I was just settling in for what appeared to be a promising movie, “Finding Forrester,” whose two main characters are: Forrester, a Pulitzer Prize winning author who wrote only one novel, played by Sean Connery; and Jamal, a 16-year-old gifted black writer from the Bronx, played by Rob Brown. Early in the film the two were sparring, establishing their identities and feeling each other out. Forrester had jumped to his Bronx apartment window with a camcorder, and as he filmed was muttering something akin to, come on big boy, that’s right ... etc.

Jamal, thinking his new acquaintance must have a voyeuristic streak, made some attempt at a sardonic comment. Forrester turned from the window in triumph, saying to his curious guest (paraphrased): “he must have strayed up here from the park -- it’s a male Connecticut warbler, in full breeding plumage.” He then opened the screen of his camcorder to reveal a stunning shot of a male yellow warbler in full breeding plumage.

Why do movies do this? They spend millions on cast, millions on wardrobe and locations and dialogue coaches, etc. But when they’re to portray something that reflects the natural world, it seems they go to a library or somewhere and ask, “Say, you got any photos or tapes of nature?”

Have you ever noticed that any scene from a movie that shows water is accompanied by the soundtrack of a common loon? It could be the bayous of Louisiana in July and we would be subjected to loons.
If there is an eerie howl, 99 times out of 100 it will be the howl of a gray wolf. It doesn’t matter in you’re deep in the heart of Texas. There will be gray wolves howling in the night.

And has anyone ever seen a scene from a swamp without the obligatory calls of Amazonian and/or African wildlife? Maybe this is how producers save enough money to pay for cast and location and wardrobe.

Perhaps if these two species were similar, we could give Hollywood the benefit of the doubt, but there is no way to confuse these two birds. In Peterson’s field guide there is a “similar species” section, if required, in the description of each species. This section compares and contrasts species the author feels could be hard to distinguish in the field.

There is no similar species section in the description of the yellow warbler. In fact, the first sentence in the description of the yellow warbler states, “No other warbler is so extensively yellow.” To top it off, the lemon-yellow male shows prominent rusty-red streaks on its breast, especially in breeding plumage.
The male Connecticut warbler, in breeding plumage shows a yellowish belly, olive-green back and a bluish-gray hood and throat. Add to that the fact that Connecticut warblers don’t nest in New York City, and I guess all that’s left to say is “Hooray for Hollywood!”

For birders and James Bond “bondies,” there is an even subtler irony. Sean Connery is surely the quintessential James Bond for many, but the real James Bond would have known that he was looking at a yellow warbler, not a Connecticut warbler.

Bond, James Bond, was a Philadelphia ornithologist. In 1952 Ian Fleming lifted the moniker from the cover of Birds of the West Indies, which lay on the coffee table in his Jamaica retreat, Goldeneye.
It seems that Fleming and his wife were birding aficionados and used Bond’s guide to help identify the birdlife around their Jamaican vacation home.

(Hendershot can be reached at don@smokymountainnews.com)

 

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