Letters
Knit to This: Drew Lanham, Bird Lover
Dear Kay,
Walking has been a big part of the past year for me. Most of the time, Hubbo is with me and we talk. When I’m by myself, I usually listen to my thoughts, as tangled and rambling as they tend to be. And I’m looking for birds—I know now where the bluebirds are in our neighborhood. I know the shady stream where house finches hang out on a hot day.
The other day, I took a walk with Krista Tippett and ornithologist Drew Lanham, thanks to Krista’s exquisite program On Being.
Drew Lanham is both an ornithologist and a creative writer. He is Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology at Clemson, and the author of the 2016 memoir The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature.
He loves birds.
Listen to this gorgeous conversation here.
The first bird he loved? Growing up in rural South Carolina, he remembers the “snowbirds” as his grandmother called them—the juncos—the small gray-and-white birds that his grandmother threw grits to. His relationship with ornithology was mystic, as a child in South Carolina, before it was scientific.
Krista asks him about slavery and the aftermath of slavery that created an alienation of people from the land—how people were once forced into nature, into environments that today we pass through and even take refuge in, that were once full of pain.
He replies:
That’s this constant tension that we’re living in now, this history, whether there are trees growing over it that have grown out of soil that people once toiled, or there are rice fields that stretch as far as the eye can see that are only there because of Black hands. We’re watching black ducks and black-necked stilts and hopeful for black rails, and those places were created by Black human beings, not voluntarily.
So enslavement is everywhere. It’s not just here, in my homeplace in the South, but I think about it in other places, and I try to think about other landscapes and the history and what that means. They are inextricably linked, that culture and care—I mean, we have to understand where we’ve been, I guess is the cliché. But when I see these landscapes, I cannot, in honoring what my ancestors endured in that nest, really, to get me here to where I am, fledged and flying—I cannot in good conscience ignore the bitter for the beautiful.
He reminds us backyard birds are every bit as extraordinary to watch as the most exotic flamingo.
He does an astonishing barred owl call, too.
Love,
Ann
Oh THANK YOU for this! The birds have been so important on my walks this past year too. I look forward to Dr. Lanham’s thoughtful commentary.
Thank you for introducing me to this brilliant, thoughtful person. It truly is one of the most gently profound pieces I’ve experienced.
I so love that my knitting and my birding worlds have just collided! Dr. Lanham is one of my birding heroes. Everything he writes is worth reading. He has a new piece in Audubon magazine in which he questions some of the most basic assumptions about John James Audubon. He has several thought-provoking articles in Orion magazine too, if you are looking for somewhere to begin reading his work.
Hoard joy. The journey matters. Share love. So beautiful. Thank you.
Dear Ann,
Thank you for this thoughtful piece. Looking forward to a good listen. MDK provides so much to me and I am grateful for it all. Knitting is just a piece of the gift.
I listened to this about a week ago and I loved it! Actually put my knitting down a couple of times and just listened. It’s terrific.
Thank you, thank you for introducing me to Dr. Lanham.
Just this morning, on BirdNote (Spotify) I learned about the Rain Crow.
I now want to read everything he has written, and will be ordering his upcoming book from my LBS.
Thanks for another great recommendation. I have watched movies, and listened to music, podcasts and books that I would not have otherwise have found without all the wonderful MDK posts. By way of adding to the discussion, I just finished knitting a sweater while listening to Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, a botany professor and writer of Native American descent, who also addresses our relationship with nature. I can now continue this theme with your recommendation. Also, about that voice in your head that you hear while walking (and knitting, in my case)……there is a new book I learned about from the New Yorker called Chatter, by Ethan Kross, a University of Michigan psychologist. Another short and interesting listen while knitting. Have a nice weekend everyone!
Thanks for the recommendations! Adding both Lanham and Kimmerer books to my library request list.
Thank you for this. I can’t wait to listen. I love nature and birds. I also walk
everyday and birds are a part of this. The Canadian Geese flying overhead. My favorite Steller Jays and the wild Swans at my mother-in–laws. We have Owls and the wonder they cause when at night you feel is the whoosh of their wings as they fly bye is not to be missed. Yes thank you for this
As I sit & knit outside my windows we have 4 feeders to handle the ever growing visitors of Cardinals, Juncos, Chickadees, sparrows, nuthatches & woodpeckers. The problem is so is a hawk, red shouldered hawk, ever present too. I have to look away some times as feathers scattered all over remind me to just be present with my knitting and know that all is just the way it should be.
His book was good!