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Birdwatching Starter Kit

Don & Lillian Stokes

Donald and Lillian Stokes are Mr. and Mrs. Birdwatching America. Educators and prolific writers, they have introduced countless people to a deeper appreciation of birds.

Their work comes out of a great enjoyment and love of nature. Their passion is to preserve and restore wild habitat.They see habitat as an essential key to keeping birds in our lives and preserving the quality of our own lives as well.

Don and Lillian are people with a mission. In the following interview, by Diane Porter, they talk about why they care about birds and how to get the most out of birding.


Why birds?
Benefits of birding
Styles of birding
Three-dimensional birding
Conserving birds
The Stokes' mission
New TV series, BirdWatch with Don and Lillian Stokes
Backyard habitat
Don's advice to beginning birders
Lillian's advice to beginning birders

Why birds?

Diane: Why are people so interested in birds? Just what is it about birds that is so fascinating?

Lillian: I think that there's the surface answer and then there's the deeper answer. The surface answer would be because they're stunningly beautiful. They have wonderful sounds. They're colorful. They're ubiquitous. And they surround us.

Biophilia HypothesisA deeper response would be that birds provide people with a deeper connection to nature and to all living things. That's something we all seek and all need. Some people think that there's an actual innate need for that. E. O. Wilson talks about a concept called Biophilia, the innate emotional affiliation of human beings to other living organisms. It's a really deep need. And in this day and age we need it even more, because a lot of modern life involves disconnecting from nature, having stressful lives in which we surround ourselves with technology.

Don: I might add something to that. In the natural world there are plants and animals. And plants are lovely, but they don't move. We are animals, and we're more attracted to animals at first.

And then when you look at all the different animals -- well, mammals are almost all nocturnal, at least where we live. (There's just a few squirrels around that you can see during the day.) Insects are very tiny. Fish are under water, and a lot of mammals are underground. So birds present themselves as the one animal that we can see easily. They're relatively slow. They're colorful, they can be attracted, and they're just about anywhere you go. So when you think of all the different animals, birds are the unique group that our senses allow us to enjoy.

Benefits of birding

Diane: Besides fulfilling this innate need for contact with nature, do you think that birding does other things for people who pursue it? Does it improve their lives?

Lillian: Oh sure. It provides many things for many people. There are many, many ways in which people participate in and enjoy watching birds. Birding can be very broadly defined, and different people get different kinds of things out of it, according to their needs and personalities.

Watching birds can be a very restful, peaceful, stress-reducing kind of activity that takes you away from your ordinary, everyday cares and worries.

A lot of people enhance their backyards -- the habitat -- and attract birds. People say to me, "You know, I couldn't go a day without looking out my window at my bird feeder. That's really the thing that gets me through and gives me little vacation and a respite from my everyday cares. And it's wonderful entertainment."

Whereas other people participate in other ways. Maybe traveling, maybe in a competitive sort of way, such as trying to get long lists to see how many birds they can see. Birding can be adventuresome. It fulfills a competitive need for some people. There's a great range of ways people participate in and enjoy watching birds.

Don: We call them all birdwatchers. People who have backyard feeders, and people who do science with birds, and people who do photography, and people who are drawing birds, people who do censuses, people who just like to identify, people who watch behavior, backyard feeder people, people who put up bird houses -- all those people are birdwatchers.

So you ask if there other benefits? Well yes, everyone benefits in different ways. And the more ways you participate in watching birds, the more benefits you get.

Styles of birding

Diane: I love to hear you talking about how all the ways of birdwatching are valid. Sometimes I hear a kind of contempt for people who enjoy birds only in the backyard, as if they weren't real birdwatchers.

Don: Lillian and I have found that some people tend to make a hierarchy out of different ways of watching birds. But there is no hierarchy. There are various areas and ways that people enjoy birds, and we're all under the same tent. It isn't something at the top and something at the bottom.

Lillian: It's a sphere. It's not a ladder.

Don. We always talk about cooperation, not competition. We're getting the language of heirachy out of our language in referring to birdwatching.

Lillian: And we use the words birdwatching and birding interchangeably. We feel that people are participating in both activities in the enjoyment of watching birds, and both those terms describe that, even though some people want to split them and make a lot of different definitions. We're all under one big tent!

