Look, Quentin and Owen Reiser comprehend it’s all however unattainable they’ll see an Ivory-billed Woodpecker. The final irrefutable sighting of the two-foot-tall hen in a southeastern forest was in 1944—half a century earlier than they have been born. They’re in search of it anyway.
Earlier than we get to the how and why of their quixotic pursuit, a suggestion: If you happen to haven’t seen the Reisers’ offbeat documentary, Listers, cease studying this story and watch it for free on YouTube. The feature-length film follows the brothers on their 2024 Large 12 months quest to see as many birds as potential within the Decrease 48. What units Listers aside from different Large 12 months narratives and nature documentaries generally is that the Reisers have been full novices with restricted funds. They purchased a 2010 Kia Sedona minivan on a budget, put in bunk beds, googled which states have essentially the most birds, after which headed south from the Midwest. The result’s a delightful, irreverent road-trip adventure that concurrently lampoons “listers”—single-minded birders who jet throughout the nation so as to add one other species to their depend—whereas additionally celebrating the straightforward pleasure of watching birds and being in nature (even when “nature” is a landfill).
For his or her subsequent movie, the Reisers are documenting an much more obsessive birding subculture: Ivory-billed Woodpecker searchers. Whether or not the species survives is among the biggest controversies within the birding group. Whereas experiences of latest sightings proceed to trickle in, the proof consists primarily of grainy movies, blurry pictures, and inconclusive audio recordings. Heightening the stakes is federal wildlife officers’ proposal to declare the Ivory-bill extinct; their closing resolution might come any day. Searchers, a small cadre that features skilled ornithologists and die-hard believers, are decided to get indeniable proof that the hen persists. The Reisers are becoming a member of the hunt. “It’s ripe with thriller and comedy,” Quentin says. “What if we truly discovered it?”
On an unseasonably heat mid-November day in central Louisiana, photographer Micah Inexperienced and I be part of the brothers in donning long-sleeved camouflage shirts, pants, and muck boots in an undisclosed forest. (I’ve been sworn to secrecy in regards to the actual location.) Following their lead, we decline the face paint proffered by veteran searcher John Henry Hyde, who says he’s seen the Ivory-bill 10 instances in 20 years. Hyde—who has expertise as a rodeo competitor, mastodon-bone collector, and hemp farmer—lives in Tennessee and takes a number of journeys a yr to Louisiana to go looking. His pal Tony Marinella, an Arizona-based skilled photographer, bought hooked three years in the past when he began making his personal documentary about Hyde’s mission.
Most birders wouldn’t enterprise into this terrain, Marinella says. There are venomous snakes. There aren’t any trails. On a go to eight months earlier, the 2 turned separated and Hyde bought misplaced. Sooner or later in the course of the 24 hours earlier than a search-and-rescue staff positioned him, Hyde says he appeared up and, in a severely dehydrated haze, watched an Ivory-bill fly overhead. “I most likely noticed it for 4 seconds,” he says. “A four-second eternity.” His helmet digital camera didn’t seize the footage; the battery had died. Earlier than we set out, Hyde and Marinella double-check their cameras and GPS machine and hand every of us a child Jesus figurine for cover. Then Hyde straightens his camouflage helmet, picks up a foam Ivory-bill affixed to a strolling stick, and says, “Are you able to go to hell?”
Standing behind them, Quentin closes his eyes and shakes his head. The brothers explored the world with Hyde and Marinella the day prior to this and know what to anticipate. “It’s a stroll,” Owen whispers to me, “within the woods.”
“Are you able to go to hell?”
The Reisers strategy the outing with unwavering good humor and laid-back curiosity. They scan the towering cypresses for the large cavities that Ivory-bills hammer out; observe the Golden-crowned Kinglets and Carolina Chickadees calling; and gleefully poke puffball mushrooms rising on logs. They pay attention excess of they discuss.
They’ve spent only some hours with Hyde and Marinella, but it surely’s clear the Reisers have a knack for creating a straightforward camaraderie with strangers. Whereas scanning the leaf-covered floor for cottonmouths, Owen spots an enormous beetle. “John, I’ll pay you $20 to eat that beetle,” he says. Hyde snorts: “You ain’t bought $20, you little shit.” The brothers crack up. Later, I ask them how, a pair weeks in, the venture goes. “I used to be apprehensive it wouldn’t be humorous sufficient,” Quentin says, “till we met John and Tony.”
