When Bostick arrives home in Montclair, NJ in late summer, with trees green, he gets a call from his friend who is viewing a snowy owl. The problem is the friend is calling him from Buffalo, New York which is only 360 miles away but the scene is winter.
When Jack Black tells his boss that he is done and ready to leave, his boss offers him double overtime. When Black enters the office the audience clearly see his boss looking at a spreadsheet on his computer monitor. A minute later he turns the monitor and it has a picture of his two kids on the monitor. Technically there is a cut away back to Black so the boss could have very, very quickly minimized the spreadsheet but there is no indication of that.
While at High Island, Stu points out a bird and says Blue Grosbeak. The bird in the next shot is an Indigo Bunting, not a Blue Grosbeak.
On Day 1, Stu has 29 species in Colorado while Bostick has 31 in Arizona. This makes no sense. Stu's number are low but could be explained away by him being engaged with his family on NYD. Bostick starts the day before dawn and stops at night. Even an average birder would have 2-3 times this number in Arizona let alone someone going for a record.
On Day 1, Brad only has one species - out his office window. Done for humor but completely inexplicable for any birder in one day. Even worse, in the image of gulls used to show the audience the "one species" - there are actually three different species of gulls. What would have been funnier and more accurate would be if Brad was looking out his work window and saw only pigeons or starlings. The audience would recognize, empathize and laugh at that situation.
Brad's friend Crane looks at Stu's book and reports that by May 8, Stu has 497 species. Yet when the audience see the book, it is filled in for 498 species.
Many of the autumn shots (October, November) are shown with all the trees and other vegetation in full summer foliage.
On Day 44 Stu and Bostick are close at 158 to 159. Brad is at 132. Again these numbers are too low to make sense. Brad's could be excused as he is working full time. But the other two are gunning for a record and would have reached those number in the first few days in January.
The last flights to Attu Alaska were in 2000. Currently the only way to get to Attu for bird watching is through Zugunruhe Tours which charter a 72 foot boat to Attu for 15 days. There was one trip to Attu in 2010, which was the first birding trip to Attu in 10 years. There are 2 trips scheduled for 2012.
Attu island is not closer to Tokyo than Anchorage. Anchorage is 1440 miles from the island, Tokyo is closer to 2000 miles away.
The Pink-footed Goose, a North Atlantic species which occasionally vagrates from its European breeding range to the Northeastern coastal states, has never been seen in Texas or Colorado as shown in the film.
A Great Gray Owl is shown as being found in Virginia. A species of the Northern boreal forest, this raptor is mainly distributed in Canada and Alaska. It only typically ventures into the contiguous United States in the Northern Rocky Mountains and has never been found in Virginia.
A brief shot of a car driving down a mountainous coastal road is identified as being in Houston, Texas. No such terrain exists anywhere near Houston.
While supposedly in Brownsville, Texas at the dump, Steve Martin is walking around asking people if they want a ketchup chip and he has a bag of Lay's ketchup chips in his hand. Ketchup chips, including those by Lays, are only produced in Canada so it would not have had them in Texas. Since the movie was filmed in British Columbia then it is easy to see how the error was made.
When they are at High Island, Texas, the audience sees the tallies for all three: Brad (296, 329), Stu (289, 320), Bostick (270, 310). This is likely an error in the counts as the core plot of the story is Stu and Brad trying to keep up with the maniacal Bostick, yet they are both ahead of him already. If this was not an error of the actual numbers, then it is an error in the plot line since it destroys the whole concept that Brad is the underdog.
This is similar to the numbers at Attu. Brad is at 534 and Bostick is at 537 and when they leave Brad has 627 to Bostick's 629. Again this destroys the sense that Brad is the underdog trying to keep up.
This is similar to the numbers at Attu. Brad is at 534 and Bostick is at 537 and when they leave Brad has 627 to Bostick's 629. Again this destroys the sense that Brad is the underdog trying to keep up.
From their location on the Oregon Coast, Fuchs recommends a hotel on Highway 101, half way to Mount Shasta. Highway 101 runs along the California Coast. Mount Shasta is in the middle of Northern California, on Interstate Five.