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I really like birds. Everyone always wants me to say that I can't stand to go near them, just like they want Janet Leigh to confess that she can't bear to take a shower. Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you.

Birds themselves are so interesting and intelligent, and they give so many cues without being verbal, so they say such great things. Feathers are superior to fur, even. They're so beautiful, and nature uses such amazing colors.

What I am interested in with birds, just as I am with spiders or monkeys, is what they do and why they do it.

When you have birds you stare at them a lot and their eyes are recessed on their head. When they look at something they tilt their head in a quizzical expression.

Birds are the most popular group in the animal kingdom. We feed them and tame them and think we know them. And yet they inhabit a world which is really rather mysterious.

Everyone likes birds. What wild creature is more accessible to our eyes and ears, as close to us and everyone in the world, as universal as a bird?

The thing about owls is that they do sort of have this facial disc, which is unlike any other bird. They kind of have a face, more than like a dog or a giraffe. They have this weird, alien face that you can actually make expressive.

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands.

I grew up with two different parakeets - one that lived for five years, and one that lived for 13 years - so I always had a bit of an attraction to birds and it's an oddly good fit to be in a movie about birdwatchers.