Synopsis

High in the central Japanese mountains, above 2,500 meters, seventy-two-year-old ornithologist Nakamura Hiroshi confronts the daunting task of saving the rock ptarmigan – birds revered as "divine" – from disappearing altogether. Human encroachment has steadily diminished their numbers throughout Japan. He dedicates over a hundred days each year to the mountains, laboring on an ambitious breeding program aimed at re-establishing a ptarmigan population in a landscape where they once thrived. This