Listers set the bar excessive—its humor is one purpose it has been considered greater than 3 million instances and was considered one of Slate’s top 10 movies of 2025. Now, though they’re narrowing their focus to at least one species, they’re additionally widening their lens past what it means to be a birder and exploring the precarious place birds maintain in our world. To ask a broad viewers, they’ll achieve this in the identical charming guise of “two idiots who don’t know something,” as Owen places it. However make no mistake: The Reisers know precisely what they’re doing.
Before our stroll via hell, Inexperienced and I had organized to satisfy up with the Reisers in a Greenback Common car parking zone. A minivan pulled in shortly after we arrived. It was a Kia Sedona, the identical make and mannequin because the car in Listers, but it surely was maroon. “Isn’t theirs blue?” Inexperienced requested.
We have been reassured when the occupants emerged. The mullet and mustache made Quentin, 30, instantly recognizable. Owen, 26, sported a baseball cap from the optics firm Maven, the brothers’ solely sponsor. Quentin, it turned out, hadn’t wished to drive the older van from his girlfriend’s place in Washington State. So Owen, who had been staying with their mother and father in Collinsville, Illinois, procured a brand new trip. What kind was by no means in query: In October he bought a 2012 Sedona. A month later they’d already changed a entrance wheel bearing and have been discovering the glitchy power-sliding doorways annoying; irrespective of. “It’s price it,” Owen says. “You must decide to the bit.”
The brothers realized the worth of bit at a younger age. They adored The Crocodile Hunter, the exuberant wildlife documentary TV collection during which Steve Irwin would shout his catchphrase—“Crikey!”—in moments of shock or awe. The present, partly, impressed them to get outdoors: They explored the vacant lot subsequent door and used the household insect information to determine bugs, fished for bluegills within the close by lake, rode bikes, and performed hockey and soccer. Additionally they revered Saturday Night time Dwell and used the household camcorder to make their very own movies. After they have been 8 and 12, their dad helped them burn a compilation of their mock infomercials and stunts onto a DVD. They referred to as it Owen and Quentin’s Silly Film. “We have been so stoked on it,” Owen remembers. “We bought our personal film.”
As they bought older, they started importing clips to YouTube. Their longtime pal Joel Cluphf factors to their 2016 short about visiting all 45 Store ’n Save grocery shops in 24 hours as an early indication of their wry humor and documentary chops. “Quentin’s drive to do foolish stuff and attempt to discover pleasure in doing mundane issues and Owen’s means to create a bigger piece of artwork out of it actually work properly collectively,” Cluphf says. “They’re essentially the most inventive individuals I do know.”
They’re additionally hardwired to present it their all. “In the event that they’re on one thing, they’re on it,” says their mother, Whitney Reiser. To her and Cluphf, it appeared completely pure that they totally dedicated to a Large 12 months two days after Quentin bought stoned and flipped via the household’s hen information. On the time, he was growing apps. (His first industrial product was a extremely sensible swimming pool test-strip scanning app.) Owen—who had labored as a cinematographer on BBC and Nationwide Geographic nature documentaries, together with America the Stunning and America’s Nationwide Parks—was between jobs however had some cash coming in from licensing charges. (His most profitable footage is a time-lapse video of a deer decomposing; steel bands prefer to play it on big screens throughout their concert events.)
The brothers didn’t got down to make a documentary. They figured they’d do a collection of brief movies. Although they’d zero information of birds, they began their Large 12 months as skilled highway trippers who’ve a rule towards paying to camp and swear by Love’s Journey Stops, the place there’s all the time decaf espresso (their beverage of alternative, second solely to glowing water). They’re adept at auto restore, a ability they picked up fixing and promoting used vehicles with a mechanic pal in the course of the pandemic. Quentin does the driving and cooking, which balances the time Owen spends filming and modifying. However three months in, they determined that goofy updates about their harebrained journey wouldn’t reduce it.
“Whenever you journey across the nation for a yr, you see individuals of all walks of life serving to one another, getting alongside.”
“The story was deeper than that,” Quentin says. They have been assembly individuals pushed to outlandish extremes by their ardour for creatures that cared nothing for them—individuals who may need little in widespread past that shared enthusiasm. “If you happen to spent all day on the web making an attempt to get a way of what America’s like, you may assume everybody hates one another; everyone seems to be all the time disagreeing,” Quentin says. “However once you journey across the nation for a yr, you see individuals of all walks of life serving to one another, getting alongside.” For Owen, who was capturing beautiful avian footage, it was an opportunity to do one thing completely different from the wildlife documentaries he’d loved engaged on however didn’t notably like to observe. “They typically dumb down nature by counting on tacky storylines and anthropomorphizing animals,” he says.
