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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC Studios in Soho. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. Coming up later in the week, Carlos, a new documentary about legendary rock and Latin fusion art artist Carlos Santana premieres at Tribeca this week. We'll speak with Carlos Santana himself and Director Rudy Valdez about the project. That is in the future but let's get this hour started with birding.

Spring is peak migration time. In May of 2020, Christian Cooper was doing what almost every bird-crazy New Yorker does in spring looking for migratory songbirds. Everything was going as well until Christian asked a dog owner to follow the rules and leash her dog. Christian is Black, the woman is white. He recorded the incident as the woman threatened to call police and did falsely claiming an African American man was threatening her.

This all happened the same day George Floyd was murdered by police more than 1,000 miles away. Until that moment, Cooper was a writer, a gay activist, and honestly just a bird-loving nerd who became part of something bigger and his life changed. He was contacted by news outlets, got on a Zoom with Joe Biden. It could all be overwhelming, but as he writes his new memoir before he became the most famous birder in America, he was a closeted gay kid, a self-described blurred who loved comics and of course, birds.

He writes, "As a Black kid in the 1970s, I was rarer than an ivory-billed woodpecker in the very white world of birding." His life experience has taught him a lot about self-acceptance and activism. He writes about it all in his new memoir, Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World. It is out today. By the way, he's also the host of a new Nat Geo series called Extraordinary Birder with Christian Cooper. It premieres on Nat Geo Wild this Friday. This is a big week for you. Christian, welcome to the studio.

Christian: Thanks. I just have to correct you.

Alison Stewart: Oh, so, please.

Christian: It's actually on Saturday, June 17th at 10:00 PM.

Alison Stewart: Saturday, June 17th at 10:00 PM. We'll make sure that looks right where all the places that it's written out. The first chapter of the book starts with a red herring. You write, "I am a Black man running through New York Central Park. This is no leisure run. I'm running as if my life depends on it." You are not running from something or someone. You are running toward something. You're running. You had gotten a text about?

Christian: A Kirtland's warbler. Now, Kirtland's warbler, there are about 6,000 of them on the planet. They winter in the Bahamas. They breed in a little tiny sliver of Michigan and that's it, but one of them going from point A to point B took a wrong turn and ended up in Central Park and the word got out. It's just astonishing that the bird was found at all because you think of all the acres and acres of Central Park. This is a little tiny bird, smaller than a sparrow with a fair resemblance or a fair number of other birds but somebody happened to find it, happened to have the knowledge to know what they were looking at, and got the word out to the rest of us and we lost our minds.

Alison Stewart: How does get the word out to the rest of us work?

[laughter]

Christian: Well, in this era of technology, it's all about tweets and online groups and all that stuff, whereas in the old days there was word of mouth. There was a book in the boathouse in Central Park where you would write what you had seen, and that's how word got out. Word of mouth was surprisingly effective. They say that if you're ever in trouble in the ramble, you don't yell help. You yell Cerulean as in Cerulean warbler because that will bring every birder running from miles around.

Alison Stewart: [chuckles] That's such a lovely old-fashioned in the best way of writing it and there's something also very communal about that.

Christian: It was very communal, very old-fashioned. Those days are done. We have technology in our pockets now and the word goes out. I actually had my cell phone turned off that day, so I was blissfully minding my own business and then turned on my cell phone at the end of the day and saw all these messages load up. One of them was from an ornithologist friend of mine who lives up in Connecticut, and he said, "Oh, so are you going to go see the Kirtland's warbler?" I was like, "Ha, ha, ha, how funny."

Then I looked at all the other messages and I just said, "Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God." Ran out of the office, snatching my binoculars. Someone thought someone in my family had died. Ran all the way up to the park but saw the bird.

Alison Stewart: Why did you start your book there?

Christian: Oh, well, the fake out. I couldn't resist the fake out but also it's an interesting way to plop you into the middle of our obsession. By us, I mean all us crazy birders because we are a little crazy and it's fun. It gave you an insight into what we're looking for, why we're looking for it. Certainly one of the great pleasures of birding which is what I call the unicorn effect, where there's a bird that exists only in your imagination. You know it's out there. You've seen it in the books, you've seen it listed.

We've all heard of Kirtland's warbler. It's the rarest songbird in North America, and then suddenly one-day flap, flap, flap. There it is in real life. It's like you looked over the side of a boat and saw a mermaid for real. It's that kind of thrill.

Alison Stewart: Can you give me some context as to why New York City is such a birding hotspot and why Central Park is so great?

