Conversations with Birds

by Priyanka Kumar

“Birds are my almanac. They tune me into the seasons, and into myself.”

So begins this lively collection of essays by acclaimed filmmaker and novelist Priyanka Kumar. Growing up at the feet of the Himalayas in northern India, Kumar took for granted her immersion in a lush natural world. After moving to North America as a teenager, she found herself increasingly distanced from more than human life, and discouraged by the civilization she saw contributing to its destruction. It was only in her twenties, living in Los Angeles and working on films, that she began to rediscover her place in the landscape — and in the cosmos — by way of watching birds.

Tracing her movements across the American West, this stirring collection of essays brings the avian world richly to life. Kumar’s perspective is not that of a list keeper, counting and cataloguing species. Rather, from the mango-colored western tanager that rescues her from a bout of altitude sickness in Sequoia National Park to ancient sandhill cranes in the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, and from the snowy plovers building shallow nests with bits of shell and grass to the white-breasted nuthatch that regularly visits the apricot tree behind her family’s casita in Sante Fe, for Kumar, birds “become a portal to a more vivid, enchanted world.”

At a time when climate change, habitat loss, and the reckless use of pesticides are causing widespread extinction of species, Kumar’s reflections on these messengers from our distant past and harbingers of our future offer luminous evidence of her suggestion that “seeds of transformation lie dormant in all of our hearts. Sometimes it just takes the right bird to awaken us.”

Genres: Nature, Nonfiction, Birds, Essays, Memoir, Animals, Environment

281 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2022

About the author

Conversations with Birds is a 2023 CLMP Firecracker Award Finalist.

Priyanka Kumar is the award-winning author of Conversations with Birds, widely acclaimed as “a landmark book” that “could help people around the world rewild their hearts and souls….” (Psychology Today). Her essays and criticism appear in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Orion, and High Country News. She has been featured on CBS News Radio and Oprah Daily, and honored with an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Award, a New Mexico/New Visions Governor’s Award, a Canada Council for the Arts Grant, and an Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Fellowship.

Kumar wrote, directed and produced the feature documentary The Song of the Little Road, starring Martin Scorsese and Ravi Shankar—which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival and is in the permanent collection of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Kumar has taught at the University of California Santa Cruz and the University of Southern California, and serves on the Board of Directors at the Leopold Writing Program.

Reviews

[Tomek · Rating 1 out of 5]

I enjoyed most of this book in a pleasant, casual sort of way. The nature prose is pretty, and I found some of the personal anecdotes to be intriguing, but it lacked the incisiveness of other writing that considered and critiqued human relationships to nature. Perhaps this is because everything was written with a strong focus on one individual: her. Social relationships are flattened to generalizations like "corporate greed" and "habitat destruction." There are no systemic social or economic issues at play, such that her writing reflects a neoliberal environmentalism.

But why, if most of the book was fine, did I rate it one star? In one of the final chapters, she presents the assertion that forest thinning in Southwestern forests is destructive, that foresters don't care about ecological health, and that environmentalists are getting drowned out due to corporate interests. Having lived and worked in the forests of northern New Mexico, this duplicity was damning.

Forest thinning is essential to prevent catastrophic forest fires. The dense, ferel forests Kumar loves are the result of a century of fire suppression, and without thinning, wildlife and the habitats that support them will pay the price, as we saw with the record-breaking Calf Canyon/Hermit's Peak fires this past spring. Most people think that the woodlands that result after thinning look clearcut, but they represent a more resilient forest (despite the cherrypicked letter Kumar found that said thinning didn't limit wildfire risks in Australian eucalyptus plantations and coastal Oregon forests, which are very different ecological contexts than the arid intermountain west) that probably more closely approximates forest conditions before the Forest Service's 24-hour fire suppression policy upended most natural disturbance regimes.

As for the idea that foresters do not care about ecology, the argument that they only see boardfeet of timber is absurd. Every forester is now trained in ecological forestry. They know about the risks of erosion, the principles of wildlife management, and the intricacies of terrestrial ecology.

