Why you should try birding (w/ Christian Cooper) (Transcript)

[00:00:00] Chris Duffy:
You're listening to How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. I am very much a city boy. For all of my life, I have lived in places where I am surrounded by humans and where if you say to me something wild is happening outside, I assume that's like a crime or a flash mob on the subway or an improvised performance art piece that's blocking traffic.

Of course, though, and just because I live in a city doesn't mean that there isn't actually wild nature here too. But until my conversation with today's guest, Christian Cooper, that's not something that I'd really ever paid attention to or been all that conscious of. Christian is the host of the TV show Extraordinary Birder and the author of the book Better Living Through Birding.

He's also really well known as a comic book author who has written for places like Marvel and Star Trek. But while Christian may express himself creatively in fictional worlds, I think that he's really a hero of the natural one, especially that hidden natural world that's all around us every day, no matter where we live. Here's a clip from Christian.

[00:01:01] Christian Cooper:
I’m walking down Ninth Avenue in the middle of midtown Manhattan. There's traffic going by. There's a construction site. I'm talking to my friend. Other people are passing by with their conversations, but that click, click, click, click, click of the kestrel cuts right through all of it.

And I'm like, “Oh, there's a kestrel here.” And my friend is like, “What are you talking about?” And I'm like, and then my, my eyes start scanning the rooftops. And I'm like, “Over there.” And there's a kestrel. And he's like, “Wait, that's the most incredible superpower ever.” Maybe it is, but you know.

[00:01:32] Chris Duffy:
Yeah.

[00:01:32] Christian Cooper:
It’s, we all can do it to a certain extent. That's what you're gonna do, is engage your senses to the max.

[00:01:41] Chris Duffy:
We're gonna take a quick break for some ads, but when we come back, you better believe that we are going to engage your senses to the max right here. So don't go anywhere.

[BREAK]

[00:01:56] Chris Duffy:
Get your binoculars out and start listening closely, because today we are talking all about birding with the incredible Christian Cooper.

[00:02:01] Christian Cooper:
Hi, I'm Christian Cooper. I am the author of a memoir, Better Living Through Birding, and I am the host and consulting producer of Extraordinary Birder on Disney+ and NatGeo Wild.

[00:02:17] Chris Duffy:
Well, let's start with the most basic question, which is that if someone's listening and they're not already familiar, what is birding?

[00:02:23] Christian Cooper:
Sure. Birding and, you know, uh, the term that used to be more prevalent was bird watching, but it is simply going forth to enjoy the wild birds that are around you. To watch them, to listen to them, to appreciate them and find out what you can about them. That's all birding is.

[00:02:44] Chris Duffy:
Is there a reason why birding became the preferred term instead of birdwatching?

[00:02:49] Christian Cooper:
When you are birding, you're doing, usually doing more than watching. You are listening, uh, and, in fact, in Extraordinary Birder, the, the TV series I host, we go to Puerto Rico and there we meet a blind birder.
So he's definitely not birdwatching. He is using only his ears and using, uh, the sounds to sort out what species are around him. And I, myself, not to that level, but I am what they would call an ear birder—someone who relies on their ears a lot to tell him what birds are around and to know where to look and what to look for. So, because it's not just looking, that's why the term birder’s preferred these days.

[00:03:28] Chris Duffy:
You talk in your book about the seven pleasures of birding and, um, that's kind of a, a theme that runs throughout the book.
[00:03:35] Christian Cooper:
Well, first and foremost, unsurprisingly, is the beauty of the birds. And if you don't know this, birds communicate the same way people do, namely, or you can rely on the same primary senses, sight and sound.

Unlike our pets, you know, dogs and cats, they're all about their noses, but birds are about their eyes and their ears, just like we are. So we can appreciate the way they communicate in ways we can never appreciate our pets. Um. Beautiful songs, incredible colors, remarkable patterns. So number one is the beauty of the birds.

Second is the joy of being in a natural setting because you've got to go out into the wild or something that's kind of wild in order to find the birds. So you get to appreciate being in these natural settings. Let's say number three is, uh, the joy of scientific discovery. Let's say you're out birding, and one day you're walking through a field, and all of a sudden a little bird flies up and lands on a branch and starts beating its bill against the branch.

