Birding

What is the Hummingbird Big Day Record?

August 1, 2013 by Corey 7 Comments

Pat O’Donnell over at Costa Rica Living and Birding maps out a potential hummingbird-only big day route that could net the ambitious birder forty species of hummingbird in one day in Costa Rica (and potentially more). That made me wonder – what is the single day record for seeing the most species of hummingbird?

The answer, apparently, is a whopping 41 species! Nick Athanas, Iain Campbell, Paul Coopmans, and Richard White set the record back in March of 2002 in Ecuador and I can find no record of someone having topped that mark since.

This does beg the question – what is possible in terms of a hummingbird big day? And who will try to top the record?

Written by Corey
Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy and Desmond Shearwater. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.