by Ian Harding
Yet despite all of the noise and the close proximity to humans, this tiny strip of land was home to one of the largest groups of endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers in the state.
We crept along the trail, binoculars at the ready, stopping at the slightest sound. Joggers and elderly couples from the neighborhood said good morning as they passed by.
Walter spotted a small bird in the uppermost canopy of one of the trees—it was right over our heads, moving rapidly from branch to branch. I finally tracked it down with my binoculars—it looked like a glowing Cheeto.
“That’s a Blackburnian warbler,” Walter said. “You see the bright orange throat?”
I pulled out my phone and texted Tyler Blackburn to let him know there was a bird named after him.
We kept walking, our eyes turned upward. My neck was getting stiff from looking up for so long, and I was beginning to go cross-eyed from staring into my binoculars.
I turned to Walter: “I keep seeing creases in the bark of trees and thinking it’s a bird,” I said.
“That’s the Matrix,” John said, popping up behind us. He skipped down the trail, stopping from time to time to inspect clusters of poison ivy.
Walter looked at his watch. “Let’s keep looking for another hour or so. If we can’t find it, we’ll take John to the Space Center.”
Out in front of us, John started to sing an Irish ballad, his voice echoing through the woods. He was clearly bored out of his mind. Walter looked at me, laughed, and rolled his eyes. John was going to scare all the birds away.
I caught up to him and told him to quiet down. He smiled, shrugged, and stopped singing. He pointed at a tree just off the trail.
“What kind of bird is that?” he asked.
I looked to where he was pointing. A fat, feisty-looking mockingbird was perched on one of the lower branches of a pine about forty feet away from us.
“It’s nothing. Just a mockingbird,” I said.
“Not that one,” he said. “That one, right there.”
He continued to point at the same bird, which had begun to sing loudly, its throat feathers puffing out as it called.
“It’s a mockingbird, John. The same kind we have back in Los Angeles.”
As I spoke, a small speckled bird with white cheeks flew in and landed on the same branch as the mockingbird, scaring it off. It moved around the limb, grappling onto the bark with its clawed feet.
“That’s the bird I meant,” John said, clearly full of shit.
Three other woodpeckers swooped down into the tree to join the first one.
“Those birds too,” he said. “Those are the ones I meant.”
John, with his loud, stomping boots and his half-remembered drinking songs, had somehow found the bird we were looking for.
We stood there, watching in awe, as the small woodpecker family worked its way around the tree. We crept along the trail to get a better view.
The birds were enchanting. They lived in an area surrounded by golf courses and strip malls—habitats most any animal can’t survive in.
I turned to the guys:
“I feel a little starstruck,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Walter asked.
“I’m not sure, exactly,” I said.
I thought about it as we walked along. For me, finding this woodpecker—even just getting the chance to see it—felt special. Up until that point, I had only seen it in pictures, and here I was now seeing it in the wild.
Eventually the woodpeckers disappeared. We could have turned back, but we decided to push on. We crossed a swinging rope bridge and walked along a creek that was saturated with water moccasins. I counted six of them. The previous day we’d seen more birders than birds. Today we saw more venomous snakes.
We continued walking down an increasingly overgrown path. It didn’t seem like we were going the right way. Suddenly the trees parted and we were spit out onto the shoulder of the highway. Eighteen-wheelers honked as they blew by. The sun was beating down and it was getting hot. It was time to head back to Houston.
* * *
The next morning we flew back to Los Angeles, and I got back just in time to make it to a table read for the next episode of PLL.
That night, lying in my own bed for the first time in days, Sophia and the dogs by my side, something felt off. I couldn’t fall asleep. I kept thinking about that tiny forest just outside of Houston.
I closed my eyes, and I could see the woodpeckers again. A few small birds, holding on to the last acres that can support them in this world, because that’s all they have left, a scatter plot of managed forests spread across the South. Their world is gone. And what they have left can barely support what remains of their population.
I thought about what it must feel like to be a part of a dying species. To have lost everything that resembles your original “home” and to have your body somehow, instinctually, recognize that.
Part of what I feel as a birder is a sense of urgency. Habitats are disappearing at a sprinter’s pace all around the world. Often, when I see a rare bird for the first time, I know it may also be my last.
I feel lucky to have seen a red-cockaded woodpecker—I know there’s a good chance I won’t see one again.
PUT YOUR BEST FEATHER FORWARD
In polite society it’s considered taboo to wear white after Labor Day. In the birding community, it’s considered taboo to wear white ever.
The color white scares birds away—or so the argument goes—because it’s hardly ever found in nature. Red hats or neon-colored sneakers are always acceptable to wear when you’re out in the woods, but a good pair of white chinos is a total birding fashion faux pas.
The story I’ve heard is that the whole “never wear white” rule started when some ornithologist disturbed a rare bird at its nest while he was wearing a white shirt. Frankly, I think he just got too close to the bird and his presence made it uncomfortable. But the guy was wearing white at the time, so now nobody can.
This is, of course, ridiculous, but it’s one of those ideas that gets ingrained in a community and then goes unquestioned. Like how actors superstitiously say “break a leg” instead of “good luck,” or how they’ll never say the word “Macbeth” in a theater.
