession.

This book tells how he did it, with all the ups and downs along the way. He had a lot of help from friends and from other birders who became interested in his quest. But he also ran into a few snarly and unhelpful people along the way who thought that being a twitcher was just too weird. (Twitcher is a British and an Australian term for bird watchers who obsessively list birds that they see.)

In the end, Dooley had the last laugh as he did indeed reach his goal. In fact, he plowed right past it to 703 species.

This book is one bird chase after another and gets very repetitive after awhile. Only a true twitcher would read every single word with relish. I was hampered in my reading because so many of the species that he talked about were unfamiliar to me. Still, it was an interesting read. I don't think I'll ever be a twitcher. I'm a simple backyard birder, but I understand the compulsion that drives people for whom birds become the total focus of their lives.

[Andrew Grenfell · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have any interest in Australia, or in birds, or in Australian birds, this is a fantastic read. Self-deprecating and laugh-out-loud humour throughout lightens what is one man's seriously obsessive quest to see as many birds in Australia as he can in one year. Loved the descriptions of all the adventures he got up to and the far-flung places visited: Broome, Cape York, King Island, Lord Howe Island, Norfolk Island, Christmas Island and all points around and in between in search of those elusive avian "rarities". Would perhaps have liked a longer conclusion, but that's a minor quibble.

[R Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this more than I thought I would. It was humorous but stayed on track and I had fun looking up birds I had never heard of before 💜 While it has its sad moments (and not just because of dipping), overall it was fun

[Rosemary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very readable account of the author's year trying to break the Australian bird spotting record. I'm not a birdwatcher, but amazingly he made looking for 700 birds fascinating.

My favourite parts were about habitat for the birds. Sean says "Take out the trees and shrubs and, come the first big dry, you'll have nothing but bare earth, which will quickly blow away. A pretty simple demonstration of cause and effect, one would have thought, yet in this most drought prone of lands we are still taking out the trees and shrubs at an alarming rate".(p188) Twenty years after this book was published, we don't seem to have learnt much.

More optimistically, at Eromophila Park the owners have kept much of the original vegetation as habitat for local Malleefowls, and their farm is in much better shape than the denuded neighbouring farms. (p.240).

I saw Sean Dooley speak at a local bird guidebook launch last November, which is where I found out about his book. He is an excellent speaker and also pretty funny, having previously worked as a comedy writer for TV shows. He is currently the editor of Australian Birdlife magazine.

One quibble - in Sean's chase for rare birds he crisscrossed the country, sometimes flying interstate for just a day or so before setting off again. His care for birds and habitat is admirable, but his travelling habits (for that year at least) were not sustainable.

[Janice Richardson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An encyclopaedia of information, The Big Twitch takes one around a continent. Sean Dooley was on a mission to break the Australian record for the number of birds sighted and catalogued. 'Twitchers' are not your average bird watcher, they are obsessed with sighting new (to them) and rare species, going to great lengths at all hours, in all weather, to spot a rare or aloof bird. The list of birds Mr. Dooley spotted at the end of his year-long quest is impressive at 703, a new record for Australia. At times his story a bit encyclopedic in it's telling, nonetheless, he lived an experience the majority of us could only dream of.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Big Twitch is the Australian equivalent of "The Big Year" - an attempt to see the most birds possible in one year. In 2002, Sean Dooley decides to try to see 700 birds in one year in Australia - the current record was 634.

He starts out with an aren't-I-funny-ha-ha style that I do not like, but with some exceptions he discards that style and, although light reading, he provides interesting information about the birds, the environment, and the people who watch birds. Since I know little about Australia, and even less about birds in Australian, the information is new and interesting.

I like the small maps at the beginning of each short chapter that show where is is traveling. He obviously loves the out of doors and that makes the story better. I love the Australian bird names - they tend to sound like something from Dr Seuss. I enjoyed meeting the Australian birders. I did like his "remember,-this-is-birdwatching-not-neurosurgery" attitude and that he did not take himself too seriously although he was also driven to see birds. I liked the rules he set for himself - he had to SEE the bird as well as hear it and he had to see it well enough to identify the main identifying characteristics. I liked the Aussie terminology and will forever use "dipped" to mean I didn't see a bird I expected to see.

