Review: Christian Cooper’s Better Living Through Birding

Why we hiked through Central Park to reach the dinosaur museum remains a mystery. Probably because I needed to be swaddled in nature as a distraction from truths that I was not ready to face. Anyway, I remember the walk through the wildness of the trees and tangled undergrowth, and the joy of feeling natural light and fresh air in New York City. The kid did not complain about the walk, possibly because she could play on grass, and not on concrete.

Central Park is a refuge too for Christian Cooper. In his new memoir, Better Living Through Birding, the park is the key to his happiness. As a Black man, who is gay and into birding, he could be his full self in the park. There he did not have to hide any part of himself. This was not the case in his early life. His striving family, with half their roots in the Caribbean, were determined to eat a slice of the American pie.

Cooper learned to love nature as a child. Both his parents were teachers and wanted to show their two suburban children a bigger world and that a bigger life was possible. On cross-country trips in their camper van Cooper memorized a birding guide. The birding world was open and welcoming to the nerdish kid. He could lose himself in the activity and put his queerness and blackness into the background. Most of the time.

Christian Cooper made it to Harvard – the ultimate striver’s accolade. There the twin pillars of his existence were the gay students club and the ornithological club. He has remained remarkably consistence and faithful to these two pillars over the decades.

Cooper is a skillful storyteller in the memoir, alternating dry humour with keen observations on social and political events. He spent decades as a comic book writer and editor, and in that world, he is a known advocate for queer and racialised heroes.

Birding in Central Park plays an enormous role in Copper’s life. In the spring migration he practically lives in the park. Decades of friendships, walks and memories are embedded in the place. On each walk in the park, he is bound to encounter some of his numerous birding buddies. In the book he is generous with warm stories of the foibles of the birdwatchers.

The lives of Christian Cooper and George Floyd both changed on the same day and within hours of each other. Both Black men were immortalized because of a cell phone video. Cooper did not know about George Floyd – he was too busy birding – until a callous reporter offered to show him the police murder on her phone, while filming his reaction for live television.

The book makes it clear that the infamous incident in the park – when Cooper asked a White woman to follow the posted rules and leash her dogs to spare ground nesting birds – was a minor irritant until she called and lied to the police.

The memoir is a fine example of nature writing. It is from a voice that is underrepresented in publishing and in the environmental field. The book underlines the importance of nature places in our lives, and the need to protect these places. Cooper now hosts his own television show on birdwatching, and continues to go birding in his beloved Central Park. It is where he feels at home. It is where he belongs.