And you're like, “Oh, gosh. Is it cleaning its bill? What's it doing?” Finally, you realize, no, you're too close to its nest, and this bird is so angry it wants to be beating on your head, but you're too big. So instead, it's beating on the branch. It's redirected aggression.

[00:04:44] Chris Duffy:
Extremely relatable. I mean, one of the most relatable things that a bird could possibly do.

[00:04:49] Christian Cooper:
Completely! So it's, it's, uh, it's, so you've just learned something though, some, some scientific thing through your own observations. That's remarkable. Another one is the joy of hunting without the bloodshed. Um, you've got to go out stalking these birds, hoping to find them, hoping to, to surprise them so that, so that they don't fly away before you can get a good look.

And then instead of shooting them, you get to just drink them in through your eyes and ears. So there's that. Then there's the joy of puzzle solving. For those of you, those of you who love puzzles, um, because when you're out in the field and you're trying to identify a bird and you're like, “Oh, my goodness, how do I tell one bird from another?”

And then so then you have to pay attention to the field marks and you're like, “All right, well, this bird has wing bars. It has a big bill, long tail…” And you just start piecing it all together. And if you're lucky, you get the right pieces and you're able to figure out what bird you're looking at.

I remember once I saw a bran-colored flycatcher. I had never seen one before. I was birding in Buenos Aires in South America, and I spent close to an hour just studying this bird, staking it out, waiting for it to come back, waiting for good light so I could get the good field marks. And when I finally figured out what it was, it was such a sense of triumph that I had solved the puzzle and figured out what this bird was. So that's, uh, one of the other pleasures of birding.

Uh, number six, the joy of collecting. You know, people collect stamps. Rich people collect cars, you know, people collect all kinds of things. But the way you collect with birding is through your lists. And boy, do birders keep lists. I have a list of birds I've seen only from my roof. I have, I know people who have kept a list of birds they have seen only through their bathroom window. So, you know, and people keep lists of birds they've seen in the state, birds they've seen in the county. You know, you can keep your life list, which is all the birds you've seen in your whole life.

And then finally... and this is sort of, when you've been birding for a little while, this becomes kind of the big one. It's what I call the Unicorn Effect. Because after you're birding, you've been birding for a while, you become familiar with what's out there through, you know, looking through the guidebook or seeing TV shows or whatever. And you're like, “Oh my God, that bird is incredible. I would love to see that someday.” And you know, you read about it and you see it. Let's say it's the resplendent quetzal, a Central American bird that just blows your mind. And then one day, you're walking through the mountains of Central America, and flap, flap, flap, flap, flap, flap, flap, flap, flap, and it lands on a branch, and there it is, for real, in real life.

It's as if a unicorn stepped out of the forest, right in front of you. So that's what I call the, the Unicorn Effect, and that's one of the big pleasures of birding. So that's the seven pleasures of birding.

[00:07:39] Chris Duffy:
I was also really struck by in your book how you talk about how there are these, these big players in these rare birds that are so incredible, but also you do a lot of work, um, with students and trying to introduce people to birding for the first time. And you have this great section where a, a kid in one of your groups sees a grackle for the first time. And a grackle is an extremely common bird that often people kind of hate. They think it's like, uh, uh, uh, almost like a pest type bird.

[00:08:06] Christian Cooper:
And it's very common.

[00:08:07] Chris Duffy:
Yep.

[00:08:07] Christian Cooper:
So, you know, and one of the things we birders are guilty of, and I think people in general are guilty of, is, you know, something that's common, you tend to devalue. And then, you know, it's the rare ones that you really want.

[00:08:18] Chris Duffy:
The child is like blown away and says, like, “That's the most beautiful bird.” And it makes you see the grackle through your own, through his eyes and see it in a different way.

[00:08:27] Christian Cooper:
That's one of the great things about taking students out, young people, kids out. They don't even have to be kids, they can be people who are just birding for the first time. You get to sort of be birding for the first time again yourself, by, by seeing their reactions, and, and, and kind of, as you said, looking through their eyes.

