Birding Under the Influence: Cycling Across America in Search of Birds and Recovery
Book by Dorian Anderson.
Chelsea Green. 2023. 256p. flexbound. $24.95.
This is an engaging, picaresque, on-the-road epic as important, perhaps, as Kaufman’s Kingbird highway, Strycker’s Birding without borders, or Dwarshuis’ The (big) year that flew by. Not to be sniffed at, Anderson is an honors graduate of elite Hotchkiss school and Stanford, has a doctorate from N. Y. University, and was a researcher as a predoctoral fellow at Harvard in molecular embryology, developmental generics, molecular cell biology at Massachusetts Memorial hospital.
Forsaking such accomplishments, Anderson found these pursuits to be increasingly unrewarding and made the courageous decision to do a Big Year by bicycle, in 2014. Biking 17,830 miles, he found 618 species. His lively account is full of adventures, unforgettable characters, danger, and vivid descriptions of the many interesting places he traversed. Several times he experienced dangerous falls. His was a heroic odyssey. From winter in New England to Florida, the Gulf Coast and east Texas, across the arid Southwest to Arizona, up to the Great Basic, and the Pacific Northwest.
It was a treat by chance to run into Dorian in east Texas at the Sabine Woods and then Anahuac N.W.R., where at the latter site, he showed me a Ruff. Interspersed in his engaging text are countless anecdotes about his parents, his lady friend, undeserved hostilities he endured while on the road, his diverse lodgings, food, and, of course, his encounters with hundreds of bird species.
In his earlier years he was deeply addicted to drugs and drinking to excess. He recounts his innumerable late night binges and excessive life style, and his being able to overcome these. He is a gifted writer. Anderson also used his adventure as a fundraiser.
“I loved designing, conducting, and interpreting experiments, and I enjoyed the rhythm of lab work even when I was hungover.” p. 65.
“I graduated from Stanford in June 2001 with an honors degree in biological sciences, a position as a research assistant at Harvard, and an abusive relationship with alcohol, one which had prescribed forty to fifty drinks a week …” p. 66.
“Compared to the constricted view from my laboratory, my wider Chiricahua perspective was wonderful.” p. 107.
His Great Gray Owl encounter: “Scanning the trees, I seized on the trademark facial discs, a pair of citrine eyes boring through my binoculars and into my soul. My camera immortalized the arboreal noble before he fled, but a digital representation would never capture his grace and majesty.” p. 158.
“West Texas is free of light pollution, and the stars shown like a million twinkling eyes as I turned my pedals under their nocturnal gaze. Passing cars illuminated the desert beyond the meagre reach of my bicycle light, and I tried to imagine what early morning drivers thought as they zoomed by me on one of the most desolate stretches of road in the country.” p. 98.
Hundreds of such passages made it hard to put this book down. It IS a shame there are no photographs and a map or 2. An index, even a limited one, would have been an additional though slight enhancement. But it is a pleasure to most highly recommend this terrific read.
- Harry Armistead.