Christian: Absolutely. New York sits on what's called the Atlantic Flyway. When birds migrate north or south, they tend to use certain landmarks to help them navigate. One of them is the East Coast which runs more or less north-south. Birds who use the Atlantic Flyway are flying in the spring, they're flying up the coast and they get to the New York metropolis. We're sitting right there and it's just a sea of concrete. They're like, "Where the heck do we go?" Then they see this emerald green rectangle in the middle of Manhattan with water and trees and underbrush and all the food they need, and they just funnel in. It concentrates the birds.

That's what makes Central Park what they call a migrant trap. The birds are flying along, they see this, and it just funnels them in. I have actually run into birders from Costa Rica who have come to Central Park to go birding. I said to him you're insane. [laughs] I'm like, "I want to go to your country." He's like, "No, this time of year. I want to be here." It attracts people from all over the world because it is such good birding.

Alison Stewart: That said in your book, you take us on some of your travels to Australia and Buenos Aires. What's the farthest you've traveled for the most unicorn bird [chuckles] opportunity like one that would be rare if it happened, but you were going to go anyway?

Christian: I hopped a plane in the height of the pandemic because a friend knew about an active harpy eagle's nest that was accessible. Now the harpy eagle is the biggest eagle in the world. It's gotten tied for biggest eagle depending on how you're measuring with the Philippine monkey eagle. The harpy eagle is the biggest eagle in the world. People see photos of it. They think it's a person dressed in a suit. It's got a crest of feathers on top of the head. It is iconic.

Again, I've known about it since I was a little kid. I saw a TV movie about the harpy eagle, and I'm obsessed with seeing this thing. I hopped the plane, go down there, trekked through the jungle, ruined a pair of hiking boots in the swamp but I saw the bird and she was huge and magnificent.

Alison Stewart: Hearing you tell that story, do birders tell bird stories the way fishermen tell fish tales? You should have seen the one. He was this big. [laughs]

Christian: [laughs] Absolutely. It's not so much about the size of the bird but the sightings we had and the circumstances. Then there's always the person who misses out like a bunch of us are staking out some rare bird that we've been told is nearby and we're all looking for it. Then there's the sacrificial birder as we call them. The person who looks at us watching is like, "I got to get to work," leaves, and the second they leave, the sacrifice is made and the bird will show up and the rest of us will see it. It's a thing.

Alison Stewart: My guess is Christian Cooper, the name of the book is Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World. What was your spark bird? The spark bird is the bird that gets someone's attention, the one that really opens the door to this entire world of birding for people.

Christian: My spark bird was the red-winged blackbird. I was a little kid, built a bird feeder put in the backyard, and I was wondering what all these crows with red on the wings were that kept coming to the feeder. I was like, "Oh, my God, I've discovered a new species of crow," and I was all excited. Then I found out it was a red-wing blackbird. No, I hadn't discovered a new species, but I still love red-wing blackbirds. They're wonderful and they make this cry that just resounds in the springtime when the males first come back and they're sending up their territories and they go [mimics bird sound] [laughs]. That's exactly. It's loud. It's boisterous and it's wonderful. It's a sign of spring for me.

Alison Stewart: Someone, I think Juliana's holding her finger that she might have the sound of the red-wing blackbird.

Christian: You can see how close I came.

Alison Stewart: Do you think we have it? It's just hilarious that we would actually have this back. It's not a secret. Our senior producer is a huge birder, Kate, who you met when you came in.

Christian: Yes, so I just met. Yes.

Alison Stewart: What was the first thing you guys said to each other, birder to birder?

Christian: No. She just said hi. I was a little frazzled and dazed, so we didn't get to get into it but I'm sure we will as I leave.

Alison Stewart: In the book, we learn about your love of science fiction. What's the intersection of birding and science fiction?

Christian: I don't know if there is one really. They were both ways for me as a closeted queer kid to get out of my own head. and have some escape from what I like to liken to being buried alive in the tomb. It was really a suffocating experience.

Alison Stewart: Sure.

Christian: Because I knew I was queer from the age of five, very young. Birding, let me get out of that, put myself into a larger world for a while, and forget my woes and superhero science fiction, all of that genre. Let me escape into fantasy. I always say George Lucas saved my life because right when I was about 14 the original Star Wars came out and I was desperate for something because all those adolescent hormones are cooking through me, and had no expression. Then Star Wars came out and I spent my summer in the movie theater watching Star Wars over and over and over.

Alison Stewart: Where did you see yourself in Star Wars?

Christian: Interesting question. I didn't see myself in Star Wars, but I mentally was writing the sequel and I put myself into the sequel. I was the leader of some secret, hidden star system that was going to turn the tide against the empire if they could convince me to join, but I was a tough cookie. I wasn't going to join very easily.

Alison Stewart: Oh, we have that sound now. Should we listen?

Christian: Sure.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen.