Finally, Kumar completely erases the nuanced history of land management (read Enchantment and Exploitation or Roots of Resistance for more context) and environmental racism in New Mexico, which has often pitted upper class purity-obsessed wilderness advocates against poor Hispano ranchers and farmers. At best, hers is a superficial poor effort to understand this complex socioecological system. At worst, it is an attempt at promulgating propaganda that threatens to undermine the resilience and integrity of ecological and human communities in northern New Mexico.

[Moonkiszt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely read, that felt more like private journaling than a birder's collection book (which is what I was expecting). A surprise all around: thoroughly elegant, thoughtful and full of earnest concern and worry for the future even if changes are quickly implemented.

My favorite part of this read was the bright orange tanager who becomes the author's shoulder angel. We all need friends from nature to guide us through this world, and teach us ways to have ongoing conversations with the natural parts of this world of ours. . .I was utterly charmed by her sharing of that relationship with her readers.

*A sincere thank you to Priyanka Kumar, Tantor Audio, and NetGalley for an ARC to read and review independently.*

[Eric Lam · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a collection of the author's experiences communing with nature in her adoptive home state of New Mexico. Originally from the foothills of the Himalayas, family tragedy, career troubles, and the challenges of being an immigrant drive Priyanka Kumar to turn to birds for solace and inspiration. So much so that she becomes an avid birder, often visiting national parks and protected wetlands, and becoming involved in local conservation efforts. Along with her husband and two children, she sometimes goes to extreme lengths to witness different birds in their natural habitats.

Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy reading this book, mainly due to the overly descriptive writing style which made it feel long and drawn out. It starts and ends strong, but the middle sections got a bit repetitive. The main theme of the book seemed to be about the author’s frustrations around environmental issues rather than the birds themselves.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

this started off great, but as the book went on it just became soooo repetitive and i eventually had to just skim the last 30%. it felt like i was getting bludgeoned with the same exact message and variations of the same story over and over and over again. which is a shame because it's a good message, and i think the author had some valuable insight to share, but it probably could've been one essay instead of a whole book of them.

[Lucinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Because of the author's exquisite descriptions of the surrounding natural environment, we are not only drawn into the writer's thoughts but also into the actual world these birds live in. This book brings a bittersweet educational benefit in learning about many different bird species and the lessons they can teach us about their habitats and the regrettably diminishing climate in which they live.
Grateful for the opportunity to listen! Thank you to #NetGalley and the Author and Publisher for this advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Sofia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 tbh

[Emily Kestrel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actual rating: 3.5 stars.

[Cristina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Birders, environmentalists, and poets: This book is for you. Author Priyanka Kumar takes readers on low-key yet dramatic adventures in search of birds of all stripes: tanagers, bulbuls, juncos, owls, cranes, and so many more are featured in this lovely collection of essays.

Kumar grew up in northern India, a source of deep connection to family, ritual, and landscapes throughout the 274-page book. She awakens to the bird world, and to an accelerated attention to her natural surroundings (when she can find them) while in California in her twenties. She also discovers a sense of herself in connection to the wild world, almost meditatively. “In birding, there is a forgetting, a coming out of oneself, while paradoxically also a going deeper into oneself.”

As Kumar’s writing and film career matures and her family grows from two to four, she moves to Santa Fe, and New Mexico becomes her playground. While driving their modest Honda in a blizzard in Taos canyon or accidentally down a defunct boat ramp at Elephant Butte Lake searching for wintering bald eagles, her young daughters provide comic relief with dropped backseat scones and a fascination with the lazy roadside cows. Everyone is game to spend the day cruising from one remote wildlife refuge to another, following vague bird tips from forest rangers and waitresses about nesting curlews at mile marker 19.

Kumar delivers a fervent environmentalist message with every essay, urging readers to care about preserving the vital habitats of birds and all creatures, or else. Although she says she “mustn’t begrudge the birds the seeds,” she very much condemns the US Forest Service—especially for timber sale cutting, the agriculture industry and their pesticides, and hunters—especially recreational shooters and those aiming for top of the food chain predators.

The essays are peppered with facts about place: New Mexico has the lowest water-to-land ratio of all 50 states, and facts about birds: goshawks claim a 700-acre area as the “mountain lion of birds.” The author tells entertaining stories of birdwatching and wildlife encounters while tapping into the spirituality of nature and why it all matters in the big picture.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Growing up in India, Priyanka Kumar felt connected to the natural world. It was hard to find that in America as an adult-- until she and her husband were invited to go on a bird walk, unlocking that passion once again. Conversations with Birds chronicles just some of Kumar's most significant avian encounters in the American southwest, ranging across the map from songbirds to birds of prey. These beautiful reflections range from spiritual and breathtaking to concerns of how our rapidly changing climate puts all of life at risk-- not just the things with feathers. Gorgeous, stirring, and memorable.

