Birding Under the Influence: Cycling Across America

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Dorian Anderson is an international birding guide and accomplished bird photographer who recently published his memoir: Birding Under the Influence: Cycling Across America in Search of Birds and Recovery. He lives in California and has agreed to share his story with us.

On January 1, 2014, with zero cycling experience, he set off on his bicycle for the adventure of a lifetime. His two-wheeled journey was an eco-friendly twist on the Big Year, during which a birdwatcher tries to observe as many species as possible during a calendar year. While his predecessors utilized cars, planes, and boats, his goal was to replicate their transcontinental travels without the use of petroleum, a herculean challenge.

He ultimately survived subzero temperatures, drifting snow, gusting winds, lightning storms, mountainous ascents, dog attacks, crumbling roads, and several accidents. By December 31, he’d amassed a list of 618 bird species across 18,000 miles of riding, totals unimaginable when he set off.

Dorian’s personality and enthusiasm are infectious. He will speak about the genesis of his bike-birding project, provide a thrilling recount of his travels, highlight the birds he saw, and reveal how his adventure changed his life. He hopes his tales of birding, cycling, and self-discovery will inspire others to venture into the outdoors; take note of the birds around them; and make positive changes in their own lives.

Dorian started birding in his Philadelphia backyard at age seven. His interests expanded to include the Delaware Valley and Jersey Shore during his preteen years, and he attended several of Victor Emanuel’s youth birding camps as a teenager. He envisioned himself as an ornithologist until his academic rise and coincident alcoholism extinguished that dream. With his focus split between molecular biology and drinking, his childhood passion laid comatose through his twenties, rediscovered only when he got sober at age 30.

Despite the alcoholism and concurrent drug abuse that plagued his late teens and twenties, Dorian earned his B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Stanford University, did predoctoral biomedical research at Harvard University, and earned a Ph.D. in Developmental Genetics and Molecular Cell Biology from New York University. After getting sober, he spent three years as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Molecular Neuroscience at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Eventually exhausted by the academic rat race and searching for direction, he resigned his postdoctoral position to undertake his Biking for Birds project. bikingforbirds.blogspot.com.

Momentum from that life-changing pivot has opened many doors, including public speaking, travel writing, and tour guiding. He worked in Colombia as a consultant for the National Audubon Society and is currently an international birding guide for Tropical Birding .

Lane County Audubon Society and the Rogue Valley Audubon Society cosponsored this special Zoom-only program.