[red-wing blackbird chirping]

Alison Stewart: Ooh, that was good. Oh, wait. You want to hear it again?

Christian: No. I got it.

Alison Stewart: You got it? Okay, we got it. The red-wing blackbird.

Christian: We'll leave it to the listeners to decide how close I get.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: A theme that runs through your memoir is the importance of finding your people, whether they be your birders or a mentor. You had a birding mentor, or joining identity group in college. How did finding your people change the trajectory of your growing up and your young adulthood?

Christian: For a long time I didn't, that was the issue. Was that I felt, especially as a queer person. Oh my goodness, felt completely isolated. Didn't think anybody else existed out there like that because there was no Ellen, there was no Anderson Cooper back then. Stonewall had barely happened. It wasn't until college that I did find my people, and that was a huge relief. Also, finding people not just other gay people, but finding acceptance for all of me by people who I had come to love, and by that I mean my roommates. My college roommates. We were tight, but I had hidden this from them. When I came out to them and they were good with it--

Alison Stewart: It was very sweet, and they were like, "Okay." [laughs]

Christian: Yes. We're talking 1980, '81, so it's not the same environment that it is now, and yet these guys to this day we're best friends. We were just all texting each other yesterday.

Alison Stewart: How are they feeling about your memoir if you were testing? What were they saying?

Christian: [laughs] One of them--

Alison Stewart: A page of my own, dude. [laughs]

Christian: One of them who has two incidents in the book that are less than flattering is rolling his eyes in agony. I left out last names to protect the innocent. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: My guess is Christian Cooper the name of the book is Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World. Very purposely, I wanted to talk to you about your birding up front.

Christian: Sure.

Alison Stewart: Because that's most of your life outside of this period of time when people knew you for something else. You are a birder, you are a writer, you are a [unintelligible 00:13:37] that's who you are. You're also someone who ended up in-- What do you call it, the incident? Is that the language you like to use?

Christian: I just call it the incident.

Alison Stewart: I also want to give some context before the incident because we in New York, I think we all know what happened. We can talk just some of the basics just to remind people, but before this incident happened in Central Park, just for context, you really, really care about birds. A month before this happened, you write how you and some of your fellow birders zoomed in on a community board seven meeting about the issue of dogs off leashes. What is it you and your fellow birders wanted to take to local officials?

Christian: We wanted to see some enforcement because there was none. There's still next to none, and that's why the situation gets out of hand, out of control, and that leaves it to people like us birders to try to push back in our own ways if we're going to save the park, and save this precious jewel part of the park that we love so much, and save the birds that are there. We shouldn't have to do that, [chuckles] there should be some enforcement. We were looking for that. The conversation is bigger than that. It's not just Central Park. It's dogs off the leash in protected areas all over the city and not other cities as well, and it's particularly hard at beaches.

I know there's a guy named Chris Allieri who is fighting tooth and nail to save the piping plover, which nests in the rockaways, and off-leash dogs in that area during the nesting season means the death of that species as one of our fellow New Yorkers, and we don't want that. It takes all of us to acknowledge the rules and just make a little bit of that sacrifice of our own reckless desires so that we can all live side by side, people, dog walkers, not dog walkers and piping plovers.

Alison Stewart: For folks who don't remember, I'll try to do this quickly. You're in Central Park, you're in the ramble. One of the quieter areas, you're doing your bird thing, there is a dog off-leash. You ask its owner Amy Cooper to leash her dog. She responds by saying, "The dog runs are closed because this was COVID." Her dog need to exercise. You have a bit of a back-and-forth. It doesn't really get heated, but you decide to start filming her with your phone. Now, had you been filming other dogs off leashes?

Christian: Oh, yes. This is a thing that a number of us birders had started doing to try to document the situation so that we could go to the Parks Department, go to the Central Park Conservancy and say, "Hey, look, you have a real problem." Particularly that year, it was worst I've ever seen it. Also, a lot of people don't like to be recorded when they're doing something that they're not supposed to be doing, so it's another way to push back and put pressure on them to put the darn thing on a leash.

Alison Stewart: You're right. Thus, the infamous video recording was born. A common misconception is that I recorded the video to document racist behavior. In fact, I had no way of knowing what was coming next. Indeed. It might not have happened if I wasn't recording, because as she unraveled it was the recording that set her off more than anything else. She asked you to stop filming. When you say, "No, I'm not going to." She said she's going to call the police. In her words, "I'm going to tell them there's an African American man threatening my life." In the video, you're very calm. She says she's going to call the cops. You said, "Please call the cops." What were you thinking in that moment?

