Meetings & Events

SAVE THE DATE!

Bexar Audubon of South Central Texas Presents

Birding to Change the World: A Memoir
A Conversation with Author Dr. Trish O’Kane

Wednesday, October 2
In-person (6:00) & Zoom (6:30) to 8:30 PM

Those who attend in person will be eligible to win a signed copy of Trish’s Book.
Signed copies of Birding to Change the World will be on sale at the August and September monthly meetings and at the October 2 Event.
$22: Cash or Check Only

Trish O’Kane is a senior lecturer and environmental educator at University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, Trish’s journey to Vermont was a long and circuitous one. For fifteen years she worked as a journalist in war-torn Central America; she worked for the United Nations in Guatemala investigating massacres by their military; she researched white supremacists for the southern Poverty Law Center in Alabama; she taught women prison inmates how to write; and she taught journalism at the university level.

Through all of that, birds never even registered with her, that’s how focused she was on the ills caused by human beings. It was only when the house she and her husband Jim bought in New Orleans was destroyed in Hurricane Katrina that a bird, a bright red male cardinal, pierced her fog of depression. In the birding world we call that a “spark” bird, but in Trish’s case it was more of a wildfire. It sent her on a lifechanging journey that eventually took her to Madison, Wisconsin, where she earned a PHD in Environmental Studies in 2015.

The heart of her research for her PhD stemmed from her proximity to and involvement with Warner Park, an important urban oasis with over 150 species of birds and other animals that was increasingly threatened by so-called “improvements” that were actually polluting the park and reducing the wild and open spaces that the animals and local people depended on. Trish became actively involved in fighting to save the park, forming a coalition that was ultimately successful in efforts to keep Warner Park as it was. That work, and the birding outings that she led for middle school students in Madison, eventually formed the basis for her wildly popular course, Birding to Change the World. 

In addition to her PhD, Trish holds a master’s degree in development studies from the London School of Economics and an MA in International Journalism from the University of Southern California. She is as fierce a humanist as you will ever meet, a gorgeous writer, and a terrific teacher who works to empower her students so that they, too, will care about and help to solve global and local problems.

Trish will Zoom in from Vermont to discuss her work, her book, and how each of us can use birding to change the world.

Approved for AAMN AT hours

In-person | 6:00 pm
Alamo Colleges District
2222 N. Alamo Street, San Antonio, TX 78215
Please sign-up HERE

You do NOT need to sign up ahead of time if you will attend via Zoom.

Zoom | 6:30 pm
Click HERE to Join Zoom Meeting at 6:30 pm
Meeting ID: 868 5612 0955
Passcode: 240194
Find your local number to call in here