Birding with Kenn and Kimberly

From Oak Harbor, Ohio, Kenn writes: A few days ago (August 24) I wrote about the lack of diversity in the birdwatching community. This issue has bugged me for some time, but on the other hand, I’m encouraged to know some individuals who are actively doing something about it. John C. Robinson has been a friend for several years. We had corresponded before we met, so I knew he was an expert birder before I knew he was African-American. John has been a writer and consultant on a number of topics, but with his status as a black bird expert, it was perhaps only natural that he would become a spokesperson on the issue of diversity in birding and outdoor recreation. At a conservation summit before the Midwest Birding Symposium in 2003, I heard John speak on this subject, and he was very persuasive and compelling. More recently he has published a book that addresses the same issue, Birding for Everyone: Encouraging People of Color to Become Birdwatchers. It’s a thought-provoking work that of...

Kim Writes: When Kenn and I first started getting acquainted, it was a loooong distance relationship that took place almost entirely by phone. He was still in Tucson, Arizona, and I was in Carey, Ohio. I still remember the very first words he said to me when I finally got up the nerve to call him on the phone. In a very deep (and very sexy) voice he said, simply ~ “This is Kenn.” It took me a couple of seconds to recover and respond because my heart was saying, "This is the love of your life!" I love it when my heart's right!! After the initial “wow moment” our conversations deepened, and we shared things with each other that we’d never shared with another soul. I was totally in love with him after the first two or three conversations---and then he told me about the Guia ! He was fighting to get it published and facing some pretty serious adversity. The costs were mounting, and he sounded determined, but battle weary. I was incredibly moved by his vision and dedication ...

From Cloud Nine over Ohio, Kenn writes: Lisa White, my editor for the last several years at my publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, e-mailed me a short while ago with some very good news. First, some background. From the time my field guide to North American birds was published, in October 2000, I had this ambition to bring out a version of the book in Spanish. I'd been living in Arizona, traveling a lot in California and Texas and Florida, and I knew that I heard a lot of Spanish being spoken on the street. The latest census figures at the time showed that something like 28 million U.S. citizens spoke Spanish at home. Of course, I knew that most of those individuals were bilingual, and could use an English-language bird guide if they really wanted to. But my whole aim was to get more people interested in birds. So I figured, why not give them a bird guide written in the language in which they were most comfortable? The opportunity came a few years later. The publisher decided to...