Birdsplaining

A book with such an intriguing title as Birdsplaining lends itself to a foreword from the author, and Jasmine Donahaye provides this very helpfully. In what could be read as a ‘field guide’ note for an expedition setting out to explore the wonders of the pages which follow, Donahaye states, ‘Birds explain nothing to me.’ An arresting opening, and one which sets the tone for what follows in this moving, funny, and at all times deeply thought-provoking collection of essays on the relationship between human beings and the natural world, and the nature of writing about nature. As the reader discovers, whilst birds might not provide the answer to the meaning of life for Donahaye, they do have a part to play in finding meaning in life, whether that be through personal symbolism and anecdotal encounters, or in larger questions about power and responsibility. The foreword goes on to say, ‘in some of these essays I react to privilege and power exercising its prerogative to talk over, talk down to, and explain others’ experience for them, and to disregard others’ expertise. “Birdsplaining” as a term can represent how that plays out in the world of birdwatching. But I have tried to put the birdsplaining to a more constructive use as well, exploring birds as a means of understanding social relationships and human relationships to the living world of which we are a part’. It’s a framework which proves immensely stimulating and flexible, and the essays in Birdsplaining explore a wide range of subjects from imaginative and fresh angles. In ‘Uninvited Guests’, a plumber finds polecat poo in Donahaye’s attic, which leads to a meditation on the ways different creatures (including humans) find and make homes, and what this means in changing environments, such as the conversion of rural outbuildings reducing breeding environments for swallows. This essay moves into consideration of solitude and barriers, as well as what it means to let nature into our homes. ‘Meetings at Dusk’ describes a cold encounter with a family while seeking nightjars in a forested area. This in turn prompts examination of what the intersection of race and rural space reveals about identity and belonging: ‘to be brown in a rural place is to be asked implicitly or explicitly what you’re doing there, to give an account of where you’re from, to be told you don’t belong’. Birdsplaining is also an excellent guide to current debates in nature writing as well as the legacy of how nature has been written about in the past and who was doing the writing. Among many fascinating and important subjects, the essays explore how landscape and myth interact in children’s fantasy novels of the 1970s, gendered bird identification guides, and the honorific system of naming birds which immortalises racist colonial collectors while erasing the knowledge and labour of local people who made such collecting possible. The essays interrogate different approaches to being in the natural world too, including the value placed on ‘wild’ encounters versus those ‘managed’ by the conservation movement, such as the Dyfi Osprey Project or guided bird walks. Donahaye never lets herself off the hook in these interrogations, sharply aware of her own belief systems and some of the tensions they produce. But that’s what this book is about in many ways. The subtitle of Birdsplaining is ‘a natural history’; it’s the story of a life, a personal history, through encounters with the natural world, but it’s also a history of these encounters. The organisation of thought in these essays is extremely elegant. Each has its own flight path: picking up and setting down ideas; riffing on names, places, histories; and making connections between ideas in startling ways. The parallel with birdwatching is resonant: ‘You look, all the time – scanning sky and sere hillside and the water’s edge, scanning all the time – looking, looking for, but at the same time also looking slant’. The essays prove satisfying when read individually, as stand-alone entities, the idea in each one shaped with precision. An account of getting ‘caught short’ while on Tregaron Bog seeking warblers is very funny: ‘I can hardly tell a pipit from a bunting, the urgency of finding a toilet is becoming so great’. But read from start to finish, themes emerge and develop in fascinating ways: the loss of a sister, the ‘protected area of wilderness’ that is the human body, domestic violence, fear and safety, how space in the natural world is accessed and experienced by different communities, and above all what it means to be a woman in the natural world, and in the world of nature writing. -- Katherine Stansfield @ www.gwales.com