Bird Wild: Why Birds are the New Craze

About this experience

Wednesdays, 10:00  – 11:30 am 
March 4 – April 8 
Online via Zoom 

Birdwatchers are often portrayed as absent-minded folk in goofy hats, binoculars around their necks, scanning the trees and tripping over the roots. But birdwatching is having a moment. It’s become wildly popular with the young as well as the retired. Birding groups are everywhere. Actors, office workers, students all seem to be out on trails looking up and watching, and many are writing about how what they’ve seen has changed them.

The new obsession with birds is no doubt related to the indisputable fact of climate change, as well as a growing desire for the outdoors in an isolated and tech-controlled world. But it’s an old obsession, too. Birds have always provoked the old and young alike to look up. We’ll discover some of the reasons for this deep and growing fascination with birds, and learn a little about the mystery of bird-love. It seems that birds might have something to teach us, might give us a hint about how to change this all-too-earthbound world.

Book: Birding to Change the World. Trish O’Kane

Short work: Nobel Prize speech. Toni Morrison, 1993.
“Willing”, from Birds of America, Lorrie Moore

Selected poems, commentary:
“Three Years After. .”, Christian Cooper, New York Times, May 26, 2023
“The Birds”. (yes, that one). From Birds and Other Stories: Daphne duMaurier (or watch the movie!)

1. Conversations with Birds
   Introduction: Birds in Language and Culture
2. Notes from Birders
   Thoreau, Cooper, Tan, MacDonald
3. What Birds Say
   Hitchcock and du Maurier, The Birds
4. Chapter 1: Birding to Change the World
   Birding and the Imagination
   “Willing”, Moore
   Selected poetry—Coleridge, Oliver, Shelley, Dunbar, Berry
5. Changing the World
   Birding to Change the World, O’Kane
6. The Gift of Birds
   “Nobel Prize speech, Morrison

Refund Policy

To receive a refund, a written request must be received 3 business days before the first class. A $25 processing fee will be deducted from the refund. Cancellation requests received less than 3 business days before the first class but before the second meeting will receive a 50% refund.  ALL written requests should be emailed to emeritus@spartanstrategiesinc.org or mailed to the address above.