[Yamini · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book felt like meditation to me. I listened to the audiobook and the narrator's voice is so soothing, plus the topic of discussion is approached with such gentleness that I actually used this to calm myself when I felt overwhelmed by real life.

The author calls birds her "almanac" and that is truly reflected in the book. The book talks about the author's life through the lens of nature. Taking you with them into their lives and daily occurrences may feel prominent if one learns to pay more attention to their surrounding. Such as the bird that just came chirping on my balcony 😍.

Besides birds, the book also discusses a few other animals, racist behaviour, society's mindset of civilization leading to the destruction of several natural habitats and an overall sense of being more environmentally responsible. The concept of ecological consciousness is explained beautifully along with the pre-historic existence. There is also a constant cross reference of ancient Hindu texts (mostly in sanskrit) connecting to the world which was my favorite part about this book.

I recommend this book to people who one day dream of living close to nature and have an inkling of wildlife, not in a zoo, but in their very own free habitat. It is not for everyone, though if your chords align - don't let this pass.

Genre: Nonfiction, Nature,

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

First book of 2023, and honestly quite a lot of contentious takes in this one. The book is written in the form of the writer's life story, punctuated with her experiences with nature, with a focus on birds at specific moments in her life. The writer also is very pro-nature, where the spiritual value of nature is held above all else.

On a personal level, I can see where the writer is coming from most of the time, and as a birder halfway across the world that is slightly jaded by the act of spotting a bird just to add to a number and slot it into a category, some of her points resonate with me. Specifically, though her experiences with logging can't exactly be seen in land-scarce Singapore, the general public's lack of understanding about nature and the need for more action to be taken on that front is a point to take away for me, as the same can be said about many deprived of nature while living in cities.

One thing about the book I fail to understand is the writer's lack of action despite her criticism, as she fails to act on any of the problems she encounters across her experiences. Perhaps it is a difference is cultures or the absence of avenues for the public to contribute to citizen science, and this would probably be the reason for the general public's lack of understanding toward nature.

[Stuart Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Conversations with Birds is an interesting set of essays about Priyanka Kumar's interactions with birds. She is a keen observer of their behavior and their appearance around her. The writing is engaging but Kumar repeats herself. I realize it is a collection of essays so perhaps each was meant to stand alone, but at times the repetition is distracting. The high points are her descriptions of birds in her life.

[Claire Q · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rounded up from 3.5 stars
I think my expectations for this were a little high after getting it as a recommendation from a local bookstore and reading "Birding While Indian". I enjoyed the descriptions of the birds and nature, but found as it went on it lost the thread of the memoir which I had enjoyed so much in the beginning chapters. (About the author's childhood in India, her family, coming to North America, etc)

[Kaytee Cobb · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was beautiful and nature-tastic and it made me fall harder in love with my own backyard, even as I look toward the future.

[Robert Mead · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written and sends a good message.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

A young family moves to Santa Fe and is enchanted with the wildlife. I was startled to read the author’s description of being accosted on a hike up the Santa Fe river on a “private” road. I have walked that road and was also accosted by Alan armed guard. The family goes to Tres Piedras for a residency at Aldo Leopoldo’s Mi Casita. Her descriptions are so awesome.

[Eric Dye · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book had many moment that tied the author’s love of birds and nature to larger lessons on life that I thought were great. For instance, on page 269 she says, “An acquaintance with the natural world grows and deepens until it permeates our cells; it reawakens primal memories. It is only when we grow disconnected that we need to be entertained.” I love that, and it is so true! I also loved her explanation of rasas. I really want to explore that concept more.

There were some parts of the book that I felt could use some tightening up, but overall this was definitely worth the read.

