Birding to Change the World, Trish O’Kane, author; Cheryl Smith, narrator
The author teaches at the University of Vermont, described as “a flagship public research university, that has worked to improve the health of humans, society, and our planet.” Who can argue with those goals? O’Kane preaches about social justice and helping the environment. She disdains racism, but she seems to only disdain those issues that comport with her left-wing viewpoints. She hopes to use her personal viewpoint and her birding expertise, to which she came late in life, to motivate others to appreciate everyone and all things, all things and everyone, that is, that she supports.
The author readily and immediately describes herself and her views when she explains that she went to Nicaragua to support the Sandinistas, a rather off the grid decision. She goes on to explain that Katrina and the ensuing floods that directly hit her home, caused her to metamorphose and change the direction of her life. Guilt-ridden about the part she had unwittingly played in contaminating the world with the products she used in her home, she vowed to change her ways. She apologized to Lake Pontchartrain for her behavior. I wish she had also apologized for the behavior of some of the people. I personally knew someone who had lived in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, during the flood. He was abandoned by the “good people” who promised to come back for him, and instead left him to die. When he was rescued by others, after 8 intolerable days in an attic, he was taken to a hospital where all of his possessions and cash were stolen, and his beloved dog was never reunited with him. Shortly after this trauma, he grew ill, had a stroke and eventually died. So, maybe the pollution in her home was not as bad as the people who treated him so poorly. Maybe more than the Lake needed to be addressed; maybe it was the people that needed to apologize to him for their behavior toward each other. Today, progressives and socialists encourage behavior that may make any tragedy far worse because the violence is excused by calling it “mostly peaceful”. As Justice Felix Frankfurter essentially once told someone, the magnitude of the crime does not determine the criminality. The criminals in New Orleans were excused, inexcusably, and so were the criminals who rioted during our recent summers. They were out of control when they did not get their way.
The author promotes projects to clean up the environment and uses birding to train young adults to teach other younger students how to protect the climate and all of the creatures that live among us with greater care and compassion. She is hoping to make them more tolerant as well. Although she describes herself as a social activist, which she most certainly is, and as a human rights warrior which she is as well, and accurately as a journalist and reluctant teacher, her experiences from South America to Vermont, passing through Louisiana and Wisconsin on the way, are eye-opening and describe her more as a political activist first and foremost.
In the book, when she discusses her efforts using birding to effect change, she reveals tidbits of information that most people would not be aware of, like the fact that cardinals are bright red in color because of their diet, but bluebirds get their color from their DNA. She writes about the birds as if she has a personal relationship with them, humanizing them in such a way that the reader will identify with the emotions she ascribes to them. Her anecdotal stories are very informative and often touching, like how the birds seem to know a hurricane is coming before anyone else or how the mother bird cares for her children with such loyalty. She relates stories about the survival of certain birds that lose their way, of how others are rescued, and of how the teaching of students to care about others through the example of her birding efforts has altered many of their lives and has helped all of ours.
Her approach is hands-on. When she relates the story of a trip with her students, to see tiny robin-sized owls as they are being trapped, captured and banded, the reader is immediately captivated by the attitude and approach she takes with them. The owls sound positively precious and so does her effort.
Overall, I really enjoyed the book about the birds, but I found the author’s description of events to be somewhat lacking. She seemed to cherry pick some problems, while she ignored others. For instance, she rails against instances of racism that she has experienced and wants to teach the young to care more about the environment and all people, but she seems to steer clear of the idea of protecting religious freedom. She makes no mention of the violent take over of buildings on college campuses or of angry, protest marches favoring Hamas, a terrorist organization, over Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East. Although the book was published months after the October 7th attack on Israel, resulting in the brutal murder, kidnapping and torture of so many innocent people simply attending a peace concert or asleep in their beds, there is nary a whisper about it. That leads me to believe that this is more than a book about birding to change the world; it is a book to present and promote her progressive views, which she does very effectively in the state that Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders represents. Has she possibly brainwashed the children wherever she teaches them? Yes, she reclaimed a park, Warner Park, using it to teach about protecting our environment, but is she filling the minds of our future leaders only with her selective ideas about right and wrong? Are her ideas about racism, about what rights there should be for indigenous people, and people of color, actually guilty of leaving out freedom of religion and speech? While she seems to stay clear of politics in her approach, it is one of the most subtly, truly political approaches to a subject that I have read. Indirectly she has enormous power to change minds to her way of thinking. I think she should present both sides, not just the left wing’s radical ideas. Promoting progressive ideals without regard to possible consequences seems to be what the book is about. So, I believe that the really interesting information about the birds is just a means to an end, and the author and already left-leaning publisher were only too happy to promote it. It promotes their politics under the guise of calling it a memoir.
Birds, however interesting, do not invent antibiotics, do not create policies to improve life, do not defend the country or save the lives of our soldiers. They make us happy, but they are not human and do not advance our culture. We need to be encouraged to improve through better education about all things, all ways of life and all events that affect us so that we can make intelligent decisions, not rash ones. The students may learn compassion, but only for those the author chooses to highlight. People need to be able to care for themselves, feed themselves, enjoy health care and a place to live, and birding won’t provide that. While they need to be independent, they also need to survive. I believe the answer for civilization is to compromise on all issues. While the author’s heart might be in the right place, the absence of any views that are different than her progressivism, shows censorship is alive and well.
Still, this is a very entertaining book. Rather than a memoir, however, I would describe it as a political treatise. The author’s political persuasion is essentially the polar opposite to mine, although I do want the climate to be stable, the environment to be clean, and people to respect each other in a peaceful world. Because it is so well written, and it is filled with so many interesting anecdotal stories with unusual bits of information I never knew, I still found it compelling and enjoyed reading it. However, when I reached the end, my feeling was that O’Kane is more of an activist attempting to instruct her students to believe as she does and is thus less of a teacher and a bit more of a propagandist.
There are so many interesting facts about numerous kinds of birds from geese to hummingbirds and pelicans to eagles, that it is most definitely a worthwhile read.