Special LCAS Program: Birding Under the Influence

Birding Under the Influence: Cycling Across America in Search of Birds and Recovery

The Lane County Audubon Society is providing a special zoom-only program featuring Dorian Anderson at 7:00 PM on Tuesday October 1.  Dorian lives in California and has agreed to share his story with us.  The link to this zoom program will be made available on the LCAS website a week before the presentation.  This will be a special joint program with the Rogue Valley Audubon Society.

Program Summary

On January 1st, 2014, Dorian Anderson boarded his bicycle for the adventure of a lifetime. His two-wheeled journey was an eco-friendly twist on the Big Year, a project during which a birdwatcher tries to observe as many species as possible during a calendar year. While his predecessors utilized cars, planes, and boats, Anderson’s goal was to replicate their transcontinental travels without the use of petroleum, a herculean challenge no one before him had accepted. 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 618 bird species across 18,000 miles of riding, totals no one imagined possible when he set off with zero cycling experience.

Anderson 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. His personality and enthusiasm are infectious, and 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.

Who Is Dorian?

Dorian started birding in his Philadelphia backyard at age seven. His interest grew 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 educational rise and coincident alcoholism extinguished his birding desire. 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 aforementioned alcoholism and coincident drug abuse which plagued his late-teens and twenties, Anderson received his B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Stanford University, did predoctoral biomedical research at Harvard University, and earned his Ph.D. in Developmental Genetics and Molecular Cell Biology from New York University. Returning to Boston after getting sober, he spent three years as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Molecular Neuroscience at Massachusetts General Hospital. Eventually exhausted by the academic rat race and searching for direction, he resigned his postdoctoral position to undertake his Biking for Birds project.

Momentum from that life-changing pivot 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. He is an accomplished bird photographer and has just published his memoir: Birding Under the Influence: Cycling across America in Search of Birds and Recovery.