I remember the first time I felt betrayed by a movie. (Many of my friends have heard me rant about this one.) One of my favorite books, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, had been made into a movie, for some reason called Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I was excited to see it. I went to see it. Had the abbreviation WTF been in my vocabulary at the time, it would have been useful to describe my reaction: WTF have they done to my book?

Since then, of course, I’ve grown up and realized that books are books and movies are movies. I’ve even revisited Willy Wonka and cut everyone some slack. Still, when Johnny Depp starred in an extremely faithful-to-the-book version, I couldn’t help but feel a bit redeemed. (And yet they did add a completely unnecessary backstory for Wonka—seems everyone has to tinker.)

Back in November, the week before Thanksgiving, I embarked on a project that will shock the more literary snobs among you: I decided I would reread all the Harry Potter books. After each book, I would watch the corresponding movie. (Seven books. Eight movies.) Given that I read all day for work and that my reading for pleasure tends to be limited to just before I fall asleep, I thought this project would take me half a year. I finished the last book last night. (Two movies to go!)

I’d read all the books before, and I’d seen all the movies. But I read the books as they came out, and I saw the movies as they came out. I’m lucky to remember something I’ve read from one day to the next, so by the time I was seeing a movie based on a book, I could no longer remember much about the book. It was practically a separate experience. And there’s something to be said for that.

I was never critical of the books or films. I went in just wanting to be entertained, and I was. The movies were beautiful. No one seemed afraid of the darkness of the story.

With this “project,” I wanted to look at adaptations. I wanted to see what decisions the filmmakers had made. In the first few films, the deletions of particular details made good sense. Assigning actions one character might have performed to another for simplicity usually worked well.

But with the fourth installment—and this is the point at which the page counts become very high—it felt as if filmmakers made a leap from shortcuts to shorthand. I began viewing scenes that I felt people could only fully comprehend if they had read the book, because the filmmakers didn’t have time to give you enough backstory. They seemed to assume that most viewers had read the book—and they were likely correct. Certain scenes in certain films must surely confuse nonreaders, I thought, for as far as I could tell, certain corresponding explanations lay only in the book. Of course, I can’t know if nonreaders were confused or not.

Ultimately, I was surprised by just how much more there is to the books. I shouldn’t have been. Of course there’s much more. They’re books.

I broke my Harry Potter stride only long enough to reread The Invention of Hugo Cabret right before I went to see Hugo. This gorgeous book had been one of my favorites; in fact, I had given it to several people. And as I was in a book-into-movie mode, and as it had been several years since I’d read the book, I decided to take a look.

The movie was gorgeous but was in fact sapped up. That whole station master subplot/backstory? Slapsticky and unnecessary. I understood why they dropped a certain character, merging his actions into two others, but I missed him. The saddest change for me is what they did to the Isabelle character. In the book, it is she, not Hugo, who can pick locks. It is she who sneaks them into the movies. Her character is strong, but the film diminishes her a bit. And so it goes.

Still, a lovely movie (and I didn’t even get a chance to see it in 3D).

No doubt many of the best films are ones that were born films, films never encumbered by the limits of a book and readers’ expectations.

Soon I will watch the last two Potter movies. But more exciting is the stack of twentyish books next to my bed, many of which I want so much to read that I don’t know which to grab first.

Tim was already out, cutting back some plants, and Martha was talking gardening with him. We three made a plan for a walk on the rail trail. I layered up, starting with long undies. Tim and I grabbed binoculars.

I wanted to see a bluebird.

Suckers have been eluding me all month. I swear many have dashed in front of my car, too quickly for me to solidly ID (or hit).

We were a good half hour out when I thought that maybe I spotted one, way way out there on that fence post on the other side of that field.

The bird would flash its red breast, but when it turned, I couldn’t really tell if its back was blue or black. Of course, it was acting like a bluebird.

Tim declared it positively a bluebird. His binoculars are better than mine. Likely his eyes are too.

We hiked the farm road in a bit to see if we could get a closer look. We’d walk, stop, look. I was getting windchilled, my hands numb.

But eventually, we got close enough, and there were three hanging out together, just like us. One of them posed on a tree branch, giving us a fantastic look. At last.

Then, hiking back, Martha pointed to a tree and asked, “Is that a dove?” It was a flicker—my first of the year.

This brings my count, here at month’s end, to 23: red-breasted nuthatch (21), eastern bluebird (22), northern flicker (23). And so it slowly goes.

I wasn’t seeing robins in January because of the weird winter weather we’re having. I was seeing robins in January because they are here all year. So when people get all excited about the robins “coming back” in the spring, I kinda roll my eyes a bit.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology website backs me up: “Although robins are considered harbingers of spring, many American robins spend the whole winter in their breeding range. But because they spend more time roosting in trees and less time in your yard, you’re much less likely to see them. The number of robins present in the northern parts of the range varies each year with the local conditions.”

So maybe there are fewer robins about, but there are a lot of robins about, always. When it’s warm enough for worms, you’ll see the robins on the ground again.

The ones I was watching were in trees and bushes.

While reading about robins, though, the fact that caught my attention was this: “Robins eat a lot of fruit in fall and winter. When they eat honeysuckle berries exclusively, they sometimes become intoxicated.” I knew this happened to cedar waxwings eating overripe fermented berries, but I hadn’t made the robin connection. To our friend Cedar Waxwing, I ask: Aren’t you glad to know other species join you in this overindulgence?

