Birds That Remind Me of Movies

Because it's a slow Monday.

Yesterday was as good as spring gets – the air light on the skin, lilacs perfuming up the joint – so Hardcore Jim and I went out for what we call Old Man Birding. Which translates to driving over to Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge and parking at the various hotspots – Halcyon Lake, the tower, Consecration Dell (a.k.a. Conservation Dell) – and leaning on the car while we listened and looked. It’s not the best way to bird, but the waves of migration are finally hitting their peak, and we saw 32 species, a fair enough pull. Here are the highlights and the movies they reminded me of; if you don’t care about birds, watch one of the movies.

Black-Throated Blue Warbler

Lorraine Minns/Audubon Photography Awards

Dapper little gentlemen with their neatly tucked pocket handkerchiefs, they always make me think of butlers, and the best butler in the movies (pace Robert Grieg) is probably Ralph Richardson (below) as Mr. Baines, flawed hero to an ambassador’s worshipful young son (Bobby Henrey) in in Carol Reed’s gripping moral suspense drama “The Fallen Idol,” ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2, for rent on Amazon, Apple TV, YouTube).

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