How Do We Save Our Vanishing Birds? Two Journalists Went On An Epic Quest To Learn How
Anders and Beverly Gyllenhaal will be speaking about their new book, "A Wing and a Prayer," in West Stockbridge on July 6.
Anders and Beverly Gyllenhaal in the field. Photo by Pete Cross
“Shh — did I just hear a red-eyed vireo?” my brother Anders whispered, glancing over at his wife Beverly. We were sitting on our back porch, in the midst of the extended Gyllenhaal family’s annual summer reunion in the Berkshires. Including six siblings, their spouses, partners, and offspring, the week-long gathering is called Gyllenhaalfest or Gyllenhell, depending on the day and mood. This was a decade or so ago and Anders, recently retired from a long career in journalism which included a stint on the Pulitzer Prize Board, had taken up birding with Beverly, another life-long journalist, syndicated columnist, and cookbook writer. It seemed a harmless enough hobby for them, a way of getting outdoors and exploring nature. In a family thick with writers, artists, musicians, film directors, actors, and activists of all stripes, I suppose it wasn’t too surprising that the hobby soon turned into a passion.
“I just heard something truly terrifying,” Anders told me in the summer of 2019, swimming out to join me on a float in Stockbridge Bowl. By then, he and Beverly had become deeply immersed in the birding world, starting their own website called Flying Lessons: What we’re learning from the birds. The site is full of practical advice, including an indispensable section on birding basics that Beverly created, stories about their birding adventures, insights into the lessons they were drawing from avian life, all populated with Anders’s beautiful birding photographs and videos. But what he’d just learned from one of the many highly placed birding sources he’d been cultivating changed everything: news was about to break that a full third of North America’s birds had vanished over the last 50 years. It was then that a passion hardened into a cause.
The pandemic, which followed quickly on the heels of those headlines, transformed millions of home-bound American into birders. Interest in everything avian boomed and book publishers took note. Flying Lessons and the articles about birding that Anders and Beverly had been writing for the Washington Post and other news outlets earned them a contract from Simon and Schuster. But the country was in the middle of a lockdown and the book they envisioned — an intimate, in-depth look at the people on the front lines of the fight to save the birds — would require months of travel at a time when the act of getting on an airplane was still a life-threatening proposition.
Cedar Waxwing. Photo by Anders Gyllenhaal
The answer turned out to be the 23-foot-Airstream, a model appropriately called a Flying Cloud, that they’d purchased for birding expeditions and quickly repurposed into a mobile office. With every nook and cranny packed with supplies, they set out on the biggest adventure of their lives in January 2021. It was a journey that would take them nearly 25,000 miles — by road across the country, by air to Hawai’i and South America, and far more than they’d anticipated on foot as they tramped through forests and across fields, hunting down answers. Using journalistic skills honed over years of experience, they interviewed scientists, birders, foresters, ecologists, and philanthropists. They listened firsthand to stories about the struggle to overcome habitat loss, changing climate, and the hazards of an urban world. They learned about the revitalized age-old practices and fascinating new technologies that are being tried to halt the collapse of birding populations. After conducting over 300 interviews and traveling the equivalent of the circumference of the globe, they returned home to sort through the boxes and boxes of transcripts, notes, and photographs they’d accumulated over their nearly two-year odyssey.
The Gyllenhaals in their Airstream. Photo by Pete Cross
They finished writing the book, A Wing and A Prayer: The Race to Save Our Vanishing Birds, last summer at our home in the Berkshires at the end of another family reunion, working on separate laptops, papers and books piled high, calling to each other back and forth across the living room. There were tense moments. “The birds,” as Anders told us, “are literally the canaries in the coal mine. Their fate determines ours, as well.” They debated about how best to end the book — how political they should be and how hopeful.
It’s that depth of insight and concern that makes A Wing and A Prayer such a captivating read. And that’s not just a sister talking. Good Morning America calls it “a fascinating story.” The New York Times says “the Gyllenhaals are skilled storytellers, and the dual narration is a rare and welcome approach.” Susan Page of USA Today hails the book as “a soaring achievement, beautiful and compelling.”
Chestnut Sided Warbler. Photo by Anders Gyllenhaal
Anders and Beverly will be giving a talk, including a slide show of Anders’s stunning bird photographs, on Thursday, July 6 at 7 p.m. at the Old Town Hall, 9 Main Street, West Stockbridge. A reception and book signing will follow at Shaker Mill Books, corner of Depot Street and Route 102. The free event is sponsored by the West Stockbridge Historical Society, The Friends of the West Stockbridge Library, and Shaker Mill Books.