One of my favorite things to do is to show someone who has never seen one before one of my favorite birds, the Blackburnian warbler. And then I just kind of do a little countdown until they see it and then it comes and they're like, “Oh my God.” And I'm like, “Yes!” That’s the correct reaction because it is so beautiful. It's this little tiny bird, smaller than a sparrow. Very active, black and white mostly except the males in their finest spring plumage have this day glow, fiery orange throat that just sings and glows. And it's just, it's just, it's gorgeous. So yeah, you get to see things through, through the eyes of new birders and, and be a new birder yourself again for a little while.

[00:09:26] Chris Duffy:
You write so beautifully about that bird in particular, the Blackburnian. Um, you write about what it sounds like. Is there any chance you could give us a little taste of what it sounds like?

[00:09:34] Christian Cooper:
I'll give you two versions. One version was a, sort of a mnemonic that a friend of mine came up with. The most important thing to know about a Blackburnian is that it has one of the most high pitched songs that any North American bird utters. In fact, you know, if you, if you started to learn the higher range end of your hearing, you may not even be able to hear the notes of the Blackburnian, especially the last note, which slides incredibly… Slide, especially the last note, which slides incredibly high and gets incredibly urgent.

We always say it's on the last note sounds like the bird is being strangled. So, a mnemonic for it is comma, comma, comma, comma to meeee. Each note has a little bit of a accent to it at the beginning, which is where the comma comma comma is coming from. I always think of it as sort of [bird noises] you gotta think about last note is that the bird's being strangled and it just keeps going up in pitch. Really urgent.

[00:10:37] Chris Duffy:
And something that you describe in the book is how the same way that we can immediately recognize a song by our favorite singer or, um, you know, something that is a cover of our favorite song, we get, we hear these things and it doesn't take very long to immediately recognize songs. The more that you have gotten into birds, the more that you felt like you understood the calls, and you also understood the relationships between different bird calls. So you talk about how one bird's call sounds like this, and another bird's call sounds like that, if that bird had a sore throat, which made me laugh so much.

[00:11:08] Christian Cooper:
Yeah, and I, and I and, I didn't come up with that. I think that goes all the way back to Roger Torrey Peterson—one of the big names in, in North American birding, going back to like the, the 30s or 40s. Um, and I think he's the one who coined the fact that the scarlet tanager sounds like a robin with a sore throat. And it's, it's a great hint because robins are everywhere. So, so a lot of people are familiar with the song, kind of triplet flutelike phrases [robin noises]. That’s a robin.

So if you hear a [scarlet tanager sounds]. Scarlet tanager, so it, it, it, and it happened to me. I was walking through the woods. I, I didn't know the scarlet tanager song. I'd seen one or two in my life or a couple and was going back many, many years, but I'm walking through the woods and I hear, [scarlet tanager sounds], and I'm like, “That sounds like a robin with a sore throat,” and sure enough, it was a scarlet tanager, even though I'd never heard one before.

I remember one time I was in the Catskills birding, walking through the woods, and I heard what I thought was a hooded warbler. Hooded warbler, again, very small, really boldly patterned. It's bright yellow, except for a black hood that wraps over the top of the head and under the bottom of the head, but leaves that yellow blazing from the side of the face. So it looks like it's wearing a hood.

And I'm like, “Oh my God, a hooded warbler here? This is so far North!” It's got to be the extreme northern edge of the range of the hooded warbler, but I can't see it. It, it’s tucked away in this dense, unreachable area past the path. And I'm like, “Well, maybe I can bring it in.” Because the hooded warbler has a clearly whistled song that I'm like, well, I'm a human, I can whistle, I might be able to fake it out. So I go [whistling]. Boom, the hooded warbler came right out.

[00:13:06] Chris Duffy:
Oh.

[00:13:06] Christian Cooper:
And was right at the… and flew right at me and he's like, “Who the hell are you? What are you doing here?” It was, it was really funny. It's remarkable. Yeah.

[00:13:16] Chris Duffy:
You know, your excitement and your enthusiasm for brooding is so infectious. And I know that that is, um, that’s both natural, right? Like you just genuinely love it, but it's also something that you very consciously have, have cultivated is trying to spread the word about birding, trying to get more people into birding. Um, and your book is even called, right, Better Living Through Birding. So why, why do you think that birding is so important for better living?

