Birding To Change The World: A Memoir,New

In this uplifting memoir, a professor and activist shares what birds can teach us about life, social change, and protecting the environment.Trish OKane is an accidental ornithologist. In her nearly two decades writing about justice as an investigative journalist, she'd never paid attention to nature. But then Hurricane Katrina destroyed her New Orleans home, sending her into an emotional tailspin.Enter a scrappy cast of feathered charactersfirst a cardinal, urban parrots, and sparrows, then a catbird, owls, a bittern, and a woodcockthat cheered her up and showed her a new path. Inspired, O'Kane moved to Madison, Wisconsin, to pursue an environmental studies PhD. There she became a fullon bird obsessivelogging hours in a stunningly biodiverse urban park, filling field notebooks with bird doings and dramas, and teaching ornithology to college students and middleschool kids.When Warner Parkher daily birdwatching havenwas threatened with development, OKane and her neighbors mustered a mighty murmuration of nature lovers, young and old, to save the birds' homes. Through their efforts, she learned that once you get outside and look around, you're likely to fall in love with a furred or feathered creatureand find a flock of your own.In Birding to Change the World, O'Kane details the astonishing science of bird life, from migration and parenting to the territorial defense strategies that influenced her own activism. A warm and compelling weave of science and social engagement, this is the story of an improbably band of bird lovers who saved their park. And it is a blueprint for muscular citizenship, powered by joy.