I’ll probably see The Big Year eventually; I thought the book, for all its stubbornly manifest inaccuracies, was very funny in places, and Steve Martin is one of my favorites.

For now, though, what I’m finding fascinating is the rare opportunity to look at birding from the outside, as critics and reviewers explain the phenomenon to their non-birding readers. So here’s what we apparently look like to “normal” people:

Bird-watching seems like a harmless hobby, and I’ve penciled it into the calendar for my golden years. - Joe Williams

For most of the general population the only thing more boring than birding itself is watching other people do it. - Robert Levin

True, birding may be a solitary, insular pursuit, only important to those who enjoy its meek geek attributes. – Bill Gibron

Bird-watching — or birding, as practitioners prefer to call it — makes for a stupefyingly boring movie. – Rene Rodriguez

Maybe it’s impossible to make anything really interesting, on a subject that is itself so inherently uninteresting. - Joshua Tyler

Aside from an international staring contest and the World Series of Texting, there aren’t many challenges less suited for a movie than competitive bird watching. – Matt Pais

People with plenty of disposable income travel to locales on a moment’s notice whenever they hear of an unusual or uncommon species that has decided to land on a branch or a rock or a beach …. setting up tripods in garbage dumps, hunkering down for long hours in the woods and making silly sounds with one’s lips. – Teddy Durgin

Competitive birding is only for the leisure class or for young people sponsored by their rich, indulgent parents. - James Verniere

A long, slightly dull slog …. But then, that’s birding for you. – Stephen Whitty

An asinine sort-of sport. – Dustin Putman