Sighting of the day. The birds of Avatar. If you don’t know what Avatar is, you’ve got to get out more.
And you’ve got to see this movie. It’s made for you, you two-fisted bird watcher, you. Because it’s filled with wild creatures who fly. Are they birds? Good question. My answer: yeah! I think of them as birds.
And they’re worth sighting. Worth adding to your life list. Some people might think of them as sci-fi dragons. I guess they’re called Banshees in the film, if you want to get technical about it. Doesn’t matter. They’re birds.
Birds descended from dinosaurs on our planet, and on the planet in Avatar the flying creatures look like birds that descended from dinosaurs. Alien dinosaurs maybe, but with all the right equipment. Beaks and wings and talons, and they can fly like hell. That’s really what it’s all about.
Bird watchers, two-fisted bird watchers, gotta admit that they wouldn’t care much about birds if birds didn’t fly. Flying is the best thing an animal can do.
We want to fly; always have. Fly on big wings like those of an eagle or heron. Fly in soaring circles like vultures. Fly in acrobatic loops like swallows or gulls. Or fly silently like a stealth predator—in other words, an owl. But the main thing is—fly.
Bird watchers like to watch flying. And wish we could do it. Well, in Avatar you get to see a lot of bird-like flying, soaring, zooming, and you get to ride along on the backs of the birds as they do it. Definitely, the sighting of the day. And the bird watcher’s movie of the year. Maybe the bird watcher’s movie of a lifetime.
