In Birding to Change the World, environmental scientist Trish O’Kane shows how birds and humans can help one another heal.
A “spark bird” is the species that inspires someone to start bird-watching. For Trish O’Kane, that bird was the northern cardinal. The backyard regular caught her eye while she was living with a friend in New Orleans, five months after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the region and her house in August 2005. Hearing cardinals’ chipping calls was an initial step toward over 1,960 hours of birding, 33 field notebooks filled with avian antics and a career change.
Post-Katrina, O’Kane must navigate between working at Loyola and coping with the loss of her home. She finds relief in watching the birds that flit about in New Orleans’ Audubon Park. She starts bringing her class along for writing sessions. House sparrows, often scorned by bird enthusiasts for killing native birds, transform into a symbol of resourcefulness by building nests and foraging among the wreckage.
Most of the book focuses on O’Kane’s efforts to preserve Warner Park, along Madison’s Lake Mendota. It’s a convenient location for O’Kane to satisfy birding requirements for an ornithology class. But soon she successfully campaigns to stop the construction of a parking lot in one of the park’s meadows. Her activism snowballs into Wild Warner, a local crew of wildlife watchers flocking together to defend the park from further development.
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