[00:13:41] Christian Cooper:
I think a lot of us are very disconnected from nature these days, particularly if we live in cities, we like to think, oh, you know, in this man made environment, we are, we are somehow detached, removed. You're not. But you can feel like that sometimes. And I think getting out into a more natural type of environment can be incredibly calming, incredibly soothing.

You know, birding just gets you out there, engages you with the natural world, and gets you outside of your own head. And as your brain is forced to do this and be on high alert, if you want to actually see the birds, then you're outside of your own little head and your own little world. And all those annoying problems that are festering, like, “Oh my god, I've got to pick up groceries today and it's so expensive. I don't know if i'll be able to afford everything, and my paycheck hasn't come through.” So for a little while at least, whatever those woes are, they just fall away and instead you're interacting with the wild world and learning a little bit how we are a part of that wild world, and that's, I think, incredibly healing.

[00:14:56] Chris Duffy:
We are going to have more from Christian in just a moment, but please, first, listen to the sweet warbling of these sponsors.

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[00:15:12] Chris Duffy:
And we are back. Christian, let's go all the way back to the beginning. You have this, uh, amazing anecdote in your book about the first time that your dad took you on a bird walk, and it was led by this professional birder and you actually managed to correct something that he had gotten wrong. Can you, can you tell us that story?

[00:15:28] Christian Cooper:
Sure. Sure. And, and first I have to add, um, he wasn't a professional birder. He actually ran a cardboard factory.

[00:15:35] Chris Duffy:
Oh, okay, okay.

[00:15:35] Christian Cooper:
Birding was his, his passion, his hobby. And he shared it with, with all these other people by leading these walks for the South Shore Audubon Society. The guy's name was Elliot Kutner, and he was leading the walk, and, you know, he took a quick look at a bird far away, um, and, you know, made a quick call as to what the bird was, and then he said, “Everybody come look in the scope and take a look at the, uh, American woodcock.”

And I went up, and I looked and peered in the scope, and I went back to my dad, and I was like, “I don't think that was a woodcock,” because I had, you know, I'd taken a longer look, and I have had sharper little kids' eyes and I just noticed that the head pattern was what is associated with the snipe and not with the woodcock. They're similar birds. They, they take these long bills to probe into the mud looking for food. And so my dad's like, “Oh, oh, go tell him.” And I'm like, “Oh my God, I can't go tell him.” I’m like, “Excuse me, sir. I don't think those are woodcock.” He's like, “Why do you think they're not woodcock?” And I'm like, “Well, ‘cause the head pattern has stripes like a bicycle helmet instead of the, the pattern on a woodcock.”

And he takes another look and he looks at me and he goes, “What's your name?” I'm like, “Christian.” He's like, “Well, Christian, you're right. Those are snipes. Everybody, this young man has just successfully identified the, the Wilson snipe. Everybody come take a look.”

And so he, I mean he had that booming voice, very, very ebullient personality. So, um, that was how I met Elliot. And then of course, after that, he took one look at me and that, and he was like, “Okay, I'm taking this one. I'm gonna mentor him and make sure that passion for birds is nurtured.” I think any of us who are birders, we like to pass on that passion and that love to the next generation.

[00:17:28] Chris Duffy:
It, it’s so appropriate that in English, right? The, one of the expressions we have for doing that is to take someone under your wing.

[00:17:33] Christian Cooper:
Yeah, exactly.

[00:17:34] Chris Duffy:
Um, it's so perfect. The other thing that I think was a revelation for me in reading the book is I had not thought of birding as a, as an activity that would lead to such a depth of community. It seemed to me like it was more of a solitary thing and, and reading your book, it’s so clear that that's not the case.

[00:17:51] Christian Cooper:
Well, it can be. Um, it, it can be either and that's one of, one of the, the great things about birding. In my own birding, in the course of a single day, I'll do both. When I go birding during the spring migration in Central Park, I go at the crack of dawn, mostly because I want to hear as much birdsong as possible. And you'll hear more the earlier you go.

One of the benefits is when I get there, there's almost nobody else around. So for a while, I'm just birding with myself. It's like me and nature. And it's great. It's wonderful. And then later on, other birders start to come, and I run into them, and they're old friends and we see each other every spring and we’re chit-chatting. “Did you see this yesterday?” And “Oh my god, I hope we get to see this today.” And it's a community, so you get both.

