RAVE - The Big Year

This turned out to be an enjoyable, while not gripping account of three birders - Owen Wilson, Steve Martin, and Jack Black - who each embark on a year of trying to track down the most kinds of bird.

I thought about my close friend Bill throughout the movie, which made it even more enjoyable. He's an erstwhile ornithologist, an expert, and the consummate bird fanatic, but I'm not sure I'd classify him as a birder. Certainly not like the kind of person that has the time and money to travel the country or the world following rumors of rare bird calls. 

The film reveals the lengths some of these strange men and women will go to in order to hear and see a rare bird, or as our main characters were doing, to rack up the most sightings in a given year.

Ignoring the expense, and the effort, it was a gentle film, not really a comedy. 

Strange there should be this degree of interest in birds, but no equivalent in other kinds of animal. There are allegedly 70 million birders in North America, which makes it over 1 in 4 persons who is interested in the subject.