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Watching the birdwatchers

THE BIG YEAR: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession.

Mark Obmascik. Free Press. 268 pages. $25.

Mark Obmascik was working the night beat as a cub reporter at The Denver Post when he met his first birder. He was writing about a venerable law professor who had achieved great renown among birders, but who was reluctant for publicity because he preferred his reputation remain unsullied by such a flighty association.

It wasn't long before Obmascik discovered the magnetic pull of birds himself. In the amusing The Big Year , he describes his own conversion with humor. Prowling through the woods after an owl, he finds himself hooting into the dark night and getting a fresh reply. ``Move over Dr. Dolittle. I'm talking to the animals.''

Suddenly he's not satisfied to admire the painted buntings passing through the yard but compelled to document as many different species as possible. Which must be a good thing, after all. The Worldwatch Institute, an independent research organization, reports that ``at least 103 species have vanished since 1800, and as many as 1,200 of the world's 9,800 bird species face extinction within the century. Birds require many of the same things we need for a sustainable future, and their alarming decline is a warning signal.''

In addition to chasing birds, Obmascik follows the chasers. Each year some of the most obsessed undertake their own ''Big Year'' -- 365 days to find and count as many birds in North America as possible. Obmascik tracks the top three winners of the 1998 competition: Sandy Komito, founder of a New Jersey roofing company who took first place with 745 birds; Gregg Miller, a nuclear-plant contractor who worked throughout the year to finance his expedition, which netted 715 birds; and Al Levantin, a semi-retired corporate executive who spotted 711.

Using great detail extracted from the birders' notes, interviews and his own travels to some of the roosts and rookeries, Obmascik cleverly paints an amusing tale as if he were along for the ride. The Big Year contest is not about the pleasure of admiring the unprecedented beauty of each new species, its color, the joy of its song. The Big Year is so fraught with competition, it becomes a ruthless frenzy of flying and driving, huge cash outlays and lonely spouses. ''Ethel [Levantin] admired his passion. She questioned his sanity,'' Obmascik writes.

We get the birds' eye view of all sorts of cozy nesting places: junkyards, sewage treatment ponds, nuclear power plant cooling tower waters and swampy dump sites now used as a picturesque backdrop for wedding ceremonies. An award-winning environmental writer, Obmascik is adept at describing these treasures of the landscape, El Niño, the desert and amazing feats of migration.

As for the birders, well, these guys know all the tricks. They go to McDonald's to find birds diving for french fries. They lure their prey with anchovies and cod liver oil dumped off the bow of sea-faring vessels. They travel to Attu, Alaska, where they bike over miles of tundra through snow and freezing rain while sick with contagious flu and respiratory ailments. They bunk in abandoned Coast Guard barracks. Komito even visits ancient boneyards on the Arctic Circle where Eskimos mine for valuable 300-year-old ivory tusks.

The three obsessive birders play dirty tricks as they crawl through the financial and physical challenges. Near the end, Levantin and Miller join forces in a futile effort to outsmart Komito. ``[Komito] tried to think of anyone who would want a bird so much that he would eat alone in a Chinese restaurant in Duluth on Christmas Eve. The whole thought was too depressing. He wouldn't let himself dwell on failure. Komito was back out at dawn on Christmas Day.''

Are these guys really as weird as Obmascik makes them out to be? It seems as if he has found the strangest birds of all in his own Big Year . And none of them even has feathers.

Trish Riley, of Sunrise, is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists .