“There is in us a deeply seated response to the natural universe, which is part of our humanity.” Rachel Carson
My two earliest memories are about nature. When I was five, I climbed into the kitchen sink so I could watch the birds coming to my mother’s feeder. She caught me there, sneakers in the basin, but instead of scolding me, she helped me learn to identify Black-capped Chickadees.
Around that same age, my older sister asked if I wanted to see the wilderness. She led me behind our barn, where we crawled beneath overhanging briars and emerged into a small meadow surrounded by walnut trees. It was thrilling, a little scary, and marvelous.
Nature had me hooked.
I have been looking closely at the natural world ever since.
That curiosity eventually led me to a Ph.D. in ornithology and a career in science and conservation. I studied threatened birds and ecosystems in Florida, worked on conservation of the Everglades and Florida Keys, headed the research program at The Wilderness Society, and later served as Chief Scientist for the National Audubon Society. Much of my career involved translating science into something that could help people understand the natural world and make better decisions about its future.
But over the years, I have become increasingly interested in something beyond knowing how nature works: What happens to us when we pay close attention to it?
That question lies at the heart of my writing today.
I think of myself as a naturalist essayist. I bring a scientist’s curiosity into the field, but I also bring my memories, questions, uncertainties, and sense of wonder. A bird may lead me into evolution or physiology, a landscape into geology, a sound into questions about perception and memory. Sometimes an encounter with another person changes what I notice entirely.
My first book, Beyond the Wonder: An Ecologist’s View of Wild Alaska, grew from a journey to Alaska’s Katmai Peninsula. My newest book, Marvelous Wings, explores birds of the Pacific Northwest and what their lives can teach us when we stop and look carefully. I am also working on Reflections Down Under, a collection of essays arising from travels in Australia, and The Unsung Pacific Northwest, which explores some of the quieter landscapes, organisms, and ecological relationships of the region I call home.
Writing is only one way I explore these ideas. I photograph wildlife, record the sounds of wild places, give presentations, teach about birds and natural history, and spend as much time as I can outside simply watching and listening.
I don’t want merely to tell people what something is. I want to help them see it differently.
A chickadee weighing less than an ounce remembers hundreds of places where it has hidden food. A migrating bird crosses continents using abilities we still don’t completely understand. A prairie that at first seems empty becomes astonishingly complicated when we kneel down and look closely. Even familiar places hold mysteries when we give them our attention.
That five-year-old sitting in the kitchen sink didn’t know any of this. He just knew there was something extraordinary outside the window.
More than seven decades later, I’m still trying to understand what he saw.
Explore My Work
Books
Nature, science, travel, and the questions that arise when we pay close attention to the living world.
Talks
Presentations about birds, natural history, science, and the wonder hidden inside familier things.
Courses
Online learning desinged to help birders move beyond recogniaing species toward understanding what they see.
Photography & Sound
Wildlife photographs, field recordings, and other ways of experiencing the places and creatures I write about.
Thomas, one of my birder/photographer friends, Vickie, has ran into you a few times in the Snoqualmie Valley. I am the Coordinator for Trilogy Birders. Trilogy on Redmond Ridge, is a community of 55 and over with about 1500 families. Our club has about 50 members. Recently, we have been having our meetings over Zoom and will probably continue with Zoom meetings for three of four more meetings. Would you be interested in giving a presentation to our club over Zoom? We meet on the 4th Wednesday at 7PM. You can pick the topic. Thank you!
Hello
Very sadly, I blinked and somehow missed your presentation. At the vancouver, audubon society in vancouver, washington, on tuesday night, february fourth.
I am very sad to have missed it. As my husband and I would like to know more about best ways to experience some of the wild in alaska.
Would it be possible for you to share with me the best way that we might go about being able to see the bears in Katmai?
Is this something we can do on our own?Or is it best to go with a small group?
It has been a dream of mine for many, many years to be able to do that!
Carolyn Hopper
Hi Carolyn,
Yes there are a number of ways you can go to the Katmai on your own. Here is a link to an earlier version of the presentation I made in Vancouver. https://thomasbancroft.org/a-naturalist-on-the-katmai-peninsula-of-alaska/
Katmai National Park at Brooks Falls has camping facilities and they may have others. You would need to arrange to be flown into the place and picked up later. I’d check the park service to learn more. Some companies out of Anchorage and Homer do day flights to Brooks falls and to other places on the Katmai for bear watching. I think with these you fly in with a pilot guide and spend the day, flying back in the afternoon. I stayed for a week at Farm Lodge in Port Alsworth and our package had us fly out on trips for five days. We visited Brooks Falls, Funnel Creek, and Moraine Creek on those days for bears and salmon. I suspect there are places out of King Salmon too. Lots of people have told me I should have gone to McNeil River Game Range, a state preserve and just north of Katmai National Park. Our group was limited to six photographers and our two pilot guides. At Funnel and Moraine Creeks we hiked along the streams to good bear viewing places. At Brooks Falls, the park service has a platform that one can look down on the falls and watch the bears fish. I hope this helps.
Greetings Tom
I have only just discovered your very interesting informative website—and to read of your encounter with Great Blue Turacos in Uganda. In the 1970’s/1980’s I had the privilege of studying these magnificent birds, while living in west Kenya, close to Kakamega Forest. The study of their general habits and breeding biology was initiated by the late Dr Leslie Brown. I later spent four years in Uganda(didn’t want to leave that beautiful country), with the added pleasure of seeing the Great Blues again.
Absolutely loved the photos of the Shoebill Storks.
Best wishes
Mhorag Candy
Thank you, Mhorag. It must have been great fun to see the turacos regularly. It was a species I really wanted to see on our trip. I’d read about the family, and seeing the Great Blue was really fun. I hadn’t realized they were as big as they are. That, too, was fun to see. I really enjoyed our time in Uganda. We met a lot of beautiful people and had a great time. Have a great day.
Tom