Speaking of the Wild Bird Fund

They had a fundraiser Thursday night, held at the Mount Vernon Hotel and Museum on East 61st Street.

I had never been there before (okay, never even realized it was there -- that's New York for you) but in the early 19th century this was a popular weekend getaway for city dwellers. The city only went up to 14th Street then, so this was miles out in the country.

It's still out of the way, practically on the East River, with the Roosevelt Island tram and the onramps to the 59th Street Bridge visible from the gardens, a small oasis carved out of the 21st century city surrounding it.

After cheese and crackers and wine in the garden, there was a screening of a new film A Birder's Guide to Everything, about a group of teenage birding enthusiasts hunting for a bird long believed extinct, and a Q&A with the director Rob Meyer afterwards.

Obviously this group was predisposed to like any movie with avian costars (one very cute owl in particular) but the film was sweet and sad and funny on its own terms. The Big Year, it was not.