I saw the pair of house finches several times four days ago, but not at all since. Where have they all gone?

Two great blue heron sightings, two days apart, in the dead of winter. Yum.

So now my number is nineteen.

I don’t know the current group number. Danny suggested we tally at the end of each month. But I’m guessing we’ll be lucky to get to thirty.

The problem lies somewhat in my own state of torpor. We’ve had a slew of single-digit days temperaturewise. And right now it’s raining. Raining! It’s hard to want to go outside.

I see birds from the car but pass too quickly to allow myself the ID: bluebirds where they always are, black ducks. (The bluebirds would never allow the sighting if I stopped, but I’ve only got my schedule to blame for not jumping out to check on the ducks.)

I am withdrawing into winter. I am not going all sorts of places.

Then, as I turn to go, I hear someone say “snowy owl,” and talk turns to sightings, so I have to go back and say the first thing I’ve ever mustered courage to say beyond good morning, which is something like, “Did you see a snowy?”

And it’s the guy who reached for my coffee talking, and it turns out he hasn’t, not yet, not this year; he hasn’t seen one for eighteen years, but he tells me about a close town where a couple of sightings have happened, and we talk about the apparent snowy owl irruption in Vermont, what a year it’s been, and I tell him I’ve never seen one—well, not any outside captivity anyway—and he seems surprised by this, which in turn surprises me, but I assure him that my binoculars are in my car.

Last weekend our hike was so muddy that we left our boots to freeze dry in the uninsulated mud room. I eventually moved both pair inside to warm for their next trip, a walk on the rail trail yesterday, where I stopped at standing icy puddles and washed the caked mud off mine. The ground is soft. Is it January thaw if, as a friend pointed out, there is very little to thaw?

The soft ground gave like spring. The warm air smelt of it—air warm enough to smell!—the wet of mud, of field manure, of the stream. And then I heard my barred owl, just two days after Tim’s sighting, so now I need only be envious that he saw one.

I needed to go to the post, so I decided to return Laura’s cutting board and water bottle, which I’d been meaning to do for nearly four days. My arms were loaded with these items, plus bills and an invoice to post. I walked outside, and, as I was about to cross the street, a bird swooped overhead.

A hawk. Probably an accipiter.

It landed at the top of Lynda’s tree. Too far up for me to ID it. I’m thinking Cooper’s or sharp-shinned.

Do I go back in the house, drop everything, grab my binoculars? Or do I head up the hill to Laura’s, now that I’ve got all this stuff in my hands?

After much hesitation, I headed up.

I asked if she had binoculars (the tree is in full view from her place), and she did, but by the time I went out, the bird was gone.

I need to have binoculars on my person at all times. An accipiter, for crying out loud!

I’m pissed that I was too lazy to run back into my house when I had the chance.

I realize that this means that Team Big Year can now list this species. But I haven’t even heard one yet.

I’m seriously jealous.

Of course, there’s little to report. I’ve barely left the house since the turn of the year. I’m on a deadline, and I’ve sequestered myself pretty well. This has limited my birding to occasionally looking out the window at the feeder and seeing birds from the car the few times I’ve been out in it. Went for a walk one day, but it didn’t add much to my count.

And it’s winter, and we’re down to the usual suspects: black-capped chickadee, American goldfinch, European starling, downy woodpecker, house sparrow, northern cardinal, mourning dove, American crow, rock pigeon, Canada goose, blue jay, dark-eyed junco, white-breasted nuthatch, mallard, tufted titmouse. Fifteen.

I’ve seen nary a house finch. They were everywhere at the end of December. Maybe they’re still sleepin’ off New Year’s.

While swinging on December 31, a pileated woodpecker called loudly, quite near me.

I haven’t heard him since.

Many of these activities are seasonal, so there would never be a month in which all activities were checked off. In fact, I never checked off more than six (in March, June, August, and September). Unfortunately, there were a couple of months during which I accomplished only three (April, December).

I thought there were at least two activities I would have checked off every month. In fact, on December 31, when I visited the swing set next door, I was convinced that I had been on that swing every single month. Alas, according to those little boxes, I skipped March altogether. And birding? I didn’t check the box in January. That’s a bit ridiculous. I feed birds. I see birds. Birders are always birding—it’s like breathing. I think the first month I must have decided that if I didn’t go out into the world armed with binoculars, I wasn’t birding. So birding only got eleven months too.

Here is the list and the crazy-list-lady results:

• Cross-country ski—January, February, March
• Snowshoe—January, February, March
• Ice skate—January, February, March, June, July, October, November, December (obviously an indoor rink!)
• Fly fish—May, June, August, September (a pathetic showing)
• Hike—January, March, September, October, November (I can do better than this, certainly.)
• Bike—April, May, June, July, August, September, October
• Bird—February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
• Canoe—August (I have a canoe. I took it out once. This is beyond shameful.)
• Swing (on the swing set next door)—January, February, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
• Hang out at the swimming hole—March, May, July, August
• Read in the hammock (Apparently this did not happen a single time. I remember getting the hammock out of the closet one weekend, going out the front door to set it up on the hooks on the front porch, and spotting an annoying neighbor out and about who would definitely ruin my attempt at relaxed solitude. It just wasn’t worth it. I went back inside to read. A sad state of affairs.)
• Take a vacation—June (Indiana!), September (California!)

On January 1, I got on the swing set. And, as you know, I’m birding too.

I wonder when it will snow?