Diane: Yes, right. With the birds!

Lillian: That's right.

Don: And we have one thing in common. We all love birds.

Three-Dimensional birding

Stokes EastDiane: You talk about three-dimensional birding in the introduction your to field guides. What do you mean by that?

Lillian: We came up with the three-dimensional birding concept to describe how we participate in watching birds, and that idea was the motivation behind our writing the field guide. Don and I watch birds in many different ways. We certainly identify birds and welcome the challenge of doing that.

Diane: It starts there, doesn't it?

Lillian: That's right -- although one doesn't even have to know the name of a bird to enjoy it. One could theoretically watch birds without knowing the names. You could even make up your own names and have all kinds of fun. In the early days I'm sure a lot of people did.

But we also realize that there's much more to watching birds -- to go deeper into their lives. With a deep appreciation of how they fit into their habitat, how their social behavior differs from bird to bird. It's as though every species has its own unique culture, and they all have different languages, and different habits and activities. People don't know how different many birds are from one another.

We watch their behavior and understand their lives. We appreciate them as organisms that evolved in different kinds of habitats and that need certain habitats.

Those are some of the dimensions that we call three-dimensional birdwatching: 1) identification, 2) behavior, and 3) their conservation needs. When we went to make the field guide, we thought it was important to have all those dimensions available to people so they could go beyond the ordinary dimension that has existed in the past, which has mostly been a field guide that lets you only identify a bird.

Don: Looking at the history of natural history -- when we humans first started looking at nature, we tried to figure out what life forms were and to name them and classify them. We're coming into an era now when we realize it's time to start looking at the behavior. And there is a lot of behavior work going on right now.

And I think in the 20th century we also are getting a much greater understanding that we are the stewards of the earth and of these creatures, because we have so much power to destroy them, and at least hopefully some power to help them as well.

Diane: Hopefully.

Stokes Guide to Bird BehaviorDon: And I don't feel we have gotten into behavior enough at all, because we really need to understand behavior before we can help preserve birds. There's a lot of work to be done, a lot of looking to be done at these animals that we share the planet with. It's just begun. One of the amazing things for us when we wrote our books on bird behavior (Guide to Bird Behavior, Vol. 1, Vol 2, Vol. 3 ) was to find out how little was known about different species, and what their needs were.

Diane: Even about common species?

Don: Even the common birds. Most people must feel that, gee somebody must know all about that, some university or something. The fact is, no, they don't.

We feel that birdwatchers have a key role to play in conservation because we're the biggest group of people who are actually looking at the natural world. And so we have the greatest responsibilities.

As we said in our introduction, those who love the natural world are the ones most likely to protect it. The activities of birdwatching must expand in order for us to help protect the planet, and our own lives as well.

Conserving birds

Diane: Well your work seems to be helping to move things in that direction. Since you're been focusing on this kind of thing for so long, what's your take on how we're doing as human species in relating to the other creatures on this earth, especially birds? Is human awareness becoming more responsible in that way?

Lillian: It is, but fairly slowly. There is a huge amount still to do, and that really is what our work and our lives are all about -- reaching vast numbers of people. To have them become aware of birds and understand them better and therefore to feel a connection to birds, and therefore eventually to feel a desire to conserve birds and to protect their habitats.

In all our work, through our books and our writings, and now our TV show, we help to educate people and move them in that direction. There's a lot of progress being made.

Don: And for the same reasons that birds are attractive as a group of animals -- because they're obvious and flying around and colorful, pretty vertebrates -- they're also the key tool for teaching about conservation.

Birds are one area where people can see and get attached to nature quickly. You'd have a lot more trouble trying to get people interested in solitary wasps, or fish, fascinating creatures though they are -- because we don't see them, we don't have the affinity to them, and we can't attract them to our backyards. So I think that birds are one of our focal points for getting people attached to nature again, and loving it, and seeing changes, and being concerned. Much more than any other type of nature.

The Stokes' mission

Diane: It sounds as if your mission is to bring about some transformation in the way that human beings relate to nature.

Don: That's true. One of the things Lillian and I are trying to do is help Americans on a broad scale become attached to nature. To see it and end up loving it and being fascinated by it and caring enough to preserve it.

Diane: Very good.

