Christian Cooper, a birder, author, comics editor, and long-time advocate for social justice, came to Swarthmore Sept. 24 through 26 for a series called Walks and Talks. The series is part of the larger Cooper Series (no relation) and consisted of three lectures and two bird walks led by Cooper.
Jeff Oaster, associate director of classroom and conferencing technologies, who submitted the proposal for the Cooper Series, explained the uniqueness of the visit format.
“The Cooper Foundation actually said it was a little bit of a different type of submission, since a lot of times [they sponsor] performances, talks, or screenings, but this actually involved bird walks, so it is something a little unusual. I’m glad I could do something that mixes it up a little bit [and] gives a different perspective.”
Cooper has had a multifaceted career. In his time as a birder, he has written a book “Better Living Through Birding,” hosted a TV show called “Extraordinary Birder,” and is currently on the board of the New York City Bird Alliance.
“‘Extraordinary Birder’ involved me going to six different places around the U.S., including Puerto Rico and Hawaii, to find interesting birds and talk about the issues that arise when birds and people coexist in a place,” Cooper said in an interview. “It was just tremendous fun.”
As part of the Bird Alliance, Cooper works to protect birds in New York City through legal advocacy and worker training. One of the Alliance’s primary goals is to push for bird-safe glass.
“One of the biggest perils to birds, especially in cities, are collisions with windows that they don’t see,” Cooper said.
Before his show and book, Cooper was an editor for Marvel Comics starting in 1990. In this role, Cooper worked on a few notable projects including “Alpha Flight,” in which Cooper, along with the chief editor Bobby Chase and comic writer Scott Lovell, best known for X-Men, introduced the first openly gay character in Marvel comics.
Cooper elaborated on these experiences in his Comics Talk. For instance, Cooper explained the story of how the “Alpha Flight” comic in which the character Northstar comes out as gay almost wasn’t published.
Cooper explained, “[the publicity office] sent it to the high marketing box who tried to pull it from the printer, but they were too late. So that’s how Northstar came out of the closet. And it was a big deal because it was the first Marvel superhero to be openly gay.”
Cooper also introduced the first openly lesbian character in a horror comic that he wrote called “Darkhold.” And, he ran the “Marvel Swimsuit” comic, in which he included men rather than just women.
“I was like, look, Bobby [his boss], if I do this, I’m going to be an equal opportunity objectifier. It’s going to be 50/50, which, number one, is what I want to see anyway, and number two, inoculates us to charges of sexism,” Cooper stated.
August Hartley ’27 works for the comic library as a student. “I’m fairly well-versed in the realm of graphic novels, but I wasn’t super knowledgeable about Marvel comics or the lore and history of the making of them. So this was super interesting to kind of see behind the curtain. It was really a treat to get to see all of that unfold,” he said.
After being laid off from Marvel, Cooper became a freelance comic. During his time freelancing, he wrote “Starfleet Academy,” a Star Trek comic, and independently created an online gay comic called “Queer Nation,” in which every queer person in the world gains superpowers.
Hartley also appreciated the discussion about Cooper’s online comic.
“I knew that online comics were a thing but it was super interesting to talk about online comics in general. Because a lot of the time when we talk about comics, I feel like it’s only about the print form,” he explained.
Decades after his time at Marvel, in May 2020, Cooper was harassed and threatened by a woman in Central Park while birding; he wrote a comic called “It’s A Bird” about the experience.
“The story immediately populated itself in my head as a magical realist story,” Cooper said.
“This young Black kid gets a pair of binoculars that his grandfather used to have, and he doesn’t really want it. And he starts seeing things when he goes through the park looking at birds. He sees these visions of Black people who have died at the hands of police unjustly, and he doesn’t know what to make of it.”
The story parallels his own confrontation, where the woman Cooper encountered called the police and falsely reported a threat.
“It just gets compounded until finally he runs into this woman who goes off on him because he wants her to leash her dog. And she says, ‘I’m going to call the police and tell them that an African American man is threatening my life.’ You can see behind them the ghosts of all people who suffer from something like that, some sort of unjust police brutality. He turns his back on her, and her voice becomes less and less significant, and the last thing he sees is the spirits of all those people that were lost rising up on the lens of birds into the sky,” Cooper said, explaining the plot of the comic.
While the comic didn’t necessarily have a happy ending, it ended with a moment of grace. This was important to Cooper who also remained calm during and after the incident in Central Park, speaking nationally about the importance of not focusing just on the one woman’s actions but also institutionalized racism.
While at Swarthmore, Cooper went with students and faculty on fully booked bird walks. According to Cooper, the best finds of the day were an Eastern Phoebe and a Pileated Woodpecker.
“It’s the biggest woodpecker we have in these parts, and it has this red crest on the back of the head. So that’s always a dramatic bird to see,” Cooper explained.
“Show of hands. How many of you are birders? Quite a few. Now show of hands. How many of you don’t consider yourself birders, but you like looking at birds?” he asked at the beginning of his birding talk. Then, to all those who raised their hands at the second question, he said, “Okay, you’re birders, there is no bright red line,” he said.
Ainsley Jane Tambling ’26, president of the Birding Club at Swarthmore, said she appreciated Cooper’s welcoming approach.
“I really appreciated how Cooper talked, you don’t have to be able to identify everything to be a birder, you just have to go out and have a good time enjoying the birds,” Tambling said. “I really like that I get to be outside, and birds just make me happy.”
As president of the Birding Club, she tries to embrace this approach in how she leads the club.
“You don’t have to be an ornithologist,” Tambling said. “You don’t have to have a very robust background. You can just go out and look at birds inside and learn as you go. I think that approach can get a lot of people engaged and that’s the direction I want to take the club. We’re in such a great space for birding on this campus in general, and specifically with the Crum.”
Cooper also explained his philosophy about the more “mundane” aspects of birding and appreciating every bird.
“If you get to the point where you look at a cardinal and you’re like, ‘I don’t need to look at that,’ hang it up. Just stop, because you missed the point,” he said.
Oaster was excited to discover that Cooper’s passion for birding is similar on and off camera.
“I was kind of wondering, is his personality the same as it is on his show, and it is exactly the same. High energy, [Cooper] just looks like he’s just full of passion for what he does,” Oaster said.“You can just see the joy that he brings to it. It’s very infectious.”
However, Cooper also shared some of the struggles within birding and areas for growth, such as its lack of diversity.
“If we want to protect a diversity of birds, we need a diversity of people to care about the birds,” he explained in an interview with The Phoenix.
Cooper spoke about the predominantly Black Edgemere community in the Rockaways, and how the birding world hasn’t engaged with the local community enough to teach them about the environment and the birds that live on their beach. This lack of education, in his view, leads to a conflict.
“Because we haven’t done that work, now there’s a clash between the community and the continued needs of the birds who nest, including the endangered Piping Plovers that nest on that part of Rockaway Beach,” he said.
Cooper shared his thoughts on the essence of birding.
“Birding is about trying to experience birds, wild birds, on their own terms,” he explained.
“So you’ve got to be going to the world with intention, and you’ve got to be paying attention: that combination is incredibly zen, like you get into a rhythm and you’re engaging with your natural findings. And if there comes a window into the natural world that you might not otherwise have, and it’s great, I can’t recommend it highly enough.”
