At the end of The Big Year (2011), Kenny Bostick does a big year and finishes with 755 bird species. After watching the film, I checked Wikipedia for Big year and reached the following information:
The Big Year of 1998 was the subject of a book of the same name by Mark Obmascik. In that year three birders, Sandy Komito, Al Levantin and Greg Miller, chased Komito's record of 721 birds. In the end Sandy Komito kept the record, listing 745 birds plus 3 submitted in 1998 and later accepted by state committees for a revised total of 748. The book was adapted for the 2011 20th Century Fox film The Big Year.
As of 2011, the world record is still 748, but in the movie it is 755. Why is the record in the movie not the same as the real one?
Answer
This page has a calculation on what one birder SHOULD have done, who ended on 748:
In late August instead of birding in Colorado for some code 1 birds
that he could have picked up at other times of the year, he could have
been in the Pribiloffs for a few days before going to Gambell. If he
had he could have seen taiga and dark-sided flycatchers (code 4's), a
jack snipe (code 4) and a long-toed stint (code 3). All of these birds
could have been seen without missing out on other birds that John saw
during the same time periods. If he had seen all these additional
birds his 2011 total would have been 755.
I'd theorise then that they were basing it on the theoretical maximum then, ie the answer to the "if he'd done everything right, how many could he have seen?" question.
No comments:
Post a Comment