Don: We try to do that with all of the large-scale media available to us, so that we can reach as many people as possible. There are so many things that are not worthwhile spread on the airwaves. Conservation and things about nature have to take advantage of those same airwaves with a good message.

Diane: Tell us about your new TV series? What's it all about?

Lillian: We're very excited to have been asked to be the host of a new national weekly television show that will appear on PBS stations all across the country.

Diane: Weekly! That's wonderful.

Lillian: It's on birdwatching. It's a TV show on all aspects of watching birds, from your backyard to the wilderness.

Don: It's called "BirdWatch with Don and Lillian Stokes." It's a magazine format show, which means it's a half hour show that has several different sections. We always have a section in the beginning called "In Your Back Yard." A five-or-six-minute piece on attracting birds. We have sections on putting up bird houses, attracting orioles, growing a hummingbird garden...

Lillian: And birdfeeding, and keeping squirrels off your feeder...

Don: And attracting woodpeckers, building a bird house, planting shrubs for birds. That's the first section.

Then we have a longer segment that is often visiting a birding hotspot. We travel around the country, such as down to Florida's Ding Darling, and we go to southern Texas at Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, and we're going out to Arizona.

Diane: Gee, too bad. That's a really awful assignment.

Lillian: They have to twist our arms. They drag us to these birding hotspots and we actually have the terrible job of having to watch all the birds. (She laughs.)

Don: And then we have a bird identification section, identifying certain types of birds, such as the most common species of hummingbirds, or identifying the different ages of gulls. A lot of different things, from beginning to a little bit more advanced. We have birding tips as well.

Lillian: In another section we do different types of bird behavior, such as feeding behavior of herons. Or life history information which gives people a deeper look at birds and an appreciation of how they live their lives, how they raise their young, their vocalizations, and all of the different kinds of things that add another dimension to the experience of watching birds.

Don: We also have bird conservation tips. We look at some wonderful conservation success stories. We're trying to show people models for success. And that's very important. We want people to say, "Oh, yeah! Why don't we do that in our community?"

We look at a community in Sanibel, Florida, where you get your backyard registered as a natural safe habitat for birds and other animals. Then we visit a grassland project up here in Massachusetts at an air force base, where the air force and the Massachusetts Audubon Society are working together.

Lillian: They're working together to preserve the habitat of rare and endangered grassland species, like grasshopper sparrows, and upland sandpipers.

And at the end of the show we always have a question period where we answer the most commonly asked questions of birdwatchers, whether it's something in your backyard or something beyond that. As simple things as "Why are there no birds at my feeder?" or "Why is that bird pecking on my window?" All those kinds of things people puzzle and wonder about. We hope to have something for everyone, from very beginning birdwatchers to more advanced birdwatchers. We try to show the vast breadth, scope, and depth of this activity that we call watching birds.

Diane: Have you started shooting the shows?

Don: We've already done it! We've made 13 episodes for this year. In some stations across the country the earliest it will start is October. You can call your public TV and ask them when "BirdWatch with Don and Lillian Stokes" is being shown. And we're doing a second year and, hopefully, many years in the future.

Diane: Do you do all of the segments personally?

Lillian: We are the on-air hosts, and in most cases we demonstrate the how-to segments and the Your Backyard segments, and we give the little tours of the birding hotspots. But we also have special guests or visiting experts, or we may visit someone's backyard. For example a purple martin expert shows us a purple martin colony. Another piece is on a special bird rehab hospital, where we release the bird back into the wild with the lovely woman, the veterinarian.

Diane: This is exciting. I'm going to call up our PBS station and find out when it will be shown in Iowa.

Lillian: Yes. Stations across the country are making their decisions now, through early September, about what shows they will air.

Diane: Good. We'll be able to help to nudge them then.

Lillian: By the beginning of October, we'll have a web site for the show that will tell you by state where you can see it, and on what channel and what time.

Backyard habitat

Diane: You talk a lot about backyard habitat. Do you think that an individual family in their little back yard can actually make a difference for the habitat needs of the birds?

Don: Yes. In the Sanibel program which will be on our show, they have a backyard habitat registration program. They put up a map, and you get a star on the map if your property is by itself. But if you get three or four properties together, you get a different designation, a little sea turtle or something. It's raising the awareness that a whole neighborhood can have a great effect.

