Ryan Harrington was a big fan of Dexter Patterson.
Patterson, an instructor in the UW Department of Life Science Communication and sometime Madison365 sports writer, had built up a bit of a following on Twitter as the “Wisco birder.” He’d been birding – traveling the region, searching for specific birds, photographing them – for about 15 years. In June of 2021, he cofounded BIPOC Birders of Wisconsin to encourage more people of color to get outdoors.
“He talked about getting outdoors, he talked about losing weight, he talked about (birding) giving him more mental clarity and positivity,” said Harrington, senior acquisitions editor for Timber Press in New York. Timber Press already had a few regional editions of its “Best Little Book of Birds” series, pocket-sized guides to the birds of the Oregon coast, the Grand Canyon and Chesapeake Bay, and were looking to publish more.
“I wanted (Patterson) to be the voice of one of our books,” Harrington continued. “I was such a fan of Dexter’s, I wanted to find the best way to use him. He is such a well-known birder in the Midwest that it made sense for him to do a Great Lakes edition.”
So Harrington reached out in 2023 and Patterson has spent the last two years gathering photos and writing descriptions and notes on habitat, behavior, and sighting tips for more than 150 birds from 50 different families.
“It’s not a comprehensive list of all birds that you can see in the Great Lakes region, but really kind of opening up like these windows to wonder and showing people what could be out there,” Patterson said.
It’s also unusual in the identity of its author.
“I haven’t found another Black man that’s published a field guide,” Patterson said. “I’ve seen Black photographers featured in field guides… but not actually authored one. So that was pretty exciting.”
The region covered by Patterson’s book is the largest of the series to date, spanning from Wisconsin to New York. The process required quite a bit of travel and research.
“There were days where I’d be out just looking literally for one bird. It was kind of fun,” he said. “I enjoy that part of the creative process.”
Harrington said this particular book is about more than just facts about birds.
“It turned out beautifully,” Harrington said. “He is an evangelist for this idea that birding turns you into a better steward of the world, and it makes you a more curious person, and that each sighting of a bird kind of leaves an indelible mark on his soul. And he integrated that philosophy into what would otherwise be a straightforward field guide. So it’s really something more, it’s something really special.”
The book is available for preorder now, and will be out on shelves wherever books are sold on October 7.