[Royal Garren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written. I found the synchronicity of birds sightings to life-changing moments in the author’s personal life to be intriguing, but somewhat contrived … and eventually tiresome.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seeing a western tanager perched on a juniper tree is like peering into the molten heart of the Southwest landscape. This sublimely colored bird must be the forest’s expression of joy. Nature concentrates yellow-gold, crimson, raven black, and mango in one midsize bird who flashes like a jewel in an otherwise subdued palette of olive greens and dove blues. Seeing the western tanager is a gladdening, if aleatoric experience—walking along a dirt road, a flash is all you might see, lemon-yellow wing-bar against black, as the bird flicks past the road to perch on a dry birdbath before vanishing into a deciduous tree.

A porous cathedral, the Earth’s cathedral, and I was but a leaf undulating through it.

I really enjoyed this book, it is my love language, all the descriptions of nature verging on poetic, lyrical, magical while also narrating the various lens and experiences of an SE Asian immigrant trying to become a filmmaker. The author does not have a degree in the sciences, but is an inherent naturalist, self taught, and can be a wonderful storyteller. Some stories fall a little flat when she is including her young daughters and their antics, but this memoir/naturalist book works well overall. I have been to some areas she writes about, specifically Malibu Creek State Park and Bosque del Apache NWR, so it was like revisiting them and cherishing those memories and sights and sounds I can still call up after 20 years.

From Natural Bridges State Beach, I watched the pelicans fly from the depths of the sea toward the shore, diving headlong for fish before they wheeled around and sailed back to the depths, where, metaphorically, I wanted to be—in the core of life, art, and thought.

Contrary to the mythology about Eve, nature doesn’t cast us out. Eating from the tree of knowledge, the knowledge of nature’s inner working, far from being a sin, only deepens our filial love for the Earth.

The Sanskrit term rasa means “juice,” literally, but it alludes to charm without which life is, to put it bluntly, dry. The Natyashastra, an ancient treatise on theatre and dance, says that the eight rasas or “sentiments,” such as the Sensual, the Comic, the Pathetic, the Heroic, and the Odious, are so called because we can taste them—in our minds. Rasa is an intricate, elusive concept—

In Lacy Park, to my astonishment, I found myself walking under the arches of several deodar cedars, Cedrus deodara, from my birthplace in remote northeastern India. We might have been in a thicket in the Himalayas. Growing straight and tall, deodars have an exalted air, like heroes with arms outstretched but also slightly, humbly lowered. Their branches form distinct and well-separated layers, each silver-blue canopy reaching toward the arms of neighboring deodars.

One evening, as I hiked in Malibu Creek State Park, a dozen monk parakeets, Myiopsitta monachus, flew past me like magical paper airplanes. Their chartreuse green recalled my bamboos. It felt as though I were not in Malibu but in their native South America. I was transfixed with awe while the parakeets cut through the air above me and sailed past a canopy of deciduous trees. Birds became a portal to a more vivid, enchanted world.

Here, as flickers drummed rhythmically on tree trunks, proclaiming their territory or calling out to kin, I might have been listening to the drumbeat of the Earth. In birding, there is a forgetting, a coming out of oneself, while paradoxically also a going deeper into oneself. Standing in a leafy canyon, waiting in green silence for a bird to appear, my mind hushes to a whisper.

In the East Indian tradition, the best a person can hope for is to have their ashes submerged in the Ganges River, our goddess river. She will cleanse us, purify us, and bear us aloft from one world to another, perhaps to Shiva’s mountaintop, from whose lofty heights Ganges flows down to the plains. India and Native America are entirely different civilizations but in the ways that they traditionally see the natural world as being sacred, they echo each other. Our souls recognize one another; the same sun comforts us, the same moon consoles us.

“As in the cell so in the universe,” say the Indian sages, suggesting that our inner cosmos unfailingly echoes the outer cosmos we live in. If we see our universe, and by extension our planet, as a “complex orderly self-inclusive system,” which is how the Merriam Webster dictionary defines the word cosmos, we might think again about poisoning and disrupting its finely tuned systems. The absence of the tanager is but one indicator of the disruption we have inflicted and the root of this disruption is within us. We haven’t been good neighbors on this planet. If we could see how our solipsism harms other animals, we might take more responsibility to remedy the harm we have done. When we heal the planet, it in turn heals us. It truly is a circle, like the glaucous Earth and the scuffed moon, like the round, round window that I was about to inherit.