Every little bit counts! Because every time we put in a driveway, and every time we put in a parking lot, we take away birds' habitats and their chances to feed.

So if you enrich your property, even with some grasses that grow tall and produce seeds in the back corner of your lot, and even if it's just a postage-stamp lot, you have in fact increased food availability for birds.

In total it's a very strong element. As we learn about providing the right food with natural, native plantings, we can have a tremendous effect on birds. But there's a lot to learn. On our TV program we're going to show a lot of different ways that people can enrich and create habitats for birds.

Lillian: I'm always amazed to see how much people really can do on their own property to enhance and restore habitat destroyed in development. Our own property here is filled with bird houses, and bird feeders, and woods, and cavities, and berry-producing trees and shrubs. And we have all kinds of birds, both resident and migrants, that use it. But I can go a couple of blocks away and see suburban properties the same size as ours where there are practically no birds. People are always amazed, when they come over here, how much is happening, such as the eastern towhee family we had at our feeder this morning.

Diane: Ohh, you had the whole family.

Lillian: Yes, two adults and the young birds. They reproduced successfully here. It's good to see that, and to know that we have provided the necessary habitat. It's amazing to me what people really can do.

This isn't to say that you don't also have to educate people on the need to preserve large important habitats, such as the 1500-acre grassland that's being preserved out on Chicopee, on the Westover Air Reserve Base. Or saving large wetland areas and riparian areas, and large contiguous tracts of forest. These are the larger things that we all have to concentrate on as well.

But you can start in your own backyard. Start making the connection between birds and their habitats. You know, you can't have feeding birds unless you have breeding birds. If you don't have any place for those goldfinches to nest, they're not going to be at your feeder. We need that kind of awareness, that light bulb going off in people's heads. It really does matter out there. One of my favorite quotes is by Ding Darling, who Ding Darling National Wildlife was named after. He said, "Ducks can't nest on picket fences."

Don's advice to beginning birders

Diane: For a person just getting started watching birds, what advice do you offer?

Don: First thing I'd tell them is "Get some binoculars." If you play tennis, you get a tennis racquet. If you go skiing, you get skis. If you go birdwatching, you get binoculars.

Get the best binoculars you can. A lot of people get their grandmother's old opera glasses, and this is crazy! People spend tremendous amounts of money on golf clubs and tennis racquets. You really should get the best binoculars you can, because that is way to get close to birds. That is key. I'd say that even before you get a field guide. It's all about seeing.

And the second thing is to get a field guide that helps you enjoy the behavior as well as the identification of birds. And one that's maybe easy if you're beginning.

The third thing is to get curious. Curiosity is the key to all of it. Ask questions about birds. Watch birds for thirty seconds at a time. Don't just watch them for five seconds or long enough to identify them. But watch them. All you need to do to be a behavior watcher is to watch a bird for 10 seconds. Most of us actually never take that much time with a bird.

Lillian's advice to beginning birders

Lillian: My advice would be, "Enjoy watching the birds, and don't be intimidated." Too often I see perfectly intelligent people with perfectly good minds and abilities begin to doubt themselves, just because they can't ID every bird they see, or because they happen to be with more experienced birders who can (and who may be rather competitive). They get discouraged, and they get turned off, and they think, "I couldn't do that -- I couldn't ID those shore birds."

It's too bad. They need to believe in their own eyes and ears and capability and sense. I say, "Hey, you're great. You have all that it takes. Just a little more experience. A lot of looking. A lot of time in the field. Looking at thing in the field guide. You're perfectly capable. Don't get discouraged, and don't be intimidated by the way the world can work in this hierarchical and competitive world of birding."

We want to encourage those people. We want it to be enjoyable for them. We need people who have good experiences. We need to bring people along from beginner to more advanced, we need those people to become competent and be able to ID the birds and go far beyond that. To be the kind of people that want to participate in conservation, ultimately. So that what we're really after.

Diane: Thank you, Don and Lillian Stokes, and best of success in your goals, which are so important to us as birders, and to the whole world. We'll be watching for "BirdWatch with Don and Lillian Stokes" on PBS this fall.


Diane Porter interviewed the Stokes on August 16, 1997.

 

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