One of the best films of 2025 was a documentary you’ve probably never heard of (unless you’re a birder).
It’s Listers, a low-budget gem that raced through the birding community like suet through a Downy Woodpecker, though you don’t have to be a birder to enjoy it. The film, which takes its name from the lists of species birders compile and record, chronicles a lower-48 “big year,” or quest to see the most birds in the contiguous U.S. in a calendar year. It’s hilarious. It’s rude. It features some of the most beautiful bird videography ever filmed and it’s a masterful study of extreme birder behavior.
Listers is the creation of brothers Owen and Quentin Reiser, who decide after a few bong hits to embark on a big year despite virtually no birding experience and a fraction of the budget typically expended in the competition. Top-tier competitive birders can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars chasing a big year title; the brothers spend $16,000, sleep in their van and never pay for a camping spot. For 12 months, they live off rice and beans and travel around the country looking for birds, chronicling their experiences in choppy hand-held camcorder footage and using their “good” camera to take stunning videos of the birds they see.
They meet a slew of offbeat supporting characters like Ezekial Dobson, the reigning lower-48 big year record holder with 758 species, and Olaf Danielson, who holds the big year record for most species seen while birding nude. They interview other big names from the birding world, discussing big years, the controversial use of playback to call in birds and the seriousness with which competitive birders take their checklists, ticking off species with precision and recording them in the global birding database eBird.
The result is a gritty road-trip saga of hardcore birding, outdoor urination, rants against eBird administrators who reject their bird sightings, mosquito bites everywhere imaginable and sly, spot-on insights into the mindsets of birders. Without spoiling anything, I can say that as the competition heats up the brothers find themselves falling in love with birds and birding in a way that’s both genuine and heartwarming. Listers has easily dethroned 2011’s The Big Year as my favorite birding movie, though I’ll always have a place in my heart for Steve Martin.
One of the many reasons I connected with the story is that I was also doing a big year, inspired not by weed but by an existential crisis about the welfare of our planet and our democracy. My year was more modest than the Reisers’, simply a personal challenge to see 300 species in Humboldt County. But I related their travails: I birded on ice-cold mornings and under glaring inland sun, in pouring rain, thick fog, ankle-high mud and my nemesis, sand. I put a ton of miles on my electric birdmobile and ate meals behind the wheel, almost always while parked. I peed outdoors like a top big-year birder. I chased everything and anything. When my phone pinged with a rare bird alert, my dog would run to the front door.
But I didn’t share the brothers’ cocky confidence. I knew success was probably out of reach — 300 is a high bar for any HumCo birder and exceeded my previous best by nearly 40 species. Last January, I projected my chances using a pie chart made from an actual pie and realized I couldn’t afford to miss a single rarity. But I was on the wrong boat for the Leach’s Storm-Petrel, at the dentist for the Red-eyed Vireo and arrived six minutes too late for the Black-throated Green Warbler. At least I got to eat the chart.
Still, I’m glad I gave it my best shot. I learned amazing things about birding, our extraordinary community of birders and myself.
I learned persistence is the No. 1 quality when looking for birds, patience is a close second and good luck sometimes outweighs both. I visited Potawot Health Village 11 times before adding a skulky Gray Catbird to my list, thanks to another birder’s alert. I staked out a patch of willows for almost two hours waiting for a Least Flycatcher to flit into view. But for the Yellow-green Vireo, I stepped out of my car and found a group of birders 50 feet away with their binoculars fixed on the bird.
I discovered, too, that I’m not as ocean averse as I thought. After that first disastrous pelagic trip where the sea nearly got the best of me (“Birds of the Sea(sick),” Aug. 14, 2025), I went on to do five more. I learned the rougher the waves, the better the birds, and fog can put an end to a promising outing. I figured out medication taken the night before lasts most of the next day, a thermos of hot chicken broth is soothing when you’re getting pummeled by cross-waves, and the promise of ice cream after a long day at sea can make it all worthwhile. I learned that though you tend to see fewer new birds with each successive trip, the attraction lies in never knowing what might show up, like the magnificent Laysan Albatross that graced a boatload of tired birders on the last outing of the year.
I learned people can be extraordinarily generous, especially when they know you’re on a mission. My phone chimed constantly with texts from other birders offering hot tips. “Do you need a Barred Owl for your year?” one asked. (I did). And I confirmed something I’d suspected all along: Humboldt is blessed with an incredible number of highly talented birders, from multi-decade veterans to up-and-coming student birders, many of whom are part of the Cal Poly Humboldt Birding Club and give me hope for the future.
One of the most surprising things I learned was that I was capable of a lot more than I’d allowed myself to believe. I did things I never thought I could do, like tromp through deep sand to see Ruddy Turnstones and drive up into the mountains for a Golden Eagle. I even navigated the slick piers of the North Jetty with high surf only crazy people or birders (a fine line) would risk; amid the crashing waves and spray I picked up my lifer Rock Sandpiper. This newfound confidence spilled over into other areas of my life and made 2025 a big year in myriad other ways. It changed me.
But one of the most interesting things the year taught me was that sometimes it’s necessary to acknowledge your own truths. I traveled to some beautiful places looking for specific birds and when I came up empty-handed tried to convince myself it was about the journey, the new experiences and the breathtaking scenery. It’s not. It’s about the bird.
Right now, all of us are on a journey, more of a rollercoaster ride really, with madmen at the controls. It’s a twisted circus with acts of unspeakable arrogance and ignorance and cruelty toward the big blue orb we’ve been entrusted with and everything living thing on it. We’re heartsick and motion-sick and hanging on for dear life wondering where, when and if the ride will end. Our truth might be that we feel helpless and hopeless, and in our darkest moments we just want to get off the ride.
But the more we do, the more we can do. The more we care, the more strength we have to fight for what we love. We’re stronger than we know and insurmountable when we work together.
So what’s your bird, the thing that moves you above all other things? Is it love for your children, your children’s children, clean air, clear water, pristine wild open spaces? You can make a difference in 2026. Find your strength and act.
Joy isn’t necessarily found in things that are easy or pleasant. Sometimes it has to be chased down in deep sand, driving hail, poison oak or cow shit. This year I re-found the joy of birding and of life. In every respect that truly matters, it was a very big year.
I saw 311 bird species this year. So believe me, we can do this.
Sarah Hobart (she/her) is a freelance writer based in Humboldt County.
This article appears in Free Food!.