Birding Under The Influence By Dorian Anderson — Review

An uplifting and hopeful memoir and social commentary about healing from alcoholism and drug addiction by becoming deeply immersed in the natural world through bird watching whilst bicycling across the USA.

This memoir is an interesting exploration of the extreme ends that one man went to to overcome his twin demons of alcohol and drug addiction by redirecting his addictive Type-A personality into more healthy pursuits. In Birding Under the Influence: Cycling Across America in Search of Birds and Recovery (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2023/2024: Amazon US / Amazon UK), author Dorian Anderson, a neuroscientist, suddenly leaves his high-powered research career behind after enduring two devastating years of failure. He decides to reclaim his childhood passion by setting out on a year-long quest to see as many bird species as he possibly could, a project known in the birding community as a Big Year, by bicycling alone across the Lower 48.

The idea to pursue a bicycling Big Year was the brain child after an enjoyable eight mile bike trip to Nantucket, Massachusetts, to see two Northern Lapwings. Despite Dr Anderson’s lack of experience with long-distance bicycling, the idea persisted, and took root in his imagination.

From the first day of 2014 when he leaves Boston, his physical journey is filled with dangers; cycling through the snow during a polar vortex in Massachusetts, almost getting killed on the Cross Bronx Expressway in New York City, being blown off the road several times by extreme winds, almost getting run over by long-haul truckers and hostile motorists, being chased countless times by angry dogs, and dealing with 34 flat tires and other biking mishaps, all whilst cycling from the northeast to Florida, across the Texas desert and over the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Northwest and down to southern California. Along the way, Dr Anderson is able to appreciate the varied and stunning beauty of the American landscape, from the Florida Everglades and the Rocky Mountains of Colorado to the Redwood forests of Oregon.

Long distance bicycling is a zen sort of activity, so the author has plenty of time on his journey to ponder his life and life choices, which he shares as short vignettes interwoven throughout the story of his epic bike ride. We, the readers, learn about his academic achievements and scientific research, as well as his alcohol and drug addictions, which began in high school, and his four years of sobriety. Along the way, he tests his physical and psychological limits and comes to imagine a new and radically different future for himself — a future free from drugs and alcohol.

Because he was writing a blog every night about his daily adventures on the road, the author quickly attracted the attention of a quirky collection of birders around the country, some of whom provided meals or a bed for a night or two, freely sharing their hospitality, philosophies and warm showers. Dr Anderson’s interactions with these birders provide an interesting glimpse into regional American subcultures.

Dr Anderson bicycled every day for 12 months, traveling 17,830 miles through 28 states, walking at least 493 miles (Dr Anderson thinks this distance may have been three times greater than this), and kayaking eight miles in pursuit of birds both common and rare. Along the way, he raised almost $50,000 for bird habitat conservation. He ended up more physically fit than he’d ever been, with a resting heart rate slightly below 40 beats per minute.

In total, Dr Anderson spotted 618 birds. On Thanksgiving Day as his Big Year was drawing to a close, he even documented a species that had never before been reported in the United States, a female/juvenile red-legged honeycreeper (they appear identical). After reporting this discovery online, local birders immediately dropped their Thanksgiving feasts to swarm out to Estero Llaño Grande State Park so they too, could see this beautiful vagrant rarity.

Although generally well-written, I think the book would have benefitted from closer editing to tighten the prose and to make some of the transitions between the adventure and the self-reflection less jarring and more logical. Nevertheless, Dr Anderson obviously worked hard to turn his raw blog material into a narrative about his existential struggles where he confronts his personal demons with unflinching honesty without losing the immediacy and the wonder of his birding adventure.

I was surprised and disappointed by the lack of a map, or maps, detailing Dr Anderson’s journey, which would have improved the book and made it easier to follow the adventure. I also wanted to see a final state-by-state species tally, which was not included in the book either.

Despite my few criticisms, this book is an interesting and inspiring addition to the growing ‘Big Year’ genre of birding adventures. Although I think there is something for everyone in this book, I think it will especially appeal to birders (especially to so-called ‘velo-birders’) and nature enthusiasts. By following the birds themselves, the story presents a wonderful twist on travel adventuring and long-distance bicycling and ends up being much more than just a bike ride across the country to chase birds.

© Copyright by GrrlScientist | hosted by Forbes | LinkTr.ee

Socials: Bluesky | CounterSocial | Gab | LinkedIn | Mastodon Science | Post.News | Spoutible | SubStack | Threads | Tribel | Tumblr | Twitter