Christian: The moment when she said, "I'm going to tell them an African American man is threatening my life." Whoa. Because suddenly race has been injected into the situation, and in a way that has had horrible consequences for African Americans in a lot of situations, in a lot of places. Emmett Till. Whole communities in situations like that have been swept away in the past. I'm aware of that history, and I know this can be a world of trouble for me because in a situation like that, who's likely to be believed, probably the white woman? For a moment I thought, "Okay, well, maybe if I stop recording this all goes away."

That was the intent of her saying that because note that she said it to me. I know I'm African American. [chuckles] I've known that for quite some time. [chuckles] The intent was to intimidate me into complying with her wishes. That was the point at which I remembered Philando Castile, of short version African American man in Minneapolis, in a routine traffic stop where he did everything that Black mothers tell their sons to do, and he still ended up shot dead. When that happened, I thought, "You know what? No matter what we do, we're still going to end up dead."

At that point, I just thought, "You know what? I am not going to be complicit in my own dehumanization. I am not going to make this easy for her. I am going to continue doing what I was doing regardless of whether I am Black, white, blue, or green. I'm going to record until that dog is on the leash and she's just going to have to do what she feels she needs to do," and that's what happened.

Alison Stewart: When did you realize that video had gone viral?

Christian: [chuckles] I was at a barbecue with my boyfriend and two friends, and my one friend who had seen the video when I put it on Facebook had been monitoring it when my sister put it onto Twitter and he kept looking at me, and he is like, "Oh, you're getting a lot of hits. Oh, there's a lot of hits. Oh my God, Kathy Griffin just retweeted you." Which to him was the ultimate source of validation. Then my phone started ringing in despite the fact that I'd been sitting up in the roof drinking margaritas at this barbecue, there's press calling me now [chuckles] asking me to comment on this. At the other end, I don't know how they got my cell phone number. It was a surreal situation for sure.

Alison Stewart: News bookers can be relentless. What was the furthest length one went to contact you and convince you to be on their show?

Christian: One guy ambushed me, got into the building somehow and got up to my little roof garden, and comes walking up to me and starts talking away, and I'm like, "Who are you, and how did you get here?" Probably the strangest moment was when I had to dash into my own building because a newspaper that shall remain unnamed because I don't really care for it sent a reporter, a photographer to stake out the front of my building so that he could snap photos of me, and I had to dash in like Princess Di ducking the paparazzi. That was just strange.

Alison Stewart: How did you seek to take back the control of the narrative?

Christian: It was really simple. There are certain things I've stood up for, fought for my whole life. Justice for Black people, equality for queer people, and protecting the birds and nature and conservation, their habitats. If people are going to shove a whole bunch of microphones and cameras in my face, I'm going to use that to fight for the things that I think are important. I'm going to use that larger platform to say what I think needs to be said. I think you mentioned that I ended up doing a conversation with Joe Biden or maybe you didn't, but I ended up on a Zoom with Joe Biden because I'm like, okay, I have 15 minutes of fame.

While it lasts, the most important election in our lifetimes is coming up. We have got to get that white nationalist out of the White House and get somebody real in there. If I can help do that, it's incumbent upon me to use that 15 minutes of fame to try to do that. I ended up on a Zoom with Joe Biden, which was great, but I don't know how much it moved the needle for him. I was glad to do it. If you're going to put those microphones and cameras in my face, I'm going to use them.

Alison Stewart: Who was the person who reached out to you that really touched you?

Christian: Reached out to me that really touched me. So many people reached out to me, and I think it was the ordinary people more than anything else that really moved me. Oh, you know, there was one woman, astonishing. She knitted, crocheted a doll of me complete with binoculars and eyeglasses as a gift for me, as a way of saying thank you in acknowledging what had happened. I was so moved by that, I still have it in pride of place, and it was very moving. A lot of people sent me really lovely notes. People sent me artwork. That part was lovely.

Alison Stewart: If you can take yourself out of the equation. If you can go Mr. Spock for me for a minute.

Christian Cooper: Sure.

Alison Stewart: What do you think the impact of a video of a white woman making a false claim about a bespectacled, soft-spoken, polite Black man? What do you think the impact of that was? In the racial reckoning of 2020, I got to find a better-- We need to find a better phrase. [laughs]

Christian: For sure.

Alison Stewart: I'm going to work on that.

Christian: I think it opened a lot of people's eyes because this happened in liberal New York. This happened with someone who was a liberal New Yorker and didn't use any racial slurs. It revealed something that a lot of us Black people have known for a long time, but that I think a lot of non-Black people didn't necessarily recognize, which is how deep the racial bias goes in American culture and how it can be weaponized. I think it wasn't just that alone, it was the fact that it happened on the same day that George Floyd died.

