Nostalgia.
If you have "ever" been a New Yorker and Central Park became part of your life, then this movie is right for you!
Not only does this film have some of the very best color footage of Central Park that I have seen, but it covers three topics very effectively...First what makes birders "chirp" ...so to speak. How they think and connect to the natural world. Second, information that the entire park is a landscaped fantasy, not a natural world. Strange, when so much looks like it might have been wild New York back in the days. And third, the essential need to preserve wildlife habitat - because the Park attracts 25 per cent of all the birds in the United States as well as many migrants because there are no other good places to go.
There are four characters that play a role in the film. The birders, of course. One of them is an elder woman with cancer who has spent most of her adult life taking groups of people on bird walks through the park...despite the discomfort...revisiting her colorful winged neighbors gives her life an essential meaning. Every day with them is precious. A second character is the seasons...the Park is shown through all the brilliant four seasons and the changing birdlife that one might see. Then there are The birds...lovely photographs of the birds that live or visit the park..and there are two hundred different species. There is an amateur quality to the cinematography that actually enhances the enjoyment of the film. These are pictures by a birder of the creatures he loves...not National Geographic or Disney homages to birds. And lastly, the habitat itself.
Though I live in California now...I grew up in New York. This movie made a difference to me. You learn about the "unicorn effect", learning about a bird in guidebooks or audiorecordings, and then encountering it - for the first time - in the wild...Discover a new way of seeing the world...this is what the film is really about.
