Dinner and a Movie

Dinner (well, dessert if you want to be picky)

It is peach season in Colorado. Peaches from the Western Slope are readily available at the farmer’s markets and supermarkets – and they are delicious. This is a super easy recipe. I don’t know if it keeps well – I don’t think I’ve ever had leftovers!

Peach Crunch
4 medium peaches, sliced
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/3 cup melted butter
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup old fashioned oatmeal
1/2 cup brown sugar

Sweeten peaches with sugar and cinnamon. Place mixture in an 8x8 baking dish. Blend next 4 ingredients and top the peach mixture with the crumb mixture. Bake in 375° oven for 30 minutes.

Movie
Winged Migration (2001) (run time 91 minutes)

While practically everyone is aware of the fact that birds fly south for the winter, and return home in the spring, few are aware of just how arduous the journey can be. Jacques Perrin, a noted actor and film producer in his native France, decided to document this process, using flocks of birds that had been trained to ignore the distractions of his camera crew, and employing a variety of state-of-the-art technology to capture as unobtrusively as possible the flight paths of different birds from around the globe.

The result was Winged Migration, a visually dazzling documentary that records the flight of dozens of different birds as they follow their navigational instincts and make the taxing journey to more temperate climates in the fall, all chronicled without the use of narration. Winged Migration received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary.

The movie offers the world through birds' eyes. We're on the ground with them as they interact, look for sustenance, and care for their young; and we're in the air with the birds as they dauntlessly fly high and low above the earth and sea. The film is also a tour of the globe that reveals gorgeous landscapes that most humans never get to see. The thrill of flying with the birds is countered with the depiction of the disasters and impediments that they face on a daily basis.

We watched this on August 6th while we did a 75 minute easy recovery ride. It is a very cool, Natural Geographic-type film, with amazing photography.

3 stars. Beautiful photography but a little more narration detailing the hows and whys of bird migration would have been nice.