Here in the morning, you had an example of someone weaponizing race and an example of the racial bias in a small way. Then in the afternoon, you saw the fatal consequences of that bias when it's in the hands of police and they exercise that bias on a Black body.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Christian Cooper, the name of the book is Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World. We'll have more with Christian after a quick break. This is All Of It.

[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest is Christian Cooper. His new book, Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World is out today. He's also hosting a show on Nat Geo, which premieres on Saturday. It is called Extraordinary Birder with Christian Cooper. All episodes will be available on Disney Plus as of June 21st. We're going to open the phone lines. Christian has been birding locally for decades.

If you have any questions for him, you can give us a call, 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. You can also text us at that number. Want to know how he learns bird calls? Maybe he has a special birding spot. Maybe you have a special birding spot you want to share with your fellow birders. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Opening our phone lines to birders. Tell me about Black AF In STEM Collective.

Christian: It's an organization of Black scientists who are working in the sciences because they're scientists. Boy, that was redundant. [laughs] Because there are so few of us who end up in the sciences and they're working professionally. I'm strictly an amateur, but they're working professionally. After the incident, they wanted to do something to highlight their work and highlight all of us who are, whether amateurs or professionals, in this working in the sciences and in conservation in the environment. They put together Black Birders Week, which was and is, it happens every year now, where they just highlight Black efforts in the field.

Alison Stewart: Let's take a call. Phil from Williamsburg, Brooklyn calling in. Hi, Phil, thanks for calling All Of It.

Phil: Hi, Alison. I'm very excited to be on the air with you. I love your segment. [chuckles] I listen to it almost daily.

Alison Stewart: Thanks.

Phil: I had a question. I have a woodpecker. I live on Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It's like Bushwick Avenue in Metropolitan, and we have a big pine tree and there's a woodpecker out every morning at 6:00 AM that is very loud. I was curious, I did not realize that woodpeckers lived in New York City. Is there any insight into what species it might be? [laughs]

Christian: Sure. The most likely of the two species is either a Downy woodpecker, which is our smallest, and it's kind of mostly black and white, or a red-bellied woodpecker, which is actually a new arrival to the city. Relatively new. When I was a kid, they were not in New York at all. Because of a warming climate, they've been able to push up from the south and colonize New York successfully. It's probably one of those two species.

Alison Stewart: Phil, I think you had a second question.

Phil: I did. There isn't even more loud early morning bird in the backyard. It is out at about 3:00 AM and it has started mimicking the sounds of Uber Eats or delivery scooters with the noise. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: Did not expect that this morning. That was not on my bingo card. Birds who sound like scooters.

Christian: You have the dubious pleasure of a northern mocking bird, Mimus polyglottos. The polyglottos means many tongues and Mimus means mimics. That's what they do. They imitate things and they do have an unfortunate tendency to sometimes sing in the middle of the night. There's not much you can do about it except for invest in a really good pair of your plugs and maybe a white noise machine.

Alison Stewart: Good luck, Phil. Let's talk to Peter from Tarrytown. Hi Peter. Thanks for calling All Of It. You're on with Christian Cooper.

Peter: Hi. Good afternoon. Your article in The Times refers to a gift from your father, a pair of Swarovski binoculars.

Christian: Correct.

Peter: Did he pick them out for you or did he ask you first, and if so, why them? I hope it's not too technical, but why them instead of Leica or Zeiss or whichever?

Christian: He asked me very specifically what I would like. He said, "Money is no object." I'm like, "Well, okay." [laughs] Because it was my 50th birthday. I should add that I have never bought a pair of binoculars in my life. All my binoculars have been either hand-me-downs or gifts, and this was the ultimate gift. I've picked Swarovskis because they are widely recognized, and you can make an argument about it, but widely recognized as the top of the line in terms of optics.

People hear Swarovski and they think, "Were they bejeweled? Were they encrusted or something?" Swarovski aside from the jewels makes really high-end optics that are crystal clear. They are very popular. If you've got the dough with birders for scopes and binoculars.

Alison Stewart: Question for you. The cost of the binoculars could be a barrier to entry for people.

Christian: Absolutely.

Alison Stewart: Is there any organization that has secondhand binoculars away? There are some organizations that use secondhand ski equipment to try to get different populations engaged.

Christian: I am unaware of any organization that does that. It's something to look into, actually.

Alison Stewart: Might be cool.

Christian: Too cool to create one because there are a lot of people who upgrade their binoculars and then they're looking to give away their old pair. Almost every birder I know would love to inspire somebody else to become a birder themselves or if someone has been inspired to pass on their binoculars, to foster that. I will tell you a really lovely story very quickly, which is that there was a homeless woman there, and she's still in the park. She saw all the birders in the Ramble, and she was like, "What are you guys up to?" Someone told her and she started to take an interest, and someone gave her their old pair of binoculars. Now, she's a birder just like the rest of us.

