Watch this birding documentary
I come from a birder-containing family - I spent quite a bit of time as a kid on birdwatching day trips, and many of our family vacations included side trips to places where the birds were known to be cool.
So I had a lot of fun watching this YouTube documentary about two younger guys who go completely gonzo and fully immerse themselves in life-list-style birdwatching for a single year, while also living in a van and traveling the US.
I don't know anyone who was into life lists - my birdwatching family members do it for the love of the bird only. There is clearly some kinetic enjoyment of binocular use and of sedate outdoor activity as well, both of which are a little inaccessible to me. (I have poor vision and glasses and just don't like using binoculars. And I like going fast! Therefore the biking.)
So despite my familiarity with some of the interpersonal and subcultural phenomena in this documentary - the crowds of rude, annoying birders at rare bird alerts, the secret bird mailing lists - I still found a ton of stuff in this video that was completely new to me. It's really fascinating stuff.
It's also just incredible filmmaking. By the time I finished this, I was genuinely surprised it had been released on YouTube - it seems like something that should have been able to get a streaming platform release. That said, it definitely got more attention on YouTube than it would have gotten otherwise. When I watched it, it had over 800k views.
The movie is more of a character study than anything else, really - the filmmaker seems to have realized that his mulletted, foul-mouthed brother is a True Character, a ton of fun to watch and to spend time with. Watching Quentin Reiser fall deep into birding and become a genuine bird-enjoyer is a delight. The movie seems like it's going to be about the relationship between the two brothers, but it really just ends up being about how fun and strange and preposterous its main character is. It's great observational work from Quentin's brother Owen.
Anyway... this is a great watch!! Check it out!