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.
A 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
Diane:
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.
Don:
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.
Home
FAQ Tips
Birdbaths Stories
Videos Software
Optics Bookstore
Orders
|