Welcome to Mr Sutherland's Amazing Bird Race.  The purpose of this blog is to record and report the birds I see from September 1, 2014, to August 31, 2015.  I have never heard of anyone doing a "fiscal" year bird list before, this might be the first one.  People typically keep a calender year list and see how many species they can list in one year.  I have been asked by Maurita Crew, the upper grade teacher in the Three Sisters Adventist Christian School to help her challenge her students with birds.  She is going to use Birds as the base for the curriculum for the year and build the teaching modules around the life of birds.  I will be doing what I always do every year, I will be out birding.  It is my intention to cover most of the lower 48 states at some point in the fiscal year starting at the beginning of the school year which is September 2, 2014.  My first trip will start September 3 and will include about 8,000 miles travel ending on about the last day of October. I will be covering at least 26 states and one Canadian Province. It is my goal to make this my biggest year, trying to list at least 500 species. My current big year record is 474 species.  Mind you this was a calendar year and it was 2004.  It will be interesting to see if making the year from Sept to Aug will make any difference in the ease or difficulty at which one can see bird species.  I will be posting my progress several times a month and will keep a running total of the birds I see and will post them here.  So come along with me as we see how many birds I can find in the coming twelve months.  You can also follow me on facebook.