Writing About the Healing Power of Nature, with Melissa Hafting

Melissa Hafting is an ecologist, bird guide, author, and photographer. She founded the British Columbia Young Birders program in 2014, which aims to bring together use of all races, sexual orientations, and genders to look at birds on fun excursions in the natural world. The program also helps teach youth about citizen science and the importance of bird conservation. She’s the author of the beautiful book, Dare to Bird, Exploring the Joy and Healing Power of Birds, out last year from Rocky Mountain Books. Listen in and read along as we discuss writing about the healing power of nature.

 

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Marion: Welcome, Melissa.

Melissa: Thank you, Marion, for having me. It’s an honor to be here.

Marion: Well, it’s a beautiful book. It’s a beautiful message. And it was the idea of the healing power of birds that drew me like a magnet to your book. I thoroughly agree. It absolutely resonated with me. That message, the moment I first saw the book, and more so as I leafed through this lovely, smart publication and read through it.

So, let’s set this up for our listeners. Your love for birding has helped shape who you are, and has helped with your mental health, along with enabling you to cope with the difficult aspects of grief and loss after the death of your mother, and soon after, of your beloved father. So, give us a bit of the background, if you would, about how and when you realized your grief was being treated, at least in part, by your birding.

Melissa: Yeah, thank you, Marion. Pretty instantly after my mom died, even before she died, because she died from breast cancer.

So, she was sick for quite a while. And during that time, I was looking after her, and I would go out and go birding to help, you know, decrease my stress, to give me something a little bit different to focus on, to help me with the anticipatory grief. So, it was even starting before she passed away. And after she passed away, I continued to bird constantly to help me with the grieving, the stress, because when you lose someone, you go through so many different emotions, and you can’t sleep, you can’t eat. It also affects your physical body as well. And so, it helped me cope with all those difficulties that come along with grief. And I could cry out in nature, and the birds didn’t care when I was out alone. It gave me something to focus on, and help quiet the mind a bit.

Marion: It does. And birds make me cry, they make me laugh, they delight me. My birdbath is the single source of a singular joy I never before knew until I had one. I have a winter birdbath and a warm weather birdbath, and seeing the birds just now as my zone in upstate New York warms to encourage bathing makes me giggle. I actually giggle.

The wrens in my wren boxes, those marvelous small birds sing me awake every morning, they thrill me.

So, okay, be my bird Buddha here. You write beautifully about what you believe, that birds have the power to both save and heal us amid many of life’s challenges. What is it about birds that penetrates the human psyche this way?

Melissa: Well, I think, as you said, they can bring so much joy to you. And when you’re feeling down, you do need moments of joy as well. So, even though the birds helped when I could just get outside and cry with nature, it also helped me to focus and get some joy in life too in a very sad time.

It helped me to carry joy and sadness at the same time. And getting out there and just seeing like a beautiful goldfinch, you know, it brought joy to me. And I even watched it in my mother when she was passing away. Before she died, she was in a hospice bed in the house and there was bird feeder outside. And she would always look out and look at the American goldfinches and they just made her heart like, you could just feel it, it lifted up her heart in a really sad time for her. And she could smile looking at them and looking at the hummingbirds.

So, they bring joy to people who are suffering and not just those who are suffering, everyone, but especially those who are going through very tough times. So, I think that is what is so important about birds and how they can heal.

Marion: Well, science backs you up here. In 2017, researchers studied hundreds of people of varying ages, races and incomes and found their mental health benefited from birdwatching.

And I read that when your mother was dying, that you literally put the bed by the window, which just made me bow my head in reverence at that action to allow her to have that unfettered experience.

And the scientific study said that people who experience birds experience lower cortisol levels, less pain, slower heart rates and decreased blood pressure. Their anger, fear, anxiety were eased. They also experienced a boost in short-term memory, energy, productivity and happiness. This sounds better than any drug I can think of.

So, talk to me as a writer here. Many writers make such connections. They do the research and find that science backs up what they feel and then they talk themselves out of writing a book like yours for fear of it being too woo-woo or too something.

