Birding to change the world

In this uplifting memoir, a professor and activist shares what birds can teach us about life, social change, and protecting the environment. Trish O’Kane never expected to be a birder. It was a lone red cardinal and a bumptious cast of house sparrows that changed everything for O’Kane after Hurricane Katrina shattered her life in New Orleans. Watching birds thrive throughout the devastated city became her salvation and set her on a new path. Soon O’Kane found herself pursuing an environmental science PhD in Wisconsin, where she became a full-on bird obsessive – logging hours and hours in a stunningly diverse urban park, filling field notebooks with observations of bird doings and dramas, and volunteering in a wildlife rehabilitation centre bird nursery. But it wasn’t until that park, her bird-watching haven, was threatened with development that O’Kane became an environmental activist.

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In this uplifting memoir, a professor and activist shares what birds can teach us about life, social change, and protecting the environment.

Trish O'Kane is an accidental ornithologist. In her nearly two decades writing about justice as an investigative journalist, she'd never paid attention to nature. But then Hurricane Katrina destroyed her New Orleans home, sending her into an emotional tailspin.

Enter a scrappy cast of feathered characters-first a cardinal, urban parrots, and sparrows, then a catbird, owls, a bittern, and a woodcock-that cheered her up and showed her a new path. Inspired, O'Kane moved to Madison, Wisconsin, to pursue an environmental studies PhD. There she became a full-on bird obsessive-logging hours in a stunningly biodiverse urban park, filling field notebooks with bird doings and dramas, and teaching ornithology to college students and middle-school kids.

When Warner Park-her daily birdwatching haven-was threatened with development, O'Kane and her neighbors mustered a mighty murmuration of nature lovers, young and old, to save the birds' homes. Through their efforts, she learned that once you get outside and look around, you're likely to fall in love with a furred or feathered creature-and find a flock of your own.

In Birding to Change the World, O'Kane details the astonishing science of bird life, from migration and parenting to the territorial defense strategies that influenced her own activism. A warm and compelling weave of science and social engagement, this is the story of an improbably band of bird lovers who saved their park. And it is a blueprint for muscular citizenship, powered by joy.

Additional information

Weight 614.63 g
Dimensions 229 × 152 × 27 mm
Author

Publisher

Ecco

Imprint

Ecco

Cover

Hardback

Pages

368

Language

English

Edition
Dewey

598.07234 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K