Really, it’s okay to wear white after Labor Day, and it’s okay to wear white while birding. (Still, you probably shouldn’t say “Macbeth” in a theater.)
A few years ago my girlfriend and I took a vacation to Paris that happened to coincide with Fashion Week, and we received an invitation to attend a Giorgio Armani runway show. I was told that the event would be dressy, and my birding sense of fashion took “dressy” to mean “no white shirts allowed.” So I wore all black.
The Armani event was filled with the most insanely trendy people, and Sophia and I had to be careful not to openly stare. Some of the clothing looked like bird-of-paradise mating plumages.
Walking to my seat for the runway show, I passed by actors whom I’d admired for years. Kristin Scott Thomas, Robin Wright, Ben Foster. Seated across the catwalk from me was Anna Wintour.
The show began, and the runway models began their walk. I leaned over to the model sitting next to me and whispered, “What do you think the most common injury in runway modeling is?”
Without missing a beat, she said, “Look at their feet.”
Every other woman’s toes stuck out over the front of her open-toed shoes, or arched in some anatomically impossible way. My seatmate explained that most shoes in runway shows are sample size, and thus don’t often fit the larger-than-normal size feet of models.
After the show, I was ushered backstage to meet Papa Giorgio, the legend himself. He was exceptionally kind, and spoke to me in Italian. I love the sound of the language, as you know, but I don’t speak a word of it.
Giorgio looked at me and said “bello” a few times. I turned to his niece, who stood next to him. She grinned and said, “He says you’re very ugly.”
“Tell him I come from a long l
ine of ugly men,” I said. Papa Giorgio nodded solemnly.
On my way out of the event, I passed by Juliette Binoche. We made eye contact for the briefest of moments, and she smiled. I smiled back, concentrating all my attention on my knees. I was worried that they might give out in her presence. I’ve had a crush on her since I was a little kid.
Outside, paparazzi were milling about. One looked up at me from his phone for a moment, then looked back down. Angry Birds was clearly more important. I walked down a flight of stairs and made my way to a car that was waiting.
Right before I reached the car, a young woman broke from the crowd that had gathered outside the event and walked up to me. She asked if she could take a photo, and I said of course. She beckoned several friends over, and one of them shrieked with glee.
The paparazzo who had been playing Angry Birds was the first to look up, but the shriek caught all of their attention. The sleeping photographers we’d passed on the stairs came to life and descended like a wake of vultures. I didn’t even get a chance to take a photo with the group of fans. Machine gun–like camera flashes went off as the paparazzi swarmed. “Yan! Yan!” they called out, shouting the French pronunciation of my name.
We smiled for the cameras as we stepped backward to our waiting car and leapt in.
* * *
As an actor and an artist, I deeply respect the fashion world and its eccentricities. As a birder, I have no idea what the hell fashion is all about.
Birders don’t care much about fashion. The “no white” rule is the closest thing we have to a line in the sand, and it’s a blurry line. Birding fashion is pretty laissez-faire. It’s mostly earth tones and muted grays. Some people wear nylon fishing shirts and cargo shorts; the very serious wear camouflage. The only real constants in the world of birding fashion are probably our wide-brimmed hats and orthopedic inserts.
Birders aren’t fashion people. If anything, we’re gear people.
For a hobby that only really requires eyes and ears to enjoy—and for some just one of those senses—people can get pretty into their gear.
Binoculars are the most obvious calling card of a birder and the only major piece of equipment one needs to get started. Some people wear them proudly around their necks, with ergonomic back straps that keep them from bouncing when they need to walk briskly. Other people palm their binoculars and hold them at their sides, hoping strangers don’t think they’re Peeping Toms as they walk around the Silver Lake Reservoir at 6:00 A.M.
More serious birders will also invest in a spotting scope, which is basically a miniature telescope designed for looking at birds. Scopes were initially used by hunters to spot game, and by soldiers to spot the enemy. They have stronger magnification than binoculars but are harder to use. Scopes have to be mounted to something like a tripod to keep the image steady, so they’re best for watching birds that don’t move too much.
Some people take it a step further and get really into bird photography. There are lens attachments that connect cameras to spotting scopes—a type of photography called “digiscoping.”
Bird photography is the most gear-intensive variation of birding. I tried to do a little bird photography right after I got back into birding, and one time I got a couple of decent shots of geese by holding my iPhone up to a spotting scope.
But the truth is, it’s just not for me. I always feel like the camera separates me from what I’m looking at. That I’m never actually seeing what’s right in front of me—it just becomes an image on a screen.
Nowadays, I only bring binoculars with me when I go out birding.
People who get really into bird photography remind me of paparazzi.
A few years back, a rare-bird alert went out for a varied bunting—a tiny red-and-purple songbird not normally found in the LA area. I had the day off from shooting, so I drove out to the park in Duarte where the bird had been spotted.
I arrived to find a flock of bird photographers with their camera kits—camouflaged telephoto lenses, tripods, monopods, the whole nine yards.
One guy was standing at the trunk of his car, changing out the lenses on his DSLR. He pulled an enormous white telephoto lens out of a camera bag.