The crown jewel of our National Wildlife Refuge System, the Bosque del Apache, has been my annual pilgrimage site for a decade. The largest single population of sandhill cranes migrates to the Bosque late in the fall to overwinter along the Rio Grande. I have seen these cranes with crimson crowns in Southern California and at the Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary in British Columbia but they descend on the Bosque in staggering numbers. In the evenings, you stare at cranes with serpentine necks flying in over skies streaked rosy pink and clementine. New Mexico’s skies can be striations of color approximating infinity but these numberless flocks of cranes and geese outdo the theatrics of the sky. (less)

They are as ancient as can be, hearkening back to the Pleistocene. A ten-million-year-old

old crane fossil found in Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park in Nebraska is said to belong to a crowned crane, a relative of the sandhills. The oldest sandhill crane fossil, unearthed in what is today Florida, is some 2.5 million years old.

Aldo Leopold wrote about the sound of cranes: “We hear the trumpet in the orchestra of evolution.”

The painted sky, reflected in the water, lent the scene a supernatural setting—here, one could tune in with what is transcendent in the universe, as Campbell would have said.

Sevilleta, the 230,000-acre refuge where we headed next, is rich land; four biomes intersect here—the piñon -juniper woodland that I know from my backyard, the Great Plains short-grass prairie, the Chihuahuan Desert, and the Colorado Plateau shrublands. The Rio Grande flows through the soul of the refuge, flanked by sprawling cottonwood trees, salt grass, and rust-colored native coyote willow.

The field was pale gold, gleaming white and pearl gray, with splashes of velvety bloodred crowns. How fitting that these imperial birds should wear a crown. How purposefully yet daintily they walked, their poise unshaken even in moments of anxiety. Their spindly legs moved in tandem with the Earth’s rhythm; I felt myself slowing down, body and soul, this was the only way to observe them.

Our lives today shrink away from crepuscular activities but twilight is a fecund, in-between time that can yield reflections or ancestral stories on a rooftop charpoy in India or around a roaring Pueblo campfire.

The Rio Grande, formed by this rift in the Earth’s crust, is one of maybe five rift valleys in the world. Over the last three hundred years, a rift has similarly occurred in our hearts that has sundered us from our landscapes and the magnificent animals that roam wild. We rarely look to these splendorous gifts for succor. What a radical shift it would be if we sought to live in concert with the natural world and grew intimately acquainted with the inscrutable landscapes and the resourceful creatures who inhabit them. As we drive away, it’s still cold enough near the entrance of the national monument that the river is frozen white. Our spirits, however, are blazing.

“The last rasa is shanta rasa—peace, tranquility, and relaxation,” writes Ravi Shankar. The Indian sage Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj encourages us not to be immersed in our experiences—past or present—but to move beyond them. “When you stand motionless, only watching,” he says, “you discover yourself as the light behind the watcher.”

A handful of times as I wandered around the cabin, a hummingbird thrummed right up to my heart or my forehead and, for a microsecond, I experienced the sensation of life fusing with life. The hummingbird is as much an expression of life as I am.

The claims animals have on the land are as compelling as our own. Yet there are precious few places left where we can be “in place,” as Thoreau writes, where we can see not just the path but what lies beyond, where the electric mystery of a bobcat can thrill us rather than manufactured entertainments that often pale on second viewing. Who we will be (and whether we will continue to be) tomorrow depends on whether we have the vision to see the treasures we already possess. And if we truly own this treasure-filled vision, we will naturally want to heal the damage we have inflicted upon the earth and heal our relationships with the animals who are one with the land, more eloquently than we can ever hope to be.

[Elissa Mann · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book more than I did- I typically love reading essays, and I love birds! But this book fell flat - a lot gets lost in flowery descriptions that don’t add a lot to the content. Some of the essays are better than others, but I found that a lot of it dragged, like the author would start to make a point (perhaps around environmentalism, for example)but never fully flesh it out. It felt a bit like reading someone’s diary- a lot of HER own personal experiences, and never really going beyond that. Which as an author, is her prerogative, but not very interesting or illuminating for the reader.