[00:18:39] Chris Duffy:
You also talk in the book about how this is one of the parallels, I almost want to say unexpected parallels, between your identity as a birder and your identity as a gay man, is the way in which there are these communities that you can find and feel like you're immediately at home with.

[00:18:55] Christian Cooper:
Yeah.

[00:18:56] Chris Duffy:
I would, I was curious to, to hear you talk more about the connections that you found between, you know, discovering yourself and your own sexuality and also, like, finding birds and the natural world and how those two have intersected since that’s, that's a really beautiful theme in the book.

[00:19:10] Christian Cooper:
I guess, in the book, the, the way I sort of enter into that whole subject is, is through m-my “spark bird”, as we call it, was the red winged blackbird. When we say spark bird and birding, what we mean by that is the bird that got you started birding and sucked you down the rabbit hole, um, of birding. And for me, it was a red winged blackbird. But the thing is that blackbirds in America are completely different from what they mean by blackbird in Europe.

So there's a little bit of, of identity confusion there because a blackbird in Europe is actually closely related to our robin and has nothing to do with what we call blackbirds here. Meanwhile, you know, our robin is completely unrelated to the bird they call the robin over in Europe. The, the, and it gets super confusing, and it's like, what's what, who's who? And that's kind of, I think, the kind of the struggle we all go through. But particularly, I think, us queer folks go through it as we try to sort through our identities and what fits and what doesn’t.

But, you know, everybody, as, as we’re, you know, going through adolescence and finding our feet as adults and who we are and what's important to us…We’re all struggling with different labels and identities that society wants us to take on. And, you know, some of them fit and some of them, hell no, no way. That's not me. And it doesn't work. So we're all, we're all sorting that out. And so there's, there's that parallel between birding and, and the sorting of identities.

[00:20:39] Chris Duffy:
Something that is also interesting about birding, uh, to many people is, is that it is kind of outside of commerce, right? That birding is, is free. Uh, you, you don't necessarily have to spend any money to do it. And I think for a lot of people it's, it’s, there can be a really joyful thing in having something that you care so deeply about and yet in no way ties to, um, earning or spending money. And I wonder if now that it is tied to earning money for you, if that's changed the way you feel about it at all.

[00:21:12] Christian Cooper:
It hasn't yet, I'm happy to say. In fact, one of the advantages of doing the show is that I am the stereotypical New Yorker. I don't drive.

[00:21:22] Chris Duffy:
Uh huh.

[00:21:22] Christian Cooper:
So, and there's a lot of great birding spots. There was a point in my life where I thought about becoming an ornithologist and I actually decided no, I don't want to do that because I don't want my passion to become work. And now here I am, and my passion has become my work. But so far it's, it's, it's working out fine. You know, I, I see my job doing Extraordinary Birder as, and you know, the title is not about me. Because I'm, I'm not an extraordinary birder. I'm, um, I have my skills.

[00:21:50] Chris Duffy:
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

[00:21:50] Christian Cooper:
But I've met the extraordinary birders. Uh, they are phenomenal. And one of the things that the title refers to is those phenomenal people, whether they are ornithologists or whether they're just, you know, amateur birders who are doing incredible things, um, saving the birds, helping the birds, working with the birds. And I love the fact, and, and this is the best part of my job is I get to bring their stories forward now, because, you know, I'm lucky in that, you know, my story now is out there through the book.

[00:22:21] Chris Duffy:
One thing that I, I, I think is so special, and I'll just use the word extraordinary about a value is that you, you are both communicating the, the facts and the passion around the birds, but you're also not ignoring the context around the birds and around the natural world, right? Like the fact that birds are migrating into different places as a result of climate change. You're, you're not going to ignore that.

I also think, for example, I grew up in New York City. I've spent so much time in, in Central Park, which is kind of your home turf. And so much of your book takes place finding birds in the ramble. But I never knew the story of Seneca Village before. which is the, the community that was destroyed to make space for Central Park. Can you talk about, like, your decision to include those kind of historical and cultural and political contexts when you, when you are engaging with the natural world?

[00:23:15] Christian Cooper:
So context matters. It changes how we understand things. So that's why, you know, whether we are talking about birds, or whether we are talking about Central Park, or whether we are talking about, you know, race relations in America, context matters.

