Friday, August 31, 2007

Adventures in Birdwatching (DVD)


We've really been immersing ourselves in bird identification around here lately. We found a cool DVD at the library: Adventures in Birdwatching to help us out.

Most of the birdwatching videos we've discovered have been pretty dull. Not as dull as paint drying on the wall, but close. Adventures in Birdwatching is much more interesting than anything we've seen and the kids have been enjoying it immensely. (Parental warning: there is a wee bit of discussion on bird reproduction.)

The star of the series is Ken Dial. He's a Wyoming ornithologist with a sense of humor. He makes birdwatching fun. He definitely loves what he does and his enthusiasm is contagious. In fact, he reminded the kids of another bird enthusiast we all know. I heard a few times as we watched, "That guy sounds just like Dad!"

Adventures in Birdwatching comes from the cable station Animal Planet. Being a non-TV family, I wasn't aware of Animal Planet's programming. But if this is an example, they're doing a good job. Not that I'm pining for cable TV. Even good shows have those wretched and horribly inappropriate commercials.

These days, you can still watch cool TV shows by going to the library and checking out whole seasons on DVD and forgo all commercials. I love it.

Now I'm off to see if I can find an interesting DVD on identifying animal skulls. You think I'm kidding, don't you?

1 comment:

melanie said...

Thanks for the recommendation Maureen! We are a no-tv family too (we watch family movies on our laptop set on the coffee table LOL)... i'll have to see if this movie is available through zip.ca (like netflix). happy fall!!