[Lauren Milewski · Rating 3 out of 5]

RH 2023 Task 14, a book with under 500 Goodreads ratings
Read America - New Mexico

[cat · Rating 4 out of 5]

A review in quotes, all of which had me yelling, YES! All of this. As I read, I kept feeling strongly that Priyanka Kumar was also writing my story, and the story of many others who have been captivated by birds and have experienced the mental health and wellness that observing them brings.

"Birds allowed me once again to relish solitude in the way I had as a child. Since my Assam years, the wondrous embrace I had once experienced with nature had shriveled to an echo, a ghost of something lost. "You are a child of the universe," the poet Max Ehrmann tells us in "Desiderata, "no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here." I had intuited this idea in my terraced garden in Assam, then lost this communion with nature in America. Seeing the transplanted bulbuls and the deodars seemingly at home in California was like seeing a dotted line that might one day lead me to a more living, breathing, wholly alive place."

"After a few weekends of birding continuously, often in fragmented bird habitats, I began to think about the challenges that birds faced. On the hour-long drives north of Los Angeles, while carpooling with other birders, I noticed sizable new developments mushrooming seemingly in the middle of nowhere. I pointed these out, hoping to draw my fellow birders into a discussion about how bird habitat was being decimated. I seldom drew more than inaudible murmurs, even when we went to see a burrowing owl, who peered at us anxiously from the sole undeveloped lot in a newly constructed suburb.

It felt obvious to me that bird habitats are key to maintaining healthy populations, which is only in the interest of birders. For instance, land that is overgrazed in Carrizo Plain National Monument does not magically convert back to grassland when the grazing stops. It turns instead to scru-bland. Not just the long-billed curlew, but also the endangered aplomado falcon, Falco femoralis, relies on thriving grasslands. To my surprise, however, many of the birders around me, even Audubon board members, were so hungrily focused on their bird lists that I couldn't engage them in a conversation about the fate of Carrizo Plain, where they annually led bird-watching trips. While they were sympathetic to the problem of shrinking bird habitat, they avoided confronting the tragic situation and for the most part remained unresponsive when I brought it up. How is it that we can love birds and obsess over our bird lists, I sometimes wondered, and not be attentive to how bird habitats all around us are being fragmented or overgrazed or paved over with concrete?"

"With its clean, freshly colored lines, the red-shafted flicker is a cartoon sprung to life. As if an endearing black bib and dark polka dots on a creamy underside weren't enough, the males also sport a rust-colored cap and a malar stripe or "mustache?" In Arroyo Seco Canyon ("dry gulch" in Spanish), to the west of Pasadena, leafy deciduous boughs filter the harsh sun and give refuge to the red-shafted flicker-a subspecies of the northern flicker, Colaptes auratus. Here, as flickers drummed rhythmically on tree trunks, proclaiming their territory or calling out to kin, I might have been listening to the drumbeat of the Earth. In birding, there is a forgetting, a coming out of oneself, while paradoxically also a going deeper into oneself.

Standing in a leafy canyon, waiting in green silence for a bird to appear, my mind hushes to a whisper."

[Cbx · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this more than I did, and I think I would have liked it more if I had come across one of these essays in isolation. There is a mix of the personal and the observed, an enjoyment of and reverence for the natural world, and a writing style that weaves together multiple concepts with a great deal of charm. All together though, these essays end up being much of a muchness. The same themes, experiences, and feelings recur.
The more I read, the more questions I had too. The inhospitable hikes she takes with her husband on festive occasions. The family going on a trip to a no longer managed wildlife area and nearly driving into a reservoir because they do not have up to date maps (or, seemingly, smart phones). The wintry and freezing boat trip to count bald eagles that she takes her small children along on where her youngest falls into torpor from the cold, and where she recognizes the symptoms because her youngest has reacted this way to an equally cold and exposed situation before. These stories of family outings are recounted in a tone of "look at all the things that nature can teach us", and in some cases with humor, but they do not come across as benign and the reader is left wondering as to what the decision making process in this family is like. In the beginning of the collection, there is a sense of who the author might be, someone who has lost a lot of her family and is seeking solace in the natural world. By the end of the collection, with the author having a husband and two young children, the author's need to seek solace in nature seems to fully shape the life of her family, and to guide the trips and experiences they have. There is also an environmentalist bent that increases over the course of the book, and leads the later essays to have a similar tone of people not appreciating what is being lost around them. The author uses Latin names of bird species, speaks with park rangers about declining bird populations, and goes to count and monitor birds on a volunteer basis, but it remains vague as to what this is all for - is it for this book, an extension of the author's reverence for birds, a proxy for engaging with the changing climate?
If you are interested, I would recommend reading one or two of the essays, and maybe leaving it at that.

