Slow Birding: The Art and Science of Enjoying the Birds in Your Own Backyard Book by Joan E. Strassmann

I very much enjoyed this book and it comes as a reminder about how important it is to keep in mind the things that are literally right outside your door. And the slow in the title is not a reflection on the intelligence of the birder, but rather that you are slowing down and taking your time rather than marching from house to car and back again, but rather taking your time to see what is on offer in your own neighborhood. It is a push back against the relentless drive to incessantly add to birding life lists; the book advocates for deep study in one area rather than spotting a bird and moving on to the next one. The commoner can be just as fascinating as the exotic. The book covers 16 birds, from Blue Jays to Snow Geese, that can be seen in her part of St. Louis. What makes her book particularly compelling is the research she shares on each of these so-called common birds--they are so much more varied and interesting than at first glance. The book also breaks down the sections based on location, covering her home as well as sites which are within a 20-mile radius of home. She gives examples of the differences that motivate different birds when they are competing for resources and what the outcomes might be between everything from interspecies competition to competition between siblings in the nest and what factors might dictate the outcome. This is maybe not a book for an experienced birder, or a competitive life list birder, but rather for someone who wants to experience more of the world right around them.

Turning to Birds by Lili Taylor

I am not big on celebrity writing as a rule, but I enjoyed this, partly because I think all things bird have a way with me, and partly because it contains a nice collection of observations and wisdom that it behooves us all to pay attention to. She starts off by making the point that as an actor of several decades length she knows how to look and how to listen. She’s been trained to use these skills to give outstanding, grounded performances that move her audience. Here she writes about how she’s applied these and other actorly skills to learning to know the birds around her, whether she’s on the job in New Mexico, a newbie at a large birding festival, or simply walking in her neighborhood in Brooklyn. But that’s not all. Like any good essayist, Taylor effortlessly connects the personal to the universal, in this case going from bird observation to major conservation issues. Birds are both the feature and the bug in this case--they are worthy in and of themselves, and they are also a barometer of what is happening in the world around us. This is well worth your time to both read and think about. The author has also used her notoriety for good--to promote increased awareness of the changing environment and how that is affecting birds--and since we share the same environments, ourselves.

Morro Bay, California

I had an arduous birthday in 2023, when my friend and I bakes all the cakes for one of my sons wedding, all while my spouse was gone for the week attending a professional meeting. My friends, who truly does the lion's share of the baking and all the cake frosting and assembly, was laid up a bit with an ankle injury, so I was the legs of the operation. It was so grueling! I was walking 20,000 steps a day and I never left the property. The great news is that we finished the cakes, we didn't even want for freezer space, and the cakes at the wedding were truly fantastic!The bad news is that I was in a really bad mood about my extreme lack of a celebration.

Never fear! I spent the whole month of May this year making up for it, and one of those trips was to fabulous Morro Bay, with the same friend and her spouse so that the three of us could spend some times taking leisurely walks and bird watching. It is a spectacularly beautiful place that hosts a great bird festival in February, but is replete with shore birds year round. It was such a relaxing long weekend, and I would go back in a second.

A Season On The Wind by Kenn Kaufman

As literature goes, this is interesting at the best of times but pedestrian and pedantic in places. The author is a life long birder, starting in childhood and both he and his spouse continue to bird early and often. They chose to move to northern Ohio because of it's importance as a stopping off point in the song bird migration from their wintering spots in the south of the Americas to the north where they breed and spend the summer. That was the driving force in why he is there, and it is at the center of what ties the book together. He is working up momentum for opposition to putting wind turbines on the shores of Lake Erie and in order to bring notoriety to the migrating bird's plight, he also started a birding festival that occurs over 10 days at the front end of May to experience the migration in person. So there are two threads, wound together, that end up being an interesting story decently told.