Anders and Beverly Gyllenhaal packed their worldly belongings into an airstream and hit the road for a year — all because of a bird.
Well, not just one bird. All the birds. The Gyllenhaals retired as lifelong journalists and became birdwatchers. They call themselves birders.
What they soon learned is that the birds — all the birds — are rapidly disappearing. An estimated 3 billion birds have disappeared from North America’s population over the last 50 years. That’s a third of all the birds on the continent.
Retirement didn’t last. They picked up their reporter's notebooks and set out to tell the story of the vanishing population of birds across the world. They wrote about what they found in the new book, A Wing and a Prayer.
They made a loop of the United States in their trailer. They traveled more than 25,000 miles. They flew to Hawaii and South America. They talked to the people trying to bring back bird species from the brink of extinction.
On the April 20 episode of Sundial, they tell us how their book is a warning. Call it a canary in a coal mine. It’s also a guide to what we can do to help — we, as citizens, but also we as a country.
On Sundial’s previous episode, writer and educator Darius Daughtry recited live poetry and shared why he thinks literature and literacy can heal our communities.
Listen to Sundial Monday through Thursday on WLRN, 91.3 FM, live at 1 p.m., rebroadcast at 8 p.m. Missed a show? Find every episode of Sundial on your favorite podcast app, such as Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Spotify.
Stay in touch with us by emailing us at sundial@wlrnnews.org.
