The Big Year 2011 online

The movie The Great Year, starring Jack Black, Steve Martin and Owen Wilson, opens Friday. The sweet and, of course, funny movie tells the story of three determined birders from most species of birds in a calendar year. Here is an overview of a clip from the film, narrated by the comic genius John Cleese.

And for a little more context, here's more about the history of connectivity Year Audubon Great, in the book the film is based is Mark Obmascik The Great Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl obsession.

On Christmas Day 1900, was an Audubon Society ornithologist named Frank Chapman with a better idea. Instead of killing the birds, says Chapman, outdoorsmen should count. On December 25 this year, 27 bird lovers in New Brunswick, Canada, Monterey County, California, in all thirteen states and two provinces were represented, walked away. They found 90 species and 18,500 individual birds, but more importantly, these bird lovers found. The network of birding first Continental was born.

Audubon Christmas Bird Count began birders to meet and greet the other at the same time a strange obsession. Their annual state-of-the-Union census of bird populations across North America, the Christmas countdown has told me that ornithology was treated seriously here. Although this is technically true, the biologists of the University has at times are based on Audubon-analysis of falls reported across species of birds, Christmas Bird Count was a Hotbox for birders to compare competitive. Shortly before Christmas, some teams began to compete with other teams to report the largest list, and some ornithologists began to compete with other birders will inform their team most of the species. Today, the Christmas Bird Count has become a tradition birding nearly as strong as the spring migration, more than 52000 people are coming to 1800 in various titles throughout North America.

The Big Year 2011 online


Inevitably, some birders stopped waiting for Christmas to compete with. The result was a great day. The rise at midnight to shine lanterns are owls, songbirds brush to work at dawn, noon harvested lakes for water birds, and then scrambling for new habitat as the sun, the great day the participants to combine the strategy and the race duration to see the most species in 24 hours. By the end of World War II, the great day, a hundred species, Run century, had something to brag about.