I never wanted to bird-watch, but I’m watching Christian Cooper’s show

Racist Amy Cooper sues employer, innocent black man gets nature show

This was the one time I understood why bird-watching was fascinating. (Photo credit: Shamontiel L. Vaughn)

I wore a tank top last week that said, “The lake is my happy place.” It’s true. I’d made a point of finding rentals that were walking distance from a lakefront or beach when I returned from Missouri to my hometown of Chicago. I love digging my feet in the sand and looking at the water. It’s why I ditched 99% of the tourist spots in Maui — I just sat on the rocks with the fishermen and looked at the West Maui Mountains.

But one thing I could never really get into was bird-watching. My grandfather had binders full of images of birds (and polar bears), and I thought it was the most painfully dull thing to look at — until I happened to be sitting on the rocks near the lakefront one day and these two seagulls just wouldn’t give me any space. I had no food and nothing interesting, but they wanted to be around me. And the more they kept coming into my personal space, the more I stared at them. Finally, they stopped near a book I was writing in, and I leaned backward to take a photograph (above).

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Still, the idea of bird-watchers just wasn’t something I was willing to get into — even though I think it’s dope that there are so many black bird-watchers. But imagine my delight to find out that Christian Cooper, the man who was racially profiled by Amy Cooper (when she wasn’t trying to choke out her dog and blatantly lie to the police about a black man threatening her), reportedly has a bird-watching show coming to National Geographic.

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NPR confirmed that the show, entitled “Extraordinary Birder,” will be a series for Cooper to take viewers into the “wild, wonderful and unpredictable world of birds,” according to National Geographic.