Spot polar bears and scan for puffins in Norway, sip wine and watch the photo dancers whirl to Portugal's traditional music after observing great busters in the rolling fields.

Tread lightly on a camping trip through Kenya's savannas and forests discover New Zealand's many endemics or marvel at Australia's prehistoric cassowaries while learning about Aboriginal history and dream time. With

All for Birding, travel is larger than lifers. Allforburning.com.

Hello and welcome to the American Birding podcast from the American Birding Association. I am

Nate Swick. This weekend

marks the first weekend of the 126th Christmas bird count. If you've been doing this

burning thing for a while, you might already be aware of the history of the CBC, the story of

the Christmas side hunts that were a traditional

way of celebrating the season in the 19th century. And Frank Chapman, who in 1900 came up with the

idea of a Christmas bird count as a more bird-friendly way to celebrate the holidays, rather

than going out and shooting all the birds.

That first year, 27 birders in 25 circles from Toronto, Ontario to Pacific Grove, California,

counted about 90 species on all counts combined.

Doesn't seem like a lot, but remember, field guides and binoculars were pretty scarce in those

days. Things have changed. In 26, there are 2,693 counts planned from Arctic Bay on Baffin

Island in Nunavit to Ushuaya, Argentina, with tens of thousands of naturalists preparing to count birds, some

participating in multiple counts every year. You know who you are. So to celebrate this year's

CBC, here are some fun Christmas bird count facts. Last year, we had three new species

added to the list of birds seen in Christmas bird counts in the

United States, Siberian stone chat in yellow-headed Kara in Texas, and this one was new for me,

a wrecked Juanine's petrol in San Francisco, California, which was a second record for California

and a bird that, I admit, had slipped

...