So that's why I try to put it in the book, in stories, uh, uh, uh, whether it's about Central Park, or whether it's about, you know, the birds, and seeing the birds in context. Let's go back to the Blackburnian warbler. And I'm seeing it in Central Park as it is passing through, but it started off in Colombia where it spent the winter.

And then now it's heading up to, say, the Adirondacks where it's gonna find some hemlocks to nest in. And it just connects New York to these other places across the globe organically. Literally, an organism is connecting New York to all these other places. So, once you get that context, you really, it, it, it expands your mind in so many ways.

Central Park, Seneca Village, what happened? So, they decided, somebody decided, “Hey, let's put a park in the middle of Manhattan, um, as the city was expanding, so that it'll be sort of a backyard for everybody.” Well, everybody back then didn't necessarily mean “everybody” like we mean now. And in fact, where they wanted to put the park was this thriving community, almost entirely African American, some Irish who were kind of the, the, the Black White people of the day.

Um, and they were living together in, in this community called Seneca Village. They owned their property. They had brick buildings. They were, um, working people, um, who had, you know, china and stuff in their homes. But, eminent domain came along and said, “Yeah, we're gonna put a park here and your communities have to go.”

Now, you know, were they paid fair value for their property? Records from that time? Who know? Black people were not, um, considered part of the community that was desirable. Um, and so, pushing them aside was easy. And that's what they did. They took the property. They cleared the land, and they built Central Park there.

Now, I love Central Park. I think it's wonderful, and I'm so glad we all have it. But one has to be mindful of who paid the price so that this park could be there now for all of us.
[00:25:39] Chris Duffy:
Um, I think there's often an idea that, like, the natural world and the human world, that there's a bright line between them. Right?

[00:25:45] Christian Cooper:
Uh-huh.

[00:25:46] Chris Duffy:
And if you watch a nature documentary, for example, often, you will never see a building. You'll never see a person. And yet, that's not actually the context that animals live in. Right? And they live in a place where they are affected by our, our decisions, by our policy decisions, by our political decisions, by the social and cultural things that are happening in the human world is affects animals too.

It, it affects the birds. So that's why I think it's just interesting to talk about, right, the Seneca village that came before Central Park and now Central Park is this incredible oasis for migrating birds that are traveling away. Where I live now in LA, right? Chavez Ravine was a thriving community. Now it's Dodger Stadium. Like these places change and it changes the natural environment, which affects the animals as well. So we can't kind of pretend that they're separate.

[00:26:33] Christian Cooper:
Right. A couple of notes about that, though. First of all, there is no part of the globe now that has not been impacted by human activity. Even places we have never set foot in are being impacted by climate change, global warming, which is the result of human activity. So even though, you know, the Antarctic, there may be places that, that people have never gone, they're being affected by human activity. So that's number one. There is no place that is pure nature anymore, if there ever was.

Number two, yeah, when we live in our cities, it is a very human-built environment, but you know what? Humans are part of nature too. So our human-built environment is actually sort of a special subset of nature, just as you know, the, the termites that build incredible towers in Africa and, and the ants that build incredible underground structures, you know, the beavers that build dams and create, you know, lakes that weren't there before.

All of that is creatures modifying and changing their environment. We just happen to be a species that does it to the extreme. We have the ability to do it in ways that other creatures haven't dreamed of, but we're still part of a natural world. And we're remaking it in ways that suit us, but that still makes it part of the natural world.

And why do I say that? Because I live in the middle of Manhattan, downtown Manhattan, where it's, you know, all paved streets and buildings. And you know what happens when I go up to my roof? I go up there and I look across the street and there's a red tailed hawk perched on the roof across the street. And then I hear click click click click click click click click click click, because there's a pair of American kestrels, our smallest falcon, who take exception to this big old red tailed hawk being here, and they are taking turns dive bombing him. It's kind of like tag team wrestling. Going at him one, then the other goes at him, then the other goes at him.

And then suddenly they stop. And they're perched on this antenna across the way. And I'm like, “Ok, I guess they're over it.” Then I hear cack cack cack cack cack cack cack cack cack. A peregrine falcon comes diving out of the sky and he starts strafing the red tailed hawk. And the poor red tail is there going grrr, nyaww, nyaww, nyaww. And the, the kestrels now are like, “Oh, there's a little bit too much for us. We're going to sit on the sidelines and watch this one.”