They began interviewing an array of individuals disarmed by the brothers’ affability, from avid listers involved primarily with their tallies to subject biologists centered on the birds. “If you happen to discover the appropriate particular person,” Quentin says, “and also you ask them a small query about their interest, they’re itching to let you know all about it.”
Throughout their Large 12 months, they sometimes crashed with their mother and father and teenage brother and shared amusing snippets of their travels. By the top of the journey, their mother seen that one other thread had emerged. “They’ve all the time beloved the outside,” she says. However as they made Listers, “their eyes opened extra to conservation.”
For this journey, as an alternative of googling the place to go, the Reisers are utilizing a 1942 guide revealed by the Nationwide Audubon Society, The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker by ornithologist James Tanner, to plot a route via the species’ historic vary. The day after we visited the forest that shall not be named, we depart Hyde and Marinella and drive three hours northeast to the Tensas River Nationwide Wildlife Refuge: one of many final remaining massive tracts of bottomland hardwood forest and a former Ivory-bill stronghold.
At Africa Lake, a muddy-green sliver surrounded by majestic cypress timber, the fellows assemble their collapsible kayaks—an improve from the boats they made out of duct tape and plastic sheeting in Listers. Nonetheless, they’re doubtful in regards to the structural integrity, particularly in alligator-infested waters. However any mortal issues are seemingly quickly forgotten as Owen tries to board Quentin’s craft. “Piracy!” Quentin shouts. They name a truce and resume paddling, methodically scanning the timber. Owen performs an Ivory-bill name recorded close by 90 years in the past. An American Crow caws again. Owen’s place as cameraman affords him skepticism, so he admits he thinks the Ivory-bill is extinct. As for Quentin, the on-camera face of this quirky journey, “I have to consider it may be on the market,” he says. “It’s my position.”
The combo of earnest effort and antics is pure Reiser brothers. In Listers, they didn’t simply observe an American Dipper; they took a dip with the aquatic songbird. Whereas they make themselves the final word punch line, additionally they poke enjoyable at their topics—one thing one may count on to rankle birders. However judging from 1000’s of feedback in YouTube and Reddit threads and in weblog posts in regards to the film, those that took umbrage have been a tiny minority. Most birders responded within the vein of 1 YouTube viewer: “These dudes nailed birding tradition—the enjoyment, the idiocy, and the ethical ambiguity.”
“These dudes nailed birding tradition—the enjoyment, the idiocy, and the ethical ambiguity.”
The movie resonated with among the birding world’s most distinguished figures. Kenn Kaufman, Audubon subject editor and preeminent bird-guide writer, was struck by the spectacular hen footage, together with an Altamira Oriole dislodging a Inexperienced Jay from its perch and a Loggerhead Shrike devouring its prey. In distinction, Kaufman factors to Hollywood’s model of the competitors: the 2011 comedy The Large 12 months starring Jack Black, Steve Martin, and Owen Wilson. “That big-budget film has hardly any birds in it,” Kaufman says. “The irreverence of the Reisers’ strategy is balanced by the truth that they actually appeared carefully at these birds and appreciated them.”
For viewers left wanting extra, Quentin created an illustrated guide, Field Guide of All the Birds We Found One Year in the United States, with humorous tales and QR codes that hyperlink to outtakes. (Kaufman was tickled by the blurb that spoofed him: “This doesn’t assist me determine birds in any respect.” —Kent Hoffman.) The $23 guide was half ardour venture, half earnings generator. Studios got here knocking after Listers surpassed 100,000 views, however the Reisers determined to not promote. It wouldn’t have made them anyplace close to wealthy. What’s extra, everybody wished to vary the film. “It wouldn’t be simply ours anymore,” Owen says. “It wouldn’t be us.”
To Nick Lund, an Audubon contributor and nature author, the information is a treasure all its personal. “It’s a very progressive entry into the Large 12 months chronicle style,” he says. “It’s such a cool expertise to observe a video of what you’re studying about.” In considered one of his favourite clips, the fellows are in search of a uncommon Rose-throated Becard. Owen is panicked. He simply noticed the hen, however Quentin is answering the decision of nature. Then, reduction: Quentin emerges from the bushes in time to see it. “A quintessential birding expertise,” Lund says.