People have such feelings for their cat, their dog, for their plants, but they just talk themselves out of it. And even though they understand what those living things do to hush the panic of grief or to bring back the thrill of life. So, how did you give yourself permission to write this? This is not your typical bird book, nor is it your typical grief book. This is something that a lot of writers would talk themselves out of, but you didn’t. So, how did that happen?

Melissa: Well, you’re right. The scientific research does back up that birds really do help people both mentally and physically. And I did do research on that. And I also, you know, I found that grief is a very taboo subject and a lot of people don’t want to write about it or talk about it.

And I just found that it’s something that we have to talk about more because everybody, unfortunately, is going to go through it in some way or another. And grief, it can be very complicated. And losing my parents back to back, it made it more complex.

And there’s just so much stuff that people go through when they’re grieving that you need to talk about. Also, I found that a lot of people don’t want to talk about how the birds may help them, because like you said, it may sound a bit woo-hoo, but the thing is, those birds, they really helped save me and to keep me going.

And I wanted to write a kind of love letter to them and to also tell other people who are suffering that there’s nothing to be ashamed of and that getting out in nature, looking at birds will help you and it can help you. And that’s a message that I really wanted to spread to others.

Marion: Yeah. And I’m so glad you did. Your book, Dare to Bird, includes stunning bird images from the continent of the United States, Hawaii and Canada. The puffin on the cover alone is enough to secure a spot for you in the pantheon of great nature photographers. I happen to have an enormous weakness for puffins, so… But you were not always a photographer. So what happened to your birding experience and your writing when you picked up a camera?

Melissa: Yeah, I started taking photos in 2014 when my dad actually bought me my first camera for my birthday. And so I took it up later in life. But I just found that getting out in nature and taking photos was a way to help my memories to stay with me longer and a great way to document my sightings and also help for the book, because when I looked at pictures, it invoked certain memories that I wanted to write about and certain memories, you know, with my parents or other parts of my life that I just wanted to talk about.

So taking pictures really helped a lot in the writing process, actually.

Marion: So I’ve read several lovely pieces of yours online as well as the book, and I want to direct your thinking to those writers listening who are struggling to incorporate their own experiences in the natural world with a piece of memoir. I want to give them some good advice. I deal and work with memoir writers every day and have for 30 years. You have an exquisite eye and a very open heart. And I would say those qualifications have served you magnificently. You see things and understand the connections between what grief is and what the birds can do to release us from that grief. So let’s give some advice about being outdoors to writers. Are you taking notes while you’re outside? Are you speaking into your phone? Are you photographing first and then coming home and responding by writing about those photos?

Just let us into your process a bit, please.

Melissa: Yeah, sometimes I take notes when I’m outside. I do take a lot of photos as well and then go home and write about it. But I find that most of the time, I’m writing down things when I get back home. So I’ll go outside and look at nature and then write about it when I get back home. I’m not so much of the person that do it in the field, but there are some times where there’s something that I just have to write down and then I will do it that way. But most of the time, I’m absorbing what I’m seeing and then taking that home and then writing about it.

Marion: And have you done a lot of reading of other nature writers? Do you have some book recommendations or some author recommendations or some magazine recommendations or some, you know, photography recommendations?

Because again, I have so many people who are trying to make this connection in their own writing and they struggle. And I give them the recommendations that I have, but you’re the expert. So what would you give to people or recommend or send people to go look at or read at this point?

Melissa: Yeah, there’s a lot of books that are important about getting out in nature that I like. One of them is Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder by Julia Zarankin. That book is really good. A birding magazine that I really like is American Birding Association’s Birding Magazine. That one is a great one because it talks about birding from all different aspects, from newbies to people who have been doing it for years. They’re very good about talking about barriers that people of color face, people in the LGBTQIA community.

Also, the book King Bird Highway by Ken Kaufman is one of the first birding books I ever read that is also a memoir that really was moving and it talks about how birding helped him as well.

Marion: I love that book. I know that book very, very well. And I, too, agree that that would be a fabulous place for people to start. It’s such an invitation to get up and look, you know? And you mentioned the BIPOC and LGBTQIA communities. So let’s talk about that.

I’ve read that your father started you as a birder, but that when you were a child, you never saw anyone who looked like you out birding. Can you speak about what that was like, please?

