I saw a perfectly awful movie on Netflix last week – “The Big Year”, with Steve Martin, Owen Wilson and Jack Black and I watched the whole thing, which felt like two weeks. Why?
Because it was a movie about 3 guys competing to see who could spot and identify the most birds in one year – The Big Year. The winner spotted over 750 species of birds. I found that interesting and it got me to wondering how many kinds of birds I see in one year.
In my yard this year – or flying over my yard – I have seen robins, starlings, mockingbirds, Canadian geese, turkey buzzards, black buzzards, doves, crows, jays, titmice, nuthatches, red bellied woodpeckers, downy woodpeckers, house wrens, bluebirds, chickadees, song sparrows, house sparrows, house finches, gold finches, broad-winged hawks, red-tailed hawks, snowbirds, cardinals, and cowbirds. That’s 25 species and the summer birds have yet to come – Catbirds, hummingbirds, starlings, and cedar waxwings to name a few.
I’m going to try to keep track of the birds in my yard and those that I see in my travels.
If you really want to kill a couple hours and see one of the dullest movies ever produced, check out The Big Year, but far more enjoyable, maybe start a bird watching diary and see how many you can count.