Alison Stewart: Huh?

Christian: Nobody bats an eyelash and nobody cares. The interesting for me is the contrast between that and-- We used to have, before he moved away, the CEO of Goldman Sachs was also a periodic birder in the park. You had a homeless woman, CEO of Goldman Sachs, nobody cared. It's not something that matters. If you have an interest in the birds, if you are passionate about the birds, that's the passport for entry at least in our community, in Central Park, and a lot of us are trying to keep it that way.

Alison Stewart: Our phone lines are open, 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. You can also text to us at that same number. You can talk to Christian Cooper. He's been birding locally for decades. Maybe you have a favorite birding spot, maybe you want to ask Christian about a specific birding spot or just have a birding question, 212-433 WNYC. We got a text that says, "Do you ever see hawks in New York City? What time of year?"

Christian: Oh my God. [chuckles] Now is the time to go to Tompkins Square Park. Why do I say that? There is a pair of red-tailed hawks that have nested there repeatedly and their young hawks just fledged from the nest and when they do, it is a show not to be missed. I was walking through the park this morning coming back from the gym and I saw the young ones out there. The reason why this is so special is because red-tailed hawks who have grown up in the city, don't care about people. They have a total New York attitude. They will sit there when you are five feet away and just look at you and like, "Yeah, so?"

Alison Stewart: "And?" [chuckles]

Christian: Exactly. That's so rare for red-tailed hawks. You go anyplace else-- you go up to Hudson Valley just two hours and they spook at 200 yards. These birds put on a show and the young ones right now are learning to hunt. They're flying around, they're perching on benches, they're hopping around the lawns and you can see them with ease. There are raptors all over New York City because we got plenty of rats and we got plenty of pigeons. Abundant food supply means the raptors will come. That's why there's a great horned owl that's been hanging out in the ramble for several weeks if not months.

That's why there are red-tailed hawks breeding all over Manhattan, not just in Tompkins Square Park. Of course, the famous red-tailed hawk, Pale Male, who nested on Fifth Avenue until he just recently died, having lived a long, long life. There are peregrine falcons. Our city has the biggest concentration of peregrine falcons in the world. We have American kestrels, the smallest falcon. They live in my neighborhood and their favorite sport is to harass the red-tailed hawks. Every day they're out there just swooping and dive-bombing these guys and making their life miserable.

The red-tailed hawk is many times the size of the kestrel, but the kestrels are like, "No, I'm going to bug you, I'm going to bug you, I'm going to bug you, I'm going to bug you." It's interesting. Plenty of hawks, plenty of raptors to see in New York City all year round.

Alison Stewart: Will from Sheepshead Bay has called in. Hey, Will, thanks for calling All Of It.

Will: Hi, how are you?

Alison Stewart: Doing Great. You're on the air.

Will: Hi. I'm in Sheepshead Bay, I'm close to Jamaica Bay, and I was wondering if you knew of any bird spots or birds in the area that would be good to look out for?

Christian: Well, if you're near Jamaica Bay, that means you're near Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, which is phenomenal. I actually don't bird Jamaica Bay that often because I am a lazy birder sometimes, and I don't drive, which means that for me to get from where I live out to Jamaica Bay is two hours each way, and that's a commitment. If you live right there, there is no reason for you not to be in Jamaica Bay all the time looking at all kinds of birds, shore birds, waterfowl, yellow warblers nest out there. There's plenty of stuff to see in Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge.

Alison Stewart: Oh, we have two calls. One is Margot on line nine, who is going to fill us in on some binocular programs. Hi, Margot.

Margot: Hi. Hi, Chris, It's Margot Perron from Marine Park Alliance.

Christian: Oh, hey, Margot.

Margo: Took a walk around the park. How you doing?

Christian: Good, how are you?

Margot: Very good. I just heard you say that you didn't know of a program that has free binoculars. We've been working with New York City Audubon, bringing experts in, and we also work with the Urban Park Rangers who have a nature center in Marine Park. Every weekend we have a bird walk and the rangers bring out free binoculars and then we give a tour of the salt marsh and the birds are just phenomenal there.

Christian: Yes. Your tour of Marine Park was awesome. New York City Audubon, of which I am a board member, runs lots of free walks all around town. We just started a new program called NYCHA in Nature, which is bringing bird walks to the New York City Housing Authority projects. There are green spaces there, let's get people who live there out there looking at the birds. We always provide free binoculars with them, but those are binoculars on loan. What we'd like to do is find, my wheels are turning now, of how would one structure an organization that repurposes people's old binoculars and gives them to people to keep, to have so that they have their own binoculars.