I am a birder - don't think I will refer to myself as a twitcher. I think other birders will enjoy the book. I am not sure about you nontwitchers.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love birds and birdwatching. I enjoyed reading about Sean Dooley's quest to become the first birder to see more than 700 birds in one year in Australia. The Big Twitch also reads like a good travel novel and gives the readers an idea of what it is like to travel throughout Australia. Dooley travels around Australia more than once from the middle of the outback to Australia's various islands. I admire his dedication and his skill as a birder. Non birders may be frustrated by the lists of all the birds he saw and may have a hard time understanding the desire to spend a whole year and almost $40,000 dedicated to birding. I admit I have never been to Australia and am not familiar with Australia's birds, but I appreciated Dooley's descriptions of the birds and landscapes, and I especially enjoyed his humorous tales of his experiences and mishaps along the way.

[Paul Hackett]

A funny, informative read of one mans quest to see as many Australian birds as possible in one year.

[Paul Dodd]

A must read for all birders! Sean has a self-deprecating sense of humour that makes this book a joy to read (and re-read!)

[Joshua Hedlund · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sean Dooley is perhaps the biggest name in the (admittedly somewhat small) world of Australian birding, and this is his story of his efforts to break the Australian "Big Year" record for most bird species seen in a calendar year back in 2002. Dooley is a comedic writer, although I found some of the attempts at humor to be a bit forced. I thought it was an engaging and exciting story, although it may not have too much appeal outside of the birding community, especially if you're not very familiar with the continent or its birds. Like other books in the big year sub-genre, it features a lot of cringy dashing around to all corners of a continent, wasting oodles of dollars and fossil fuels, in chases of rare birds to increment the list. On the positive side, Dooley's passion, persistence, and patience is rather inspiring. His race occurred in the early days of cell phones and emails, where he could keep up with the latest tips from Australia's close-knit birding community, but before all the modern apps and eBird cataloging that make it so easy to tell where are all the birds are turning up these days, so a lot of chapters involve long adventures of trekking around specific habitats in general areas where certain species are expected, and often spending hours walking, wading, or waiting around for the birds to show up. He certainly earned his record, and now does a lot of good work promoting conservation in Australia. And to be fair, some of the jokes are actually pretty good.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I think that’s is part of the appeal of birdwatching for me — you come away from an encounter with a bird with absolutely nothing tangible to show for it other than the memory of the experience and maybe a tick in your notebook. You indulge in the experience merely for the nature of the experience. It is conquering without violence, hunting without kill.” — Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch, p. 25

I thoroughly enjoyed this adventure read. It might help that I’m a birder myself, and have been to a handful of the areas he describes. But also, maybe not—I’d honestly recommend this read to anyone. His experiences are relatable (and laugh-out-loud-able) to anyone who’s striven after a goal before. Or has met curious, interesting people before (or wondered if you yourself were one of those curious odd people). The tension between normalcy and eccentricity in all of us comes through as you read about Sean racing after birds.

[Chris Leuchtenburg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Riotous tale of obsessive birding in Australia. Just as engrossing for this American as The Big Year and much funnier, since the author writes for TV comedies. Of course, sitting in Boston, the very names of the birds gave me many a chuckle: Zitting Cisticola, Marbled Frogmouth, Chestnut-backed button-quail....

I can't say that I would recommend this to any of my non-birding friends, but it is one of the most enjoyable big year books that I have read, and it gave me an inkling of the fearsome climate and terrain of Australia.

It also cured me, once again, of any misguided fantasy of attempting a big year myself.

[Crafty Cristy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read several Big Year type books. I loved this one. He did a Big Year in Australia, where serious birding is called "twitching". I don't know why.

He was funny, self-deprecating, and determined. He got lucky several times and spotted birds just because they got really close.

Part travelogue, part bird watching book, and part humor book, I thought Sean Dooley did a really good job at all of the different aspects of the book.

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read!

I really enjoyed this book. Whether you love birds or not, it was a great story about making decisions and persevering. Very readable and accessible, the reminisces were funny and I loved the bird descriptions and terminology. Would recommend if you like a a bit of a laugh and birds, of course!

