A Supremely Bad Idea

Birding is a quirky endeavor to a non-birder. No sane person would rise at 4:48 a.m. to stand beneath a tree craning for a glimpse of a whip-poor-will-a dull, flattish bird the exact color of bark, more likely to relieve than reveal itself.

British book editor and humorist Luke Dempsey sets out to explain why one might choose to do such a thing, and in so doing he reveals those who bird to the rest of the world in A Supremely Bad Idea: Three Mad Birders and Their Quest to See It All.

Dempsey throws himself into birding after his divorce, when he finds himself with more time on his hands than he would like. Suddenly he sees his twin daughters much less -- twice a week and every other weekend -- and realizes, with some distress, that he can leave his home in New York City on a Friday morning and be back on Tuesday evening without anyone knowing he had been gone. And so, accompanied by a pair of eccentric fellow birders-composite characters who are in large part the product of his "fevered imagination" -- he proceeds to dash around the country, checking off 450 species in the span of a few years.

The absurdity of hanging one's happiness on a flash of plumage or a telltale tweet -- one needn't see the bird to count it -- is not lost on Dempsey. He grew up in a village in England's North Midlands, where birding was known as twitching and the term bird-watcher was a synonym for "completely unshaggable." When he spotted a gray heron over a misty field as a teenager, he was so embarrassed by his powerful new feelings that he kept the sighting to himself.

Dempsey is funny in a wry, cheeky, British way. He is also funny in a neurotic, New York intellectual way. America, through his binoculars, is a hyperbolic place, with buttes ("pronounced ‘beauts,' you ruffian") towering over the West "like huge upside-down Jell-O molds." His birding adventures are intercut with tales of local oddballs he meets during his travels -- such as a family building a full-scale ark in their backyard -- and mildly wacky sign postings, like one stating the hours of a café in Washington state:

MON-TUES 8 a.m. - 4 p.m.
WED-SUN   8 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Not every joke hits home. One of Dempsey's companions, for example, ribs him ad nauseam about his disdain for tomatoes in any form but pizza sauce. The comic banter doesn't always ring true, perhaps because in fictionalizing his friends to some extent, Dempsey has gone too far in rejiggering their dialogue.

The most intriguing characters in the book are the shadowy figures of Dempsey's daughters and ex-wife, about whom we are left feeling a great deal but knowing very little. Between birding trips, he finds himself babysitting in his old home, ushering his ex-wife through knee surgery, and listening to one of his 7-year-old daughters express concern that he's lonely -- perhaps he should get a goldfish.

The companionship of a goldfish, however, wouldn't afford him the kind of adventure he craves. Dempsey is more inclined to pursue a Kirtland's warbler, one of the rarest birds on earth. If he must go through great pains to do so, ultimately finding himself prone on the dirt floor of a Michigan forest -- well, that's the point. To Dempsey, birding is a way of seeing the world from a different angle, an opportunity to turn his attention away from the complicated hubbub of his messy life and toward nature's neglected details. 

Each of us has only so much attention to devote to the world, and looking at birds means ignoring other day-to-day concerns -- like making sure you're jamming your car key into the correct rental vehicle. Dempsey contends that this brand of blindness not only makes for good comedy but also leads to a different, richer life.

When he finally spots the Kirtland's warbler peering back at him with something akin to curiosity, he marvels at its obliviousness: the bird has no idea it's so terribly rare. The Kirtland's pauses, then flies. In its flying, Dempsey observes, "it almost fixed up our spirits."