Alison Stewart: Reminds me like Dress for Success, that idea that you can come in and you can get the binoculars and maybe you also get some early training on how to be a birder. Well, wheels are turning. Before we take a quick break, let's talk to, I think it's Golden calling in from California Central Valley. Hi, Golden, thanks for calling in.

Golden: Hello, I had two questions. One I wanted to know the difference to be seen with variety and species in the Caribbean islands and the US or North America. The other question is did that lady ever apologize to him?

Alison Stewart: Let's start with the Caribbean first.

Christian: We think of places as discreet with their separate birds, but one of the wonderful things about birding is you start to observe connections. One of those connections is that a lot of our birds, what we consider our birds that breed in North America in the summertime, they winter in places like the Caribbean. Our places are actually connected by these living winged wonders. As far as birds in the Caribbean, I've birded Trinidad and Tobago the most because my mom was from Trinidad. That is a wonderful place to bird because it's actually a little piece of South America that is broken off. It's actually more South American birding than Caribbean birding.

The one drawback to birding on islands in general, and I've noted this in the Caribbean islands, is that they have tend to have a relatively limited number of species as opposed to the mainland. The advantage is that those species are often unique to those islands, what we call endemics. You could go to someplace like Puerto Rico and you can see a parrot that is only found on Puerto Rico called the iguaca. In fact, in Extraordinary Birder, we go and we look at the iguacas and try to save them because they're desperately threatened.

Alison Stewart: Did the, as he put it, the Cooper lady apologized? [chuckles]

Christian: She offered an apology of sorts in the press never to me directly. I accepted the apology, I just don't think her apology reflected that she truly understood what had happened in that moment. I'm not looking for anything from her. I don't think she's looking for anything from me. We've got our separate lives and may we both thrive in them.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Christian Cooper, the name of the book is Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World. We'll have more of your calls and we'll hear about Christian's show Extraordinary Birder with Christian Cooper after the break.

[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart, my guest this hour is Christian Cooper. The name of the book is Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World, it's out today. This weekend you can catch Christian's new show, Extraordinary Birder with Christian Cooper on Nat Geo Wild. You were a consulting producer on this as well as being in front of the camera. What was an example of a decision you had to make for this series that you really maybe didn't anticipate having to make?

Christian: I didn't anticipate having to make? Well, some of it was curating some of the images because sometimes they would misidentify something and I would have to step in as a birder to the best of my knowledge and say, "Hey guys, I think you got this one wrong." I got to say the production team was amazing in that they started with no knowledge of birds and that's what I brought to the table. They brought knowledge of television, but boy did they school themselves and really well and really rapidly. I have nothing but respect for those guys, they did an amazing job.

I think the most important decision I had to make as the consulting producer was which locations we would go to. I had a big hand in that and in particular, and this is the most important episode to me, we went to Alabama. The Alabama trip I had taken actually a year earlier at the invitation of Alabama Audubon. It was such a revelatory experience for me that I really felt we had to recreate that experience for the show. What made it so revelatory was that it was a collision, not just of birding, but with civil rights history and with family history because every African American, even though we're northern people for generations, you go far enough back and our roots are in the south.

In my dad's case, his side of the family came from Alabama. In fact, probably the very rural part of Alabama we were in. There was that component to being there. There was being in Selma and walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Both my parents were active in civil rights and marched and got arrested, but I don't think they ever did that. I was walking for them across that bridge. Then underneath that bridge, there are cliff swallows, nesting, and almost certainly they've been nesting there for decades. These birds have been witnessed to what happened on that bridge.

It's just fascinating to me that their cycles of life continue and while human madness goes on around them. There were just so many ways in which civil rights history, family history, and birds, because the show is about birds, just all came together in that Alabama episode. I hope we did justice to it.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Dolan, calling in from Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn. Hi, Dolan, thanks for calling All Of It.

Dolan: Hi, Alison, love your show. Christian, Alison is a really terrific segment. I called because I wanted to suggest or I wondered if Christian had ever gone birding in the Green-Wood Cemetery here in Brooklyn. It's just a treasure trove of hawks and all kinds of birds as well as their famous giant green parakeets.

Christian: What got me out to Green-Wood was when-- redpolls which is a winter finch we call them because they breed way far north but in certain years, they will come down to our latitude of the world. There were redpolls that were hanging out in Greenwood Cemetery, and I really wanted to see them. That got me out there and I found out just how much goes on out there, bird-wise. I think for a while you had a bald eagle hanging out there. It's a great place to bird again, especially if you've got proximity and all these places we're talking about Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, Green-Wood Cemetery, Central Park, Prospect Park.