[SS · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sean is a great writer bringing his Big Twitch adventure to life. Sean a serious twitcher but not a senior in the field decides to take on the birding fraternity and aim to see the most birds in Australia in one year.

What an adventure Sean has and conveys in his book!! Magical birds, great landscapes and at times kilometres of crazy between ticks.

I really enjoyed the journey. Well done Sean

[Darcy C · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read for anyone who's a birder, a mad twitcher, or just likes looking at the birds that land on their back fence. Dooley writes well, and manages to keep you well entertained through the entirety of the book. I was even surprised to find myself on tenterhooks by the end, wondering if he'd get to the 700 mark in time.

[Laura Wasley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A warm and witty tale of zipping around the land of Aus in search of birds. Inspired me to keep a list of my own and I enjoy the thrill of seeing even a common bird for the first time since starting my list. Recommend reading with a bird field guide or app on hand so you can see all the beautiful birds Sean sees.

[Sam Bell · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable read if you're interested in Australian geography/adventure, birds, or the bizarre past time of twitching. Semi-frequent grammatical errors made me cringe, and the humour is sometimes a little outdated.

[Kathie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book - had to keep reading it to find out what birds he saw next. Sad in some places, funny in others, definitely a book to read - especially if you're into birds. But it's a great read, irrespective on your preference re birds. Highly recommend it.

[Cami · Rating 3 out of 5]

It made birdwatching seem pretty miserable. I enjoyed some of the humour but missed some of it.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

Numerous easy read about a year ticking birds in Australia, good on birds, good on Aussie geography, environmental decay

[Glen Thickett · Rating 5 out of 5]

A crazy, wild ride, and an amazing achievement.
The list of 700+ birds at the end of the book helps to put it into perspective even more.

[Deborah J. Kainauskas · Rating 4 out of 5]

For birders - Great story of a Big Year in Australia.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A most entertaining description of a big year in Australia.

[Katie McKay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It’s a time capsule of the early 2000s birding environment in Australia. There are some familiar names, there’s talk of possible future splits and lumps that did eventuate, there’s a brief mention of recent possible records of buff-breasted buttonquail, which is very much solidified as a lost species now, with no verified modern records. A lot has changed since Sean’s big year (e.g., EBird and social media) so it is really fascinating and almost idyllic to me as someone who only started birding in the 2020s. Importantly, Sean is so honest and funny. He comes across as a really reliable narrator which is tough when the book details the narrator’s path to a major accomplishment. I would reread this one.

[Kyri Freeman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Australian birder Sean Dooley describes his Big Year, an effort to break the record for the most birds seen in Australia (and environs) in a year.

I loved this birding memoir. Dooley is a lively, humorous, engaging writer, and his Australian slang makes his voice particularly come alive, at least for this American reader. He conveys a passion for his pursuit and a concern for wildlife and the environment without sanctimony.

Clearly, there are scads of awesome birds in Australia, and undoubtedly they have the best common names of any birds anywhere. The species list at the back of the book is an entertainment in itself.

I am at a loss, however, to explain Mr. Dooley's difficulty in finding women who bird. Maybe it's a cultural thing?

Definitely recommended, especially for American readers to whom the language and most of the species will be engagingly exotic.

[Hunted Snark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Australians are becoming more aware of our amazing diversity of birdlife. This book didn't do that, but Sean Dooley, through his work with Birdlife Australia has certainly contributed to it inestimably.

Leaving that aside, this is the most entertaining book about bird watching you're every likely to read.

It's a book about obsession, travel, the Australian landscape, birds, people, and ... you eventually realise ... coping with being an outsider and just possibly, coping with grief. But that's in the subtext. Mostly it's just about twitching.

And the fact that the grey falcon doesn't actually exist.

[Cheryl Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a fascinating, funny, and moving account of Sean Dooley's attempt to break the record for the number of bird species seen in Australia in one year. Part travelogue, part celebration of the birds and the Country, and part love story - this was a fantastic book to read as both a birder and as someone planning a move to Australia. It is also responsible for the fact that I am now an avid lister myself - life list, year list, patch list, garden list..........