Dudley Edmondson is a legendary outdoorsman and birder, nature photographer, cinematographer, speaker and an author. In 2006, he published a book called Black and Brown Faces in America's Wild Places. He hopes that his books, photos and film work will inspire the next generation of Black, Indigenous and other people of color to get outside.
Dudley Edmondson is a legendary outdoorsman and birder, nature photographer, cinematographer, speaker and an author. In 2006, he published a book called Black and Brown Faces in America's Wild Places. He hopes that his books, photos and film work will inspire the next generation of Black, Indigenous and other people of color to get outside.
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Dudley Edmondson:
... A horned owl just hoots, who who who, but a barred owl says, "Who cooks for you" in its call?
Shelby Stanger:
That's Dudley Edmondson. He's a legendary outdoorsman and birder who has spent the last 40 years working and playing outside. From a young age it was clear to Dudley that the outdoors is where he felt most at home. He loved birding and fishing, and he taught himself photography so he could document his adventures. He was able to build a career as a nature photographer and over the past several decades, Dudley has worked with PBS, the National Park Service, the Nature Conservancy and more. Dudley is also a cinematographer, speaker and an author. In 2006, he published a book called Black and Brown Faces in America's Wild Places. He hopes that his books, photos and film work will inspire the next generation of Black, Indigenous and other people of color to get outside.
I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-op Studios production brought to you by Capital One.
Dudley Edmondson grew up in Ohio where his family enjoyed going to a local nature area to have picnics and go fishing. Throughout his upbringing, his parents struggled with alcohol addiction, but when the family went out into nature, all the negativity and tension from home would dissipate. Dudley felt calm and free. He realized that being outside was essential to his mental health. Eventually, Dudley fell in love with birding and decided to prioritize his relationship with nature even further by moving to northern Minnesota.
Dudley Edmondson, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. We're excited to have you on the show.
Dudley Edmondson:
Great to be here.
Shelby Stanger:
So, I'm really curious. I don't think of Minnesota, I know it's the land of 10,000 lakes, but I never thought of it as the place to be a birder.
Dudley Edmondson:
Well, I mean, Minnesota is a huge state, and I originally came here to be a professional nature photographer, and so I felt like I wanted to live in a place where nature was very accessible. I wouldn't have to work as hard as I had to in Columbus. You had to drive a couple of hours to Lake Erie, and there really wasn't any "wilderness" in Ohio, at least that I would consider. But where I live here in northern Minnesota, about 150, 180 miles or so south of the Canadian border, I mean wilderness is everywhere. It's within walking distance.
Shelby Stanger:
How did you get into birding?
Dudley Edmondson:
I got into birds of prey in junior high school, doing book reports on birds, the Philippine eagles, harpy eagles, all of those amazing birds. And then my art teacher at the time, gentleman named Charles Gamble, had a bird club and he wanted to have us raise money so that we could go down to South Texas and see things like whooping cranes and all of the species that are specific to that area. And so we sold suckers and frisbees to all the high school kids and try to raise some cash for gas money to drive his beat up old Toyota Corolla down to South Texas, Padre Island area, and I got hooked on birds at that time.
Shelby Stanger:
What's a typical birding session for you look like? Or even a birding season?
Dudley Edmondson:
I don't bird specifically to bird as much as I once did. That is to say where I would get in my car and get my binoculars and drive to some destination and go birding. These days, most of my birding is either done from my yard, which is my number one spot. Or like I said, I'm fly-fishing, I'm looking for brook trout, but I'm also watching ospreys and eagles and herons. Or I'm making a run to the grocery store and there's bald eagles soaring over the parking lot or something like