The Big Year

I saw the movie The Big Year yesterday and recommend it very highly for anyone who is a birder or has ever known one. Although it has its moments of Hollywood ridiculousness, I found myself connecting to it on many levels. 

Three different characters all find themselves in pursuit of the same goal -- seeing as many birds as possible in the course of a year in North America. Competition ensues, relationships are tested, and epiphanies are experienced. 

Fractional Roads, Minnesota, 2005.

The relation to the film and this photo? I've never attempted a Big Year, and likely never will; I really just enjoy observing birds and their amazing quirks and adaptations. But I have found myself in some pretty weird places while on the hunt for birds. One of the locations mentioned briefly in the film is the Sax-Zim bog. This is a slam-dunk birding spot to see lots of cool boreal species if you are in the Duluth/Iron Range area. After hearing about the upcoming owl invasion slated to hit the area in '05, I convinced my bosses to send me to a prescribed fire training nearby so that I could bird here. 

At the Duluth airport, I got my first ever snowy owl. I spent some time in the streets of Duluth searching out a Boreal owl, to no avail. Near Sax-Zim were great grey owl (amazing), northern goshawk, northern hawk owl, and a few others. I had also seen some of these birds on a trip two years prior with the Chicago Ornithological Society.

I didn't get any good pictures of birds (someday). But, in a lull of birds, I took this picture, chuckling to myself at the sheer ridiculousness of the street names out here. I was hoping to share that chuckle with someone -- so now I have. Thanks for reading.