2023-10-02
33 分钟If you ask Christian Cooper, a science writer, editor, and the host of the show “Extraordinary Birder With Christian Cooper”, birding can teach us all kinds of lessons about life, self-acceptance, and joy. In this episode, Christian shares what he deems as the seven pleasures of birding, why inclusion is especially important in life-affirming pursuits, and how anyone (city-dwellers and countryside-residents alike) can commune with nature to unlock the awe and wonder of the world around us. For the full text transcript, visit go.ted.com/BHTranscripts
Ted audio collective.
You're listening to how to be a better human.
I'm your host, Chris Duffy.
I am very much a city boy.
For all of my life, I have lived in places where I am surrounded by humans and where if you say to me something wild is happening outside, I assume that's like a crime or a flash mob on the subway or an improvised performance art piece that's blocking traffic.
Of course, though, just because I live in a city doesn't mean that there isn't actually wild nature here, too.
But until my conversation with today's guest, Christian Cooper, that's not something that I'd really ever paid attention to or been all that conscious of.
Christian is the host of the tv show Extraordinary Birder and the author of the book Better living through Birding.
He's also really well known as a comic book author who has written for places like Marvel and Star Trek.
But while Christian may express himself creatively in fictional worlds, I think that he's really a hero of the natural one, especially that hidden natural world that's all around us every day, no matter where we live.
Here's a clip from Christian.
I'm walking down 9th Avenue in the middle of midtown Manhattan.
There's traffic going by.
There's a construction site.
I'm talking to my friend.
Other people are passing by with their conversations, but that click, click, click, click of the kestrel cuts right through all of it.
And I'm like, oh, there's a kestrel here.
And my friend is like, what are you talking about?
And I'm like, and then my eye starts scanning the rooftops, and I'm like, over there.
And there's a kestrel.