My latest "Bird Watcher" column, in today's Record, is about the pleasures of birding as enumerated by Chris Cooper (in photo above at right) in the new HBO special, "Birders: The Central Park Effect."

I added a couple of my own thoughts after listing Cooper's "Seven Pleasures of Birding."

I included  "seeing nuances that I never stopped to notice before — whether it's the exquisite turquoise eyes of a double-crested cormorant or the subtle feather patterns on a female gadwall."

Have you ever really stopped to think why you are attracted to bird-watching?  Readers of the column are invited to share their thoughts.

Here's the link to my column.

(Pictured above, from the documentary: author Jonathan Franzen, Starr Saphir, director Jeffrey Kimball, and Chris Cooper. All four are mentioned in my Record writeup of the show (link to my Sunday article on the documentary is here).