One brother gets high, flips through his family’s bird book, and has a wild thought: what if you could identify every single bird in here?
I found this one on Kottke.org. Then, Ryan Christoi, one of my favorite quarterly lunch buddies, moved it up in my queue — Thx, Ryan!
Trailer for “Listers: A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching”
You Can’t Make This Sh!t Up
- Two total beginners—Owen and Quentin Reiser—decide to attempt a “Big Year,” chasing as many bird species as possible across the U.S. with almost zero prior experience.
- They live out of a 2010 Kia Sedona for an entire year and rack up 38,757 miles driving across the country.
- They end up identifying 579 bird species. Hardcore birders they meet casually drop numbers like 700+ species in a single year.
- They meet a 19-year-old birder who logged 758 species in 2024, basically the LeBron James of birdwatching.
Watch “Listers: A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching”
You can watch “Listers: A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching” on YouTube.
Ratings:
- My Rating: 94/100
- IMDB Rating: 8.5/10
- Rotten Tomatoes Ratings: not yet rated
Director’s Note: This is a scrappy, road-trip-style doc directed by Owen Reiser. It leans into the obsession and weirdness of birding culture. It mixes humor with a surprisingly deep look at competition, data tracking, and the unwritten rules of the birding world.
Release Date: 2025
Other Unique Stuff
- Birding is basically gambling. You can drive 5+ hours for a rare sighting that’s already gone by the time you get there.
- Some of the best bird sightings happen in the most random places, like behind a Walmart parking lot.
- The whole hobby runs on eBird, where sightings are logged in real time, turning birdwatching into a live, data-driven leaderboard.
Wrap Up:
“Listers” turns birdwatching into a full-on obsession story. If you like road trip docs with weird subcultures (think “The King of Kong” energy), this one’s absolutely worth it.
Thanks for reading!
Heather Fenty, Guest Writer, Daily Doc