The Big Twitch

Just finished reading The Big Twitch, by Sean Dooley. Mr. Dooley is a comedy writer for TV shows by day, and a fanatical birder...also by day. I think he just sleeps by night, like most people.

Anyways, The Big Twitch is the story of how Sean Dooley spent one year trying to break the record for most birds seen in Australia in one year, an event creatively known in the birding community as a Big Year. But more than break the record, Mr. Dooley wanted to completely smash the record by reaching the previously untouchable level of 700 species in one year. The previous record was 634 or something. It was an ambitious goal, but Mr. Dooley felt that he had a reasonable chance of accomplishing his goal.

He does a pretty good job of keeping both birders and non-birders interested in his story, mixing in his tales of chasing down rare birds with his absurd adventures on the road. Another major theme of the book is his terrible luck at finding a steady girlfriend, as a fanatical birder, and how this Big Year attempt probably won't help things any. Not only do the chapter headings give an update on how many species he's seen thus far, but also how many girlfriends he's gone through, a number which pretty much stays at zero all the way through the book. Ah, life as a birder, that's the life I love.

Halfway through, it sorta became apparent that he'd break the record. Why else would he write the book? So then I started to wonder: is this a storybook ending where he gets a girl too? And that's when I realized: oh no. This is like a romantic comedy! I've been tricked! Those scoundrels! I was lured in with the promise of rare birds, and got suckered into reading a romantic comedy! Kinda reminds me of a movie that came out many years back, I think it was called Forget Paris? It starred Billy Crystal as an NBA referee, and all I noticed during the previews was footage of guys like Reggie Miller and Charles Barkley draining jumpshots and making fun of Billy Crystal's hair, and I almost went to see it until my dad rescued me from the abyss by mentioning that it was actually a romantic comedy, probably advertised as a sports movie to sucker boyfriends and husbands into seeing it with their giddy girlfriends and wives.

Fortunately though, Dooley gets one satisfaction but not the other: he gets the record, but on his first date of the next year, the girl, “with eyes like a Rainbow Pitta's wings...” thinks he's crazy and doesn't follow up with a second date. Sorry Dooley old buddy, that does sorta suck for you, but c'mon, you got to see a Red-capped Flowerpecker! Doesn't that make it totally worthwhile?! Sad thing is, some would argue that yes, yes that's totally worth it. Hah.

The unromantic fanaticism of these guys really is quite amazing. Dooley is tortured by the constant struggle of how one can possibly nurture a relationship when an Eyrean Grasswren has just showed up six hours away. But there's no way he can compromise and bring the two together either; you just can't drag a girlfriend into a ten-mile hike through odious swamps just to see a small brown bird to add to the year's list.

That's the tension that makes the book work so well, the push-and-pull between the birding world and the normal world. The other two Big Year accounts I've read (Kingbird Highway by Kenn Kaufman, a great book, and Wild America by Roger Tory Peterson and James Fisher, historically important but not as good of a read) probably appeal only to birders; by the end they start reading like a laundry list of birds seen or missed. By contrast, The Big Twitch is a very accessible read that a non-birder could certainly appreciate, and a birder would also approve of. Well done Dooley, best of luck with the birds and the chicks, mate.

Edit: Just noticed something really weird. In the cover photo above, both birds are Red-browed Finches. On the copy I borrowed, the guy is holding what I think is a Rose Robin, and peering off to the right is a Regent Honeyeater or something, I haven't checked the guide to ID either of them. I wonder if different copies have different birds on the cover? That'd be pretty cool.

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So now I've moved on to Don DeLillo's Underworld. The New York Times surveyed a vast array of American literature critics to compile a list of the Best American Novels of the past 25 years, and Underworld clocked in impressively at Number Two, just behind Toni Morrison's Beloved. I'm a hundred pages in, and I've already been taken to the verge of tears. What was the reason, you might ask? Of course: sports. Baseball. The account of Bobby Thomson's Shot Heard 'Round the World. The joyous players, the ecstatic fans, a city rising together, that kind of stuff just kills me every time. Great book so far. But back to sports: as much as I love those sorts of miraculous moments in sports, I absolutely cannot stand sports movies. Actually, I can't think of a single one that I actually enjoy. As a kid, I really loved Rookie of the Year and Angels in the Outfield, but I'm way past that point now. Well, in hindsight, those movies were sort of ridiculous, and would probably be entertaining for camp value. Can somebody arrange a viewing? But in general, I don't like sport movies, because you know what's going to happen. It's the unpredictable and unscriptable stuff in the real world that gets to me. Remember the Music City Miracle? Holy cow, I'm tearing up just thinking about that thing. Sports are so great. Tar Heels, don't let me down.

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np: The Smashing Pumpkins – 'Bullet With Butterfly Wings'. These are among the most awkward lyrics I've ever heard, they're just laughably horrendous. The music though, woah. The hook in the chorus is incredible. I start air-guitaring and screaming along to it, but then the lyrics I'm singing just crack me up and I burst out laughing. How frustrating is that. This song could've been Song of All-Time, but silly Billy Corgan had to slap on angsty goth-poetry that doesn't even make any sense. The opening line: “The world is a vampire...” and you're already down for the count, pounding the floor in laughter. Endless lols. I wish I could listen to this song with alternate, better lyrics. Oh man, what if Dan Bejar wrote the lyrics for 'Bullet With Butterfly Wings'. Best song ever, or, best song of all-time? Tough question.

Also, I saw that the new Rosebuds albums leaked, haha. Listened to the first song, and was really disappointed it. Shucks, what happened to these guys? They were Raleigh's great shining hope for indie rock salvation, and after the brilliance of The Rosebuds Make Out, they just haven't gone anywhere. There were a handful of nice songs on the Unwind EP and Birds Make Good Neighbors, but it doesn't look like this new one's going anywhere. In general, 2007 has been a bit of a disappointment, though clearly I'm missing out on a lot by being abroad with very little internet. Can people give some 2007 recommendations, including stuff I've already heard but may need to revisit? Much appreciation.

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More Australia photos:

A little baby Stinging Tree!!! Adorable.

Whiting's Fragment, which is the world's smallest fragment of type 5b 'Mabi' forest left in the entire world. My partner and I did some surveys of frog populations in this fragment, and believe it or not, both of us actually got lost in there. It's some of the densest forest I've ever encountered, and blindly hacking through it at night didn't help. Somehow, we managed to get hopelessly lost.

Whale Rock, at Granite Gorge.

Green ants. That's the queen in the center. They're actually edible, and delicious: they have a sharp citrus taste. Unreal.