Armchair Birding: Birding to Change the World: A Memoir, by Trish O’Kane
~ Anne Kilgannon
Don’t let the title overwhelm you; Trish means the part of the world where you are currently planting your feet, the trees near you that are home to the birds you can see and hear every day, and possibly the river or wetland that flows and pools just over there. And your human neighbors, the ones who bring you chicken soup when you need it, the ones who infuriate you at your local townhalls, or whom you haven’t yet met but whose decisions and actions either uplift you or depredate your favorite places. They are all your community, your world. And according to Trish, your raw material for making a world welcoming and healthy for all.
This book is full of ideas and roadmaps for action, but it is, as its subtitle makes clear, a memoir of personal experience and growth, of how one person found her way through some very tough times with inspiration from birds… birds just making their own lives, pecking at seeds and bugs, nesting, raising their young. Persisting, sometimes in unlikely settings and through disasters, simply being there, but also needing our help and attention to continue. Trish tells her story frankly, searchingly, humorously, with emotions both dark and light-hearted. She does not spare herself or glamorize her accomplishments, amazing as they are. She brings to her work a deep well of experience, compassion and openness. She doesn’t set herself up as an exemplar, but she does inspire with her story of what can be done, through showing up, coalition building, close study and observation and affection. Loving birds means loving their trees and marshes and meadows, loving the people who are quietly present to their presence, and learning to fight—with love—the careless ways those meadows, marshes and trees are lost, damaged, and undervalued.
Trish gives us a blow-by-blow case study of how to save a park from the small injuries and devastating encroachments that threaten the birdlife and other creatures that rely on the various habitats found there. I won’t try to describe here all the twists and turns of the struggle, but just to say, our experience saving the LBA Woods had some of these elements and issues, and some other local struggles still in play would gain inspiration and even some tactics from the examples she supplies. One whopping fight she details made me jump out of my chair: every year, here in Olympia, as in many, too many places, we have a big fireworks show over Capital Lake, but has no one asked what we are doing to those troubled waters dumping all the debris and toxic waste that are the end products of fireworks into the lake? Annually, we terrify all the nearby dogs and cats—no one talks about the resident wildlife—with the loud reverberating booms but I hadn’t actually thought about the pollution of the water with the debris. Our forehead slapping moments of revelation follow Trish’s own; she was so recently in that trench herself. Her thinking—and actions—are fresh and thereby inviting us to join her in the learning and response.
Trish does nor pretend to know it “all.” We don’t need to feel intimidated or shy or wonder if we are “ready” to stand up in the ways she did. She doesn’t claim that expertise. She does work hard and creatively to mount her various crusades and she does have a kind of genius for finding and cultivating allies and experts. Her own deep feeling of connection empowers others to join in; her belief in them validates their own powers. Passion—love of place and community—does impress, does open other hearts and minds. And it can begin with love of birds—sparrows, in her case, simple every-day sparrows; it doesn’t matter. Birds lift our hearts; we can employ that lift on their behalf. This was a thrilling read, as page-turning as a good mystery, as encouraging and inspirational as watching a flock of geese creasing the sky with spread wings, honking and waving, coming home. Now we must make sure that home is there. Safe.