Melissa: Yeah, that’s very true. So my dad started me birding when I was about five years old. He was a naturalist that liked to go outside in nature, taught me how to take care of the environment, not to leave any trace.

And he’s the one that bought me my first field guide. And after that, I got hooked and wanted to see more and more birds. And I actually surpassed my father in the birding because he was a general naturalist. He loved birds, but all animals, and didn’t go as fanatic as me. But when I was a young person, and even to this day, you still don’t see that many birders of color. And when I was young, I didn’t see any. I was the only one. So I think it’s very important now, that’s why I started the Young Birders Program, to talk about those barriers, to make sure that birding is inclusive as possible, get young people out there of all different backgrounds, and to tell them that they’re welcome. And it does make you feel very isolated when you don’t see anybody that looks like you.

Marion: Yeah, I mean, you’re really passionate about making birding more inclusive for all, especially to expand birding, to include the BIPOC population, the LGBTQIA, as we said.

And you do a lot of youth outreach and talking about the barriers, racism and sexism, you faced in your journey to become part of the birding community. Many people listening may never have considered these boundaries real and perceived of the great outdoors for so many.

So I’d like to dig in that a little bit further. I mean, I don’t want to sound completely naive, because I’ve done some reading on this, but you’re far more an authority than I.

So what are these boundaries real and perceived that have prevented people from being out in nature?

Melissa: Well, just, you know, there’s boards and a lot of these boards don’t have any people of color. They don’t want to put any wordings about being inclusive. This is all a new thing that started. And it really only started, to make these people aware, was when the Christian Cooper incident happened in New York City, after that thing started to change.

Before that, I tried very hard to get the different associations to put up inclusive wording for the BIPOC and LGBTQ community. And, you know, they didn’t want to put them up. So it was very difficult. And now people are seeing that there’s lots of barriers that people are facing because we’re talking about it. There’s lots of microaggressions, there’s overt and covert racism. Sexism is still a problem, even to this day. There are people who find that, you know, women birders may not know as much as their male birders or ask the male birders questions and not want to ask the women birders questions. I’ve had that happen many times. And when you do answer, they listen more to the male birders and they just treat you differently. And, you know, I’ve been told from people that I don’t look like a birder.

Where did I come from? All this stuff like that. So it’s just when you don’t feel safe in your environment, you know, I’ve been followed by car and when you’re out alone in the woods, it could be a scary place. So some people like black people like myself don’t want to go out in nature sometimes because they’re afraid of other people and they just don’t feel welcome.

So I think things are changing. We’re doing way more BIPOC walks and LGBTQ plus walks. I lead both of those around here in Vancouver through the Stanley Park Ecological Society. And it’s just really important to talk about these barriers and to make birding and this hobby more inclusive.

Marion: I so agree with you. The Christian Cooper experience that we read about in Central Park, a white woman reporting a black man, for being in the park, he had binoculars and it became a very big story.

He has since won, I think, two Emmys for the work he’s done, for the teaching he’s done. And I was so stunned when that story broke by how many people kind of looked and spoke of it quizzically saying, “Oh, I never knew that camping, birding, canoeing, hiking was prevented, kept from, excluded so many people.” And I thought we were on a pretty good place of changing that. And then have come all of this, the language that’s being stripped off of in my country. You know, you’re in Canada, in my country, we’re taking the language off of all the public signs about inclusivity, history, history of the indigenous.

And I feel a desperation. So are you saying in Canada as well, you’re seeing signs being taken down or is that just something you’ve heard about that’s happening here in the United States?

Melissa: In Canada, I haven’t seen that, but in the U.S., yes, I know the removing of DEI is very disturbing and sad because that language really does affect people. And it really is vital to make people feel included and safe. When that language changed for me, and I saw that, one of the boards who fought me so hard on it, put that on their website, I cried because the words really do matter and they really do make people feel more welcome. They’re not just words, you know.

Of course, these words need to be backed up by action, but that’s a start. And when you don’t even have that inclusive language, you just feel totally unwelcome.

