A FEEL Guide to Birds: Convergence of Art, Science and Culture for Conservation.

A Very Rare Opportunity to Study with Dr. Drew Lanham
Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology

One of the most celebrated
ornithologists and plant ecologists
in the United States.

Mondays starting March 9, 16, 23 and 30

6:30 pm – 8:00 pm EST

On ZOOM

Cost: $160

30 students Max

Dr. J. Drew Lanham (Joseph Drew Lanham) is a highly respected American wildlife biologist, conservationist, cultural ornithologist, educator, author, and poet, whose work bridges science, art, culture, ecology, social justice, and the natural world.

In this course, you will learn how the interplay of ecology and land ethic, past and present, bitter and sweet, has played a role in the lives of humans and wild birds. Bring your love for wildness and wild birds, any field guide you wish to use as reference, and a willingness to wander outside of the lines prescribed by listing. Birds will take on a different dimension and hopefully become not just what’s but who’s. 

From Dr. Lanham

Last year at this time of year, I was sitting by a Lowcountry South Carolina salt marsh river watching white pelicans catch new thermals through a foggy morning’s gray veil. They bank west, and a sudden illumination glows through pale feathers. There are no binoculars required. My heart is the only feel guide required on this latest trip to my beloved Edisto Island. I’ve seen hundreds of white pelicans but only one or two browns. Why the shift? Has something happened that negatively impacts one but benefits the other? 

As an ornithologist, curiosity is my job security, but only musing hypotheses comes today. Brown versus white doesn’t matter so much in the moment. I’m here to celebrate Black History Month in my own wild way, so I watch. I wonder. The sun is now a yolk on the horizon, and with it, a tepid dawn chorus oozes out. Carolina wrens and cardinals sing half-heartedly. The urge that will soon push sex and territorial imperative into a fever pitch are only at a fraction of full tilt. A bald eagle cackles soprano from the forest. Hidden clapper rails chuckle with no applause. 

It’s my February sea island idyll, and the pace is measured in tides and dolphin passage at first light. A half hour’s sit reveals great blue and tri-color herons, great and snowy egrets, belted kingfishers, scaup, bufflehead, wood storks, Forster’s terns, assorted gulls, yellowlegs, and double-crested cormorants. Even in this angst-wracked time, witnessing wild beauty brings joy. Current issues worry my concerns and make for an ironically rich writing ecotone. 

Here, I’m 45 minutes south of the Charleston hyperactivity, where people flock to create a “New South” out of an Old South that sanctioned many of the worst things. My beloved Edisto Island is a world away from the “Chuck Town” frenzy with spotty cell service and even sketchier internet. Although it’s far enough away from the maddening crowds to be considered by some as too far, it still shares a dark past with its county cousin. 

I work to understand how the bitterness that was (and often still is) blends in with birds’ lives. In that complex mélange of so many “ists” and “isms”, almost any place in the U.S. registers as imperfect, but I sit in that chasm of faults to gather my bearings for being. Here, I’m forced to face past, present, and future realities that tie human and avian fates together. 

Wildness is the pivot on which so much turns for me. Nature doesn’t abide by human demands without repercussions that have a way of rebounding with a vengeance. The new negative challenges coming daily present new prompts for action. I watch with wonder, but then wonder too, on next steps. 

The edges of sea, salt marsh, and maritime forest mesh with history and culture here. This interplay renders much room for pondering. Birds, with stories of the humans sharing range with them, are at the heart of my work. Culture and conservation are the crossroads where I reside. I believe it is a crossroads where we all need to stop looking and proceed only after acknowledging this interplay.

 
Here by the river, I find focus in wonder, awe, and wild worship. I can see two birds with one scope and hope that my words serve multiple purposes to spark inquiry, motivate saving actions, and inspire better days. I’m comforted by Emily Dickinson’s words, that hope is indeed, “…the thing with feathers…” as Zora Neale Hurston’s idea, that “A thing is mighty big when time and distance cannot shrink it.”, renders timely perspective. This wild place imparts both truths.