Birdchasers

Birdchasers: An educational documentary ideal for the Discoverie Channel.

Two teams of birdwatchers spend the entire birding season (from June 1st through June 22nd) in sometimes friendly, sometimes not so friendly competition in a desperate and dangerous search for dangerous and disparate birds. Team A is from Cornell University Bird Research Center, and their main objective is to collect good scientific data and a few nice pictures. Team B consists of Corey Finger and Mike Bergin, from the Internet Blog 10,000 Birds. The bloggers, with the nickname "The Dominators," are mainly after the photographs, but also intend to collect some scientific data.

Team A, led by Dr. John W. Fitzpatrick, has a bird radar search vehicle, an Imax Movie Van, and several binocular-wielding bird counting graduate students. Mike and Corey have a 1998 Subaru Forester, some old binoculars, and one really good lens for their Pentax K-1000 camera. Throughout the season, Mike and Corey consistently "get the shot" despite all odds against them, while the well funded and elaborately equipped Cornell team, less mobile and more cumbersome, is often left lagging behind. Yet, when push comes to shove the two teams need to rely on each other, and have more than a few opportunities to save each other's beaks. At the end of the season, it turns out that all they really want is a big group hug.

Here's a clip of the renegade Dominators of Storm Chasers to provide a sense of how the 10,000 Birds Blogger team would approach their birding:

And here is a clip of the academic meteorology team of Storm Chasers to provide a sense of how the Cornell Ornithology team would approach their birding:

So, what do you think, should we crowdfund this? Or won't it fly? As it were....