[Alex Furst · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book #23 of 2025. "Conversations with Birds" by Priyanka Kumar. 4/5 rating. 274 p.

This is a beautiful collection of essays all about birds and the natural world. Priyanka is a film student who brings her artistic eye to her forays into the realm of birds.

I've been thinking about getting into birding and this definitely made this even more enticing as I absolutely loved the awe and attention that Priyanka showed when discussing all of the different species she notices in the world.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes to let her speak for herself:
- "I realized that I had been hiking extensively through California, but not *seeing* anything."
- "The experience of watching these children at home in nature crystallized my belief thats seeds of transformation lie dormant in all of our hearts."
- "It's a gift to be pulled out of oneself and wonder at the mystery of a bird, a plant, or even dry-caked earth (we have a lot of that in Santa Fe)."
- "When the safe boundaries that we take for granted in everyday life disappear, we are exposed to startling risks but the experience can also crack the heart open. It strips away what is unnecessary. That is how I feel after yesterday's expedition: raw and ajar. At any moment, while absorbed in transient joy or sorrow, we are only dimly aware that we stand on a precipitous mound. The road ahead plunges down - we can't see the end point, yet it patiently and inexorably awaits us."
- "At the very top, where you feel closer to the sky, there is pure solitude, without a drop of loneliness in it. The embrace of ancient boulders, venerable ponderosas, and petite nuthatches mingles with the crisp air and light breeze. It deepens the sense of being alive. You inhabit the present while recalling that you rose out of the past."
- "An acquaintance with the natural world grows and deepens until it permeates our cells; it reawakens primal memories. It is only when we grow disconnected that we need to be entertained."

If you are interested in birds, nature, or just having a mindful eye out while being surrounded by the natural world, this is a great book to read!

[MaryAnn Benson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ms. Kumar is a birder through and through. She knows them (complete with their latin names!), follows their habits and documents each sighting. On the surface this a journal of her visits to wildlife refuges, preserves and national parks but it is much more than that.

Born in India, she moved here as a teenager. Her early years at the base of the Himalayas had instilled in her an appreciation of the natural world. Arriving in the US she instantly realized that this culture did not share that respect and appreciation. In California and New Mexico she saw vast areas of development and clear-cutting, resulting in the loss of habitat for all animals, especially her beloved birds. Her efforts to discover and prevent the causes are a fundamental part of the book. She encounters sympathetic rangers, wildlife specialists and local citizens but seems to realize in the end that little will change as long as the corporate entities: lumber companies, ranchers, developers, mining companies etc. can wield their economic clout.

Yet this is not totally a book about failure and impending doom. Ms Kumar uses beautiful imagery and tenets of Native American and Indian philosophies to bring her surroundings to life. We are given the opportunity to observe this magnificent landscape not only through her eyes but also those of her husband and two young daughters. Their journey is one of joy and discovery, a pleasure to experience.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book and feel it should be on every environmentally conscious readers list of books to read.

[Maileen Hamto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Through "Conversations with Birds," essayist, screenwriter, and filmmaker Priyanka Kumar adds another title: a naturalist. Kumar shares how her early years in Northern India have instilled a lifelong connection to nature. In a series of essays that span phases of her life and career in California, New York, and the Southwest, Kumar details observations, reflections, and epiphanies about connecting with the natural world, all the ways that various encounters with birds and other wildlife have left a lasting imprint. Kumar documents conversations with locals, wildlife biologists, conservationists, and others who offer insights into how climate change has impacted avian habitats and changed migration patterns.

Kumar’s adoration for birding and hiking is uplifting and contagious. She writes about observing burrowing owls, black-chinned hummingbirds, and sandhill cranes with great appreciation. Her spiritual connection with nature manifests in encounters with and sightings of wildlife at critical moments in her life: deciding to buy a home and the birth of her firstborn. Kumar’s illustrative writing style has the power to bring readers along on the journey through arroyos and Georgia O’Keefe’s mountains. The dwindling number of eagles wintering in the wetlands of New Mexico evokes a certain sadness. Kumar emboldens readers to act upon concern for all sentient beings amid widespread ecological demise.