[00:28:55] Chris Duffy:
Uh-huh.

[00:28:55] Christian Cooper:
And I'm like, “Bring me the popcorn. I'm getting a show up here.” And this is all in the middle of supposedly humans-only Manhattan. And nobody realizes it. Nobody on the street is looking up and realizing this incredible warfare drama is going on in the skies above their heads. So yeah, we can tell ourselves that we're separate from nature. It's a big old lie, but we can tell ourselves.

[00:29:23] Chris Duffy:
So obviously you live in North America, you live in New York City. Um, but you've traveled all over the world and there are people who listen to this podcast, who live all over the place. Um, Are there some universal tips that kind of no matter where you are in the world, you can use to see more birds or to be more aware of the birds around you?

[00:29:42] Christian Cooper:
Sure. You bird the same way, no matter where you are in the world, which is you're on high alert with your eyes for a particular kind of motion that will draw your eye, for example, to, uh, a tree that rather than a leaf fluttering is actually a bird moving from branch to branch or to a particular kind of silhouette that you've got to get really good at picking out because if you spot it, then you may have spotted an owl sitting in a tree holding absolutely still and then also your ears. You're listening for, for sounds that knife through everything else.

[00:30:17] Chris Duffy:
Okay. And so say someone has been listening to this, and they're completely sold. They love it. They're really interested in this idea, and they want to get started, but they've never been birding before. This is going to be their very first time consciously birding. For the absolute beginner, what are the things that they should do?

[00:30:34] Christian Cooper:
You know, the, the main thing is, you know, you don't need special equipment, though a pair of binoculars helps tremendously, which can be a barrier to entry because they can be expensive; they don't have to be expensive. If you can get your hands on some hand me downs or a cheap pair, that's better than nothing.

But, you know, even if you don't have binoculars, you know, just go out there and see what you can find. If you're homebound and you can't get out of the house, you know what? Go to your window. See what you can find.

[00:31:04] Chris Duffy:
Your book is full of, uh, birding tips. This is one that I had never heard before. And I, I tried it and made such a difference is when you're trying, if you do have binoculars, and you're going to try and use them, keep your eye on the bird and then bring the binoculars to your eye. Don't put your eye on the binoculars and then try and find the bird. I, I couldn’t believe how big a difference that made.

[00:31:22] Christian Cooper:
It’s the first thing Elliott Kutner, my old birding mentor taught me. And, uh, it makes all the difference. It's the first, whenever I lead a group out of beginners, it's the first thing we do. I'm like, “Right before we even look at birds, see that sign down the block, look at it with your eyes, bring the binoculars to your eyes, because if you bring your head down and then try to find it with your binoculars, y’know, you’re not going to find it.” It takes a little practice, but once you mas-master it, it makes a huge difference.

[00:31:48] Chris Duffy:
Christian Cooper, it has been an absolute pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for being on the show and I hope that everyone will check out Better Living Through Birding and watch Extraordinary Birder. They're both fantastic and I can't recommend them enough.

[00:32:00] Christian Cooper:
Thanks a lot, Chris.

[00:32:05] Chris Duffy:
That is it for today's episode of How to Be a Better Human. Thank you so much to today's guest, Christian Cooper. You can watch him on Extraordinary Birder and you can read his book, Better Living Through Birding. I am your host, Chris Duffy, and you can find more from me, including my weekly newsletter and upcoming live shows, at chrisduffycomedy.com.

How to Be a Better Human is brought to you on the TED side by Daniella Balarezo, Chloe Shasha Brooks, and Joseph DeBrine, who are all currently nesting high in a tree in Brooklyn's Prospect Park.

Every episode of our show is professionally fact checked. This episode was fact checked by Julia Dickerson and Matheus Salles, who interviewed several Blackburnian warblers to confirm that what Christian said in their birdsong language was actually factually true.

On the PRX side, we’ve got a migratory flock of the greatest audio team in the natural world: Morgan Flannery, Noor Gil, Patrick Grant, and Jocelyn Gonzales.

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