There's a guide that New York City Audubon puts out called Birding by Subway. It tells you how to get to all these great birding spots and more by public transportation. Get your hands on that brochure if you can. It's really helpful.

Alison Stewart: Opposite side of the universe. If you had unlimited funds and you could fly anywhere to go birding, where would you go?

Christian: Probably top of the list right now would be Bhutan because it was closed off to the west for so long. It would not only be the birds because I know some birders who went right when they opened, and they came back raving about the birds they saw in particular in that part of Asia. The pheasants are just unbelievable. I would love to see the birds but also the culture before it gets ruined by a lot of tourists going there. Bhutan would probably be number one on the list.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Brian, calling in from Sunnyside, Queens. Hi, Brian. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Brian: Hi. Thanks for having me on. Really fun segment. I really love that it's happening during gay pride month because I've always thought that birds just do the divas well. Everybody's just [unintelligible 00:43:58] their outfits to try to look as fabulous as those beautiful male birds. [chuckles] My question on theme with that is, do you, Christian, have a bird that you think embodies the spirit of gay pride?

Christian: Oh wow. Embodies the spirit of gay pride? Well, I guess it's a bird we almost never see here in New York City, unfortunately, it's a bird of coastal Georgia, the coastal Carolinas, but it is basically splattered with the colors of the rainbow. It's called the painted bunting. It's quite spectacular. One of them actually went off course and showed up by mistake in Prospect Park and all the birders were rushing out to see it while it was here because the females are drab green olive, but the male, he's got a bright red breast, he's got a bluish head, a greenish back. It's like somebody vomited technicolor all over the bird. I guess I would have to go with the painted bunting as the bird of pride.

Alison Stewart: Brian, thank you for calling in. My guest is Christian Cooper. The name of the show will be Extraordinary Birder with Christian Cooper will be because it premieres this weekend on Nat Geo Wild. The book is called Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World. We're going to take a couple of more calls, but there was something in the book that I wanted to ask you about that-- I'm for you, but there's something in the book that I read that hit me oddly. Bad grammar. At the end of the book, you write about a similar situation, incident where you're videotaping another scofflaw person breaking the rules.

Christian: Actually it was videotaping the dog.

Alison Stewart: The dog. Right. Then she asked like, "Am I in it at all?" You said a little bit and she wants you to delete it, and you're like, "I'm trying to--" As you said earlier, you all are trying to protect the ramble. As a woman, I can think if somebody, anybody took video of me for any reason. There's so many microaggressions we experience as people of color and then you add what women experience on the street regularly. Even somebody for a good cause videotaping me could be triggering or upsetting. How do you and your fellow birders square that between what you want to do to protect the birds and how it might impact other people?

Christian: Well, I can't speak for other birders. I can only speak for me. Because I think it would be a mistake to come out of something like the incident and the follow-up that you mentioned without learning something myself. One of the things I've learned is that I need to be much more conscious if I'm going to be out there as an advocate of birding is for everyone and everyone needs to feel comfortable in outdoor spaces. I've got to be much more aware of how women feel in outdoor spaces because it is different. I don't think I necessarily had-- let's put it this way in the Ramble, I am way too comfortable. It is my happy place.

I see the Ramble as a place of joy, but I have to recognize that it's not going to be perceived the same way by everybody. For a woman, an outdoor space can be different. That's something I came away with this experience from. I try to now keep that in my head and in my heart, not in her specific example because there were plenty of people around and more importantly, I was wearing a giant rainbow flag on my shirt. Her idea that I was going to take home the video and enjoy myself was-

Alison Stewart: Ridiculous.

Christian: -off base considering the very apparent inclinations I was wearing on my shirt.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Anne Marie, our last call from Middletown, New York. Hi, Anne Marie real quick.

Anne Marie: Hi. Thank you so much. I wanted to say I first was introduced to birding in 2007 in Trinidad by who I think is a mutual friend. We saw the scarlet ibis my daughter, who's nine coincidentally made a papier mache scarlet ibis in school this month for a project and has shown an interest in learning more about birds. What would you recommend for budding birders in elementary school to get started?

Alison Stewart: Got about 30 seconds.

Christian: Get them outside, get them into the parks, get them into the backyard, get them looking at the fire escape. The most important thing is open your eyes and ears and just look and listen. That's what any birder but particularly young birders because they have such great senses should be doing.

Alison Stewart: The name of the book is Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World. It is Out today. Again, Happy Pub Day, and the series Extraordinary Birder with Christian Cooper premieres this weekend on Nat Geo Wild. Then the episodes will be available on Disney Plus, June 21st. Christian, thank you for spending the hour with us.

Christian: Alison, it's been a total pleasure, and thank you for having me.

Alison Stewart: Thanks to everybody who called in as well.

 

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