[Mel Brannen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Naturalist Musings
Film-maker, mother and naturalist at heart Kumar writes eloquently about her encounters with the fauna encountered in her backyards and weekend hikes over the decades. Interwoven with Native American and Assam Indian lore these musings are delightful and enlightening. Centered in California then Santa Fe the reader is introduced to the many western & desert birds and mammals. The bobcat that visited their new home in Santa Fe continued to regularly visit through the childhood years of the children sunning all afternoon under a rose bush by the large circular living room window. Proximity to Rio Grande and its massive wetlands offered weekend encounters with hundreds of sandhill cranes, snow geese, and other migrating flocks taking advantage of the Rio Grande flyway.

Throughout the book there is a common theme of man’s continued destruction of bird habitat. This appears first with the cutting down of a lone flowering bouhinia tree facing the apartment window in graduate school that housed a mockingbird to make way for another apartment building. The theme continues on but the author rejoices in the discoveries of new birds in unexpected places. Much of what Kumar speaks of mimics the thoughts of Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer. ´What a radical shift it would be if we learned to live in concert with our natural world and learned to live with the inscrutable landscapes and the resourceful creatures who inhabit them.´

[Colleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading the first chapter of this book of essays by filmmaker Priyanka Kumar, I almost didn’t continue. I love nature and I’ve become an avid birder, so I expected to immediately connect with Kumar’s observations about the natural world, especially birds. Although beautifully written, the first essay felt a bit too “flowery” for my style. Luckily, I decided to try a couple more of the essays, and I’m glad I did. The further into this book I got, the more I enjoyed it. My star rating steadily creeped up from 1.5, to 3, and finally a 4-star rating by the end.

Kumar’s love of nature is very apparent in her descriptions of her connections with birds and animals in the American Southwest. She also relates interesting conversations she’s had with park rangers, biologists, and other conservationists. While I envy her experiences and recognize her devotion to saving the environment, I have to admit my one concern is the amount of driving she and her husband do as they frequently visit wildlife preserves and parks. They cover huge distances in order to spot, say, a burrowing owl or bald eagle nest. That’s a lot of carbon emissions. (Unless their vehicle is electric? I don’t think she mentions this, though.) But I’m not rating her carbon footprint, I’m rating her book, so 4-stars.

Bonus: a beautiful cover!

[Serendipity · Rating 4 out of 5]

Conversations with Birds was an enjoyable listen for me, one which ties in nicely with birding, my other main interest besides reading. After moving from India to the US, the author increasingly felt alienated from the natural world and memories of her family. A chance encounter with a group of birders helped her find her way back. I enjoyed her many accounts of birding trips and other encounters with nature, especially when her two young daughters were involved. In our increasingly troubled world, nature walks, especially when birds feature, are a real balm for my soul. When I can't get out myself, soothing books like this make a great substitute. The author really captured the magic moment of finally spotting a bird you've been searching for, the special pleasure of watching a bird watching you and feeling a deep emotional connection, and the joy of simply watching a bird going about its regular life. I especially enjoyed her reflections on birding, particularly her wish that more birders would eskew ticks and lists, in favour of more direct conservation work to ensure that suitable habitat continues to exist to support the feathered creatures they purportedly love. Some good food for thought.

[Chelsie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let me start this by saying in general, I do not give 5 star ratings unless I really love a book. This is my first NetGalley 5 star rating. This book was nothing like I expected - it was ten times better. The writing is lovely, let's get that out of the way first. But what I truly enjoyed most was the reminder that even though someone has one life, that is not their entire life. By that I mean when the author describes work she's doing on certain films/shows but also talks about how the birds shine through her life experiences. It was a much needed reminder that we are not one-faceted beings. It was also extremely refreshing to hear how the author and her husband embraced the nature around their home, and valued it in a way most of us do not. The representation of Indian culture throughout the book was beautiful, and seamless. As we know representation is so important, and I love hearing how certain birds (the owl, for example) are seen through a lens other than mine.

*I received this book from NetGalley and the Publisher in exchange for an honest review.*