Marion: Yes, which in nature seems impossible, right? That a human being would put up a sign in nature making some kind of claim about who and who is not welcome here. So I’m grateful for your work. Birds too, I suspect, are benefiting so much because they’re under threat everywhere. Climate change, habitat, house cats, and so much more.

And so my suggestion is that everyone purchase this book and then renew their connection to the birds of the world.

But you’ve gone far further than that in birding and publishing. You founded the British Columbia Young Birders Program, as we said, in 2014, which aims to bring people together of all races, sexual orientation, and genders to look at birds.

And you’ve also, you’re the recipient of the British Columbia Nature’s 2021 Daphne Selecki Award for contributing to nature education for children in British Columbia, a finalist for the 2021 Nature Inspirations Award for the Canadian Museum of Nature, a lead in the 2020 CBC TV documentary, Rare Bird Alert, a winner of the 2024 Alan Duncan Bird Conservation Award, and in 2025, awarded the King Charles III Coronation Medal.

So you are all in. So let’s give some tips about getting a beginner outside, getting a person who may have felt excluded. How would we turn to our neighbor, our friend, our group, and get some people outside who are just not yet comfortable with this glorious world of birding?

Melissa: Well, I would try and get them a pair of binoculars. In Canada, we have most of our libraries, they rent out a pair of binoculars and a field guide for a month, which is an amazing thing because binoculars are not cheap and field guides aren’t cheap either. So to get that out there is a barrier-free way. And just getting out and looking at the birds, you don’t need a fancy camera, you don’t need fancy scope optics because those are all expensive, but just getting out there and looking at birds right in your own backyard, your own neighborhood, you don’t need to go far or travel to exotic destinations to enjoy the birds.

And most of my birding was just around my home when my parents were sick, so you can find the joy in birds anywhere.

Marion: Yeah, you literally are the example of starting in your own backyard. And so as we start to wrap this up, I’d like to ask you about the transformational change of writing. I believe that memoir is the single greatest portal to self-discovery. And as I was reading your book and looking at the photographs and contemplating the size of the assignment you took on, talking about grief, photographing the birds, writing about birds and your own mental health, looking at this large assignment, I wondered about how it might’ve changed you to actually write through this, to put these photographs together. How is the process of writing, are you different than before you wrote and published this book?

Melissa: Yes, I think I am. I think writing this book, it was a lot of work. It was a lot of emotional work. I had a lot of tears. I also had joy through it, but it was very difficult because I started writing the book when my mother died and then my father suddenly died when I was halfway through. So I had to add a new chapter and change a lot of my writing. So it was a lot of work, emotional work, but it showed me how resilient I am and how strong I am.

So I really saw how strong I am despite terrible things that happened in my life. And it was a beautiful experience in the end. And I hope I did my parents proud. I wish my dad lived to see it. He knew about it at least. And so I hope he saw it from wherever he is right now.

Marion: Oh, I’m sure they would be incredibly proud. I think that everybody that comes in contact with your work slows down. I found that even just reading through the book, I thought I should put my blood pressure monitor on because my blood pressure was definitely dropping looking at these beautiful photographs.

And I hope that you know how much good you do in the world with your work and your writing and this lovely book, Dare to Bird. Thank you so much, Melissa. I so appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today. I think it’ll be encouragement for everyone who wants to get out in nature.

Melissa: Thank you so much, Marion.

Marion: You’re absolutely welcome.

The author is Melissa Hafting. See more on her at daretobird at blogspot dot com. Her photography can be viewed on her Instagram account at bcbirdergirl. Her book, Dare to Bird, Exploring the Joy and Healing Power of Birds is published by Rocky Mountain Books. Get it wherever books are sold. I’m Marian Roach-Smith and you’ve been listening to QWERTY. QWERTY is produced by Overit Studios in Albany, New York. Reach them at overitstudios dot com. Our producer is Jacqueline Mignot. Our assistant is Lorna Bailey. Want more on the art and work of writing? Visit marion roach dot com, the home of The Memoir Project, where writers get their needs met through online classes in how to write memoir. And thanks for listening. Don’t forget to follow QWERTY wherever you get your podcasts and listen to it wherever you go. And if you like what you hear, please leave us a review. It helps others to find their way to their writing lives.

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