Kaufman realizes his own bird knowledge, focused on notching up his list, is shallow. He reaches a total of 650 species, the theoretical maximum. By now he barely cares. On Alaska's St. Lawrence Island, he looks across the Bering Sea to distant Siberian mountains. Kaufman does not even report who won the Big Year battle.
Readers can find the ambiguous answer in the appendix.
After hitching 69,000 miles, he discovers his list does not matter. But birding has led him down many roads. Reviewer Richard Wolkomir writes from his home base in Vermont. Originally published in the January 1998 issue of Smithsonian Magazine. All rights reserved.