The very concept of aggressive birding appears nuts to an outsider, says S.R. Bindler, director of the Reisers’ favourite documentary, Arms on a Hardbody. Bindler is aware of obsessives make nice film characters: His award-winning 1997 movie particulars an endurance competitors during which 24 contestants vie to win a pickup truck by holding their hand on it the longest. The brothers discovered the proper tonal strategy to their very own subculture of obsessives, Bindler says: “They take an unserious take a look at a topic that may be very critical for many individuals and, in the long run, are deeply affected by it. As was I.” Listers gave him a brand new appreciation for birds, prompting him to mud off his binoculars and preserve them on the porch inside simple attain.
Even individuals who couldn’t decide a Darkish-eyed Junco out of a lineup delighted within the movie, a testomony to the Reisers’ ability as interesting guides to the unknown. Kate Mannion satisfied her cohosts on The Yak, a sports activities and popular culture podcast, to observe it. When she later introduced that the Reisers have been stopping by, she says, “It was like Tom Brady was coming into the workplace.” A part of Listers’ broad attraction, she says, is that from the get-go it’s nothing like a typical nature documentary: “It’s this hockey man who smoked a joint and wished to see birds.” That piques individuals’s curiosity, after which they get hooked. “It sounds cliché, however with every little thing occurring on the earth and on the web, there’s all this ick,” Mannion says. “This was so pure. They’re not making an attempt to promote you on it; it’s simply, like, come uncover alongside the best way with us.”
The Ivory-bill movie will nonetheless be entertaining, Owen says, however it would additionally tackle conservation challenges head-on. Again in Louisiana, we drive 20 minutes from the refuge to the Singer Tract, the place within the Thirties Tanner studied an Ivory-bill household residing amongst big candy gum timber. We stand in silence whereas a sea of soybean fields. “It’s actually creepy,” Quentin says. Regardless of the Nationwide Audubon Society’s supply to purchase crucial parts, the world was clear-cut within the Nineteen Forties. Earlier than we depart, the Reisers paste a poster on a bridge—minor vandalism they’re committing at websites all through the journey. The Ivory-billed Woodpecker illustration will fade, however for some time, at the least, the misplaced hen is house once more.
When I meet up with the brothers on Zoom in early January, every calls in from his respective van. They’d wrapped up the primary leg of their Ivory-bill highway journey in Florida. Then they’d visited the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in New York State, the place they have been thrilled to get an up-close take a look at Ivory-bill specimens (and the place Quentin urged quite a few enhancements to the Merlin and eBird apps). It’s been a number of days since they spoke, and to their collective amusement and dismay, they uncover they’re each doing one other Large 12 months. In all probability. Possibly. They each began tallying birds on January 1.
They’ve determined that in February, they’ll observe Tanner’s maps to Large Thicket Nationwide Protect in Texas, a key space for contemporary searchers. Quentin suggests they could revisit some websites on the best way: “I do know we already went to Arkansas, however why not go once more?” Owen sighs dramatically. “We are able to do extra shenanigans,” Quentin continues. “And I’m nonetheless going to be in search of the woodpecker.”
Then, after driving greater than 5,000 miles seeking the Ivory-bill, they plan to shift their focus to birds which are assuredly alive and to individuals working to assist them survive. Speaking with ornithologists and conservationists, they’ve come to know that the grassland habitats that myriad hen species rely on are among the many most in danger. “There’s been all this consideration on the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, this huge, stunning hen that we’ve misplaced,” Owen says. “However there are these future Ivory-bills: the Baird’s Sparrow, the Lesser Prairie-Hen, the Chestnut-collared Longspur.”
At the same time as they’re immersed within the Ivory-bill film, the Reisers are mulling their subsequent venture. They’re in talks with a manufacturing firm about delving into the fishing world—one other wealthy subculture with an enormous stake in conservation. “We’re not anti-funding; it simply must be proper,” Owen says. “It’d be fascinating to get a portrait of America via the several types of fishing.” The dismissive attitudes that bait fishers have towards fly-fishers and vice versa maintain humorous promise, he says. “Plus, we’re not superb at fishing.”
They plan to launch the Ivory-bill film without spending a dime on YouTube in late spring. It’s certain to have a wealthy mixture of characters, loads of hijinks, and a singular view right into a slice of our historical past and our future. And anybody with an web connection can go alongside for the trip.
This story initially ran within the Spring 2026 subject as “Critically Humorous.” To obtain our print journal, change into a member by making a donation today.
