If you live in California, you can enjoy some of our best birding this time of year. For those in other places, looking out at six inches of new snow, maybe it's time for some indoor birding. You think you're cold? Morgan Freeman begs to differ:
The original French release of "March of the Penguins" had actors dubbing voices for the penguins to tell their own story, but the US release was done in a more straightforward documentary style. Documentaries can have a rough time at the box office, but baby penguins? ... resistance is futile.
The film's depiction of Emperor Penguins enduring the hardships of the Antarctic winter to raise a single chick brought praise from some on the right for promoting monogamy and other traditional values. The film's director, Luc Jacquet, responded: "I find it intellectually dishonest to impose this viewpoint on something that's part of nature. It's amusing, but if you take the monogamy argument, from one season to the next, the divorce rate, if you will, is between 80 to 90 percent... the monogamy only lasts for the duration of one reproductive cycle. You have to let penguins be penguins and humans be humans."
(BTW, last week I apologized for all of the video embeds and said that it would be back to photos this week. It turns out that I lied.)
I remember the excitement among fellow bird nerds when "Winged Migration" first came out - it showed at the Castro Theater in SF, and the line was around the corner on opening night. The movie focusses on migratory species, and details some of the amazing flights they make. It features some truly remarkable in-flight footage, captured by flying right along with the birds in ultralight aircraft. Waterfowl are heavily featured (probably because they'd be easier to film than trying to fly along with warblers), but many other birds make an appearance.
Alas, I can't find a trailer or clips for my favorite bird movie of all, the Swedish film Kestrel's Eye (Falkens öga). The movie follows a family of Eurasian Kestrels through a breeding cycle from the dead of winter, through spring courtship, incubation, a nest full of fuzzy kestrel chicks and finally the first flights. The family lives in the tower of a Swedish church and, without narration, the film shows the world from their point of view - the comings and goings in the churchyard below, the activities of the neighborhood nearby. (After an exchange with Kestrel9000 in C&J this week, I was inspired to order a copy - it's been far too long since I've seen it.)
It's kinda cool to go to a movie and see someone you know in one of the scenes. It's really cool when you know the stars - and most San Francisco birders know "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill" quite well, though not as many know their somewhat reclusive friend Mark Bittner. This movie has a bit more of human presence than the others I mentioned, intercutting Bittner's own story with that of the birds... some like that aspect, some don't. Like the baby penguins, though, you can't beat parrots for bringing teh cute. I've had the good fortune to go see parrots in their native habitats and it's fun to see how they've adapted so well to city life, keeping the flock dynamics that work so well for them in the rainforests. (And on the rare occasions when one has flown over my house in the western part of the city, it's been a bit like spotting Sean Penn on the freeway.)
Another clip
So far, I've talked about movies for theatrical release, but the small screen has had some pretty great birdflix, too. When we think of raptors in an urban environment, peregrines are usually the first bird that comes to mind. One redtailed hawk did a lot to change that - Pale Male, made famous by WSJ writer Marie Winn in her book "Redtails in Love". Crowds of New Yorkers gathered every year to watch him raise his families on Woody Allen's apartment building; big protests took place when the building removed his nest a few years ago (the building eventually relented and allowed the nest to be replaced).
And of course, if you're looking at a long stretch of indoor birding, nothing beats David Attenborough's ten part series, "Life of Birds".
So, any other suggestions for indoor birding?
IMDB links for all of these:
March of the Penguins
Winged Migration
Kestrel's Eye
The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
Pale Male