Aside from the fact that it was white—why risk scaring the birds away?—it was the exact same lens I’d seen paparazzi carry around to take sneaky candid shots of celebrities—the ones where they’re looking fat at the beach, fighting on hotel balconies, getting Starbucks in sweatpants, and so on.
In Paris, all of the paparazzi I’d seen had carried smaller, more compact lenses. Those photographers were lining the red carpet—they didn’t need telephoto lenses to capture their subjects, who were generally willing to be photographed anyway. The big white lenses I’m talking about serve a different purpose.
Two years before, I’d seen the same type of lens when I was leaving my costar Lucy’s birthday party. We’d gone to a restaurant called Beso in Hollywood. As we were waiting for our cars at the valet stand, I noticed a man across the street surreptitiously photographing us from behind a Dumpster. The streetlight above him illuminated his white telephoto lens, giving him away immediately as a paparazzo.
It felt like an intrusion. It’s always nice when fans come up to say hi. It’s not always nice being photographed from behind a Dumpster—it makes you feel like a Cold War spy whose cover has just been blown.
I wonder if birds feel the same way about having their picture taken.
REHAB
A lot of people who work in entertainment end up in rehab at some point. Drugs, alcohol, anxiety—there are countless reasons to go. I’ve only been to rehab once so far, and it was just for an afternoon. Also, it was for birds.
As is often the case with this sort of thing, it all started with a party. A few years back, I went to a fund-raiser for the Humane Society in Beverly Hills. My costar Torrey DeVitto had invited me to tag along. Torrey does a lot of volunteer work with animal rehabilitation and is a big animal rights activist. She’s also a vegan—I think. I’m pretty sure she is. Every time she comes over for dinner I only cook vegetables, so either she’s a vegan or she’s convinced that I am. I should actually ask her about that.
Fund-raisers and galas are a pretty big staple in the Hollywood calendar. They bring together celebs and causes to raise money and get the word out about important issues. Whenever I attend one of these events, I spend most of my time by the buffet table. I’ve never shaken the poor-college-student mentality out of my head, so if there’s free food, I stock up.
I’m not always the most graceful of birds at these Hollywood parties. A few years ago, I was invited to a scotch tasting. After I’d tried a number of different scotches, I got cornered by a stockbroker who was complaining that the party wasn’t extravagant enough. I excused myself as politely as I could.
In the next room I found a chair and had a seat. It was made of white marble and was incredibly cool to the touch. It felt less like a chair than it did a piece of art, which was interesting, because that’s exactly what it was: art. A worried personal assistant soon informed me that I was sitting on one of the host’s priceless new acquisitions.
But I’ve gotten off topic. Back to the Humane Society party: I was standing across the room from Torrey, eating oysters at the buffet table, when a woman came up and introduced herself as Yvonne Bennett. We started chatting, and I found out that Yvonne worked with the Humane Society.
The Humane Society has always had a special place in my heart, and I told Yvonne as much. Growing up, my mom would take my sister and me to visit the cats and dogs up for adoption as an after-school activity.
“That’s wonderful,” Yvonne said. “Thankfully dog adoptions have gone up over the past few years. But there are certain animals that are hard to get folks to care about.”
“Like what?”
“Well, birds, for instance.”
“Oh, really? Like, pigeons?”
She laughed.
“No, a lot of what we do involves rehabilitatin
g wild animals and then releasing them back into the wild once they’re better. But birds aren’t cute. People don’t flip out for rehabilitated falcons like they do for Dalmatian puppies. There just isn’t much of an interest in it. Bird rehab to most people is just ‘boring but important’ work.”
I had my hand to my mouth and was midway through slurping down another oyster when she said this.
“You rehabilitate falcons?” I asked, oyster still in my mouth.
“Falcons, hawks, herons, you name it. We have a red-tailed hawk we’re due to release next week down in Ramona.”
I was coughing, choking on the oyster in excitement.
I love hawks. Birds of prey in general are pretty awesome—I’ve been obsessed with them ever since Mr. Hawkins, that red-tailed hawk that lived near my house when I was a kid.
I asked Yvonne if I could come along to see the red-tailed hawk when they released it. Of course, she said. And, as it turned out, my possibly vegan costar Torrey was going to be there, too.
Thinking back on it now, I wonder if Torrey had tipped off Yvonne about my love of birds.
The next Saturday, Torrey and I piled into my station wagon and drove to Ramona, California. If I haven’t said it enough already, I was very excited. I’d been in Los Angeles for half a decade, and here I was just now learning that there were regular releases of wild birds of prey. What the hell had I been doing with my weekends?
We met Yvonne at a rehabilitation facility called the Fund for Animals Wildlife Center. Yvonne and Ali Crumpacker came out to greet us in the parking lot when we arrived. Ali is the director of the animal rehab center in Ramona. Her general demeanor reminded me of Robert Muldoon—the raptor-obsessed game warden from the original Jurassic Park. Before moving to Southern California, she spent twelve years tracking lions in South Africa.
Ali was warm and welcoming, but it was clear that she wasn’t particularly interested in photo ops. If you were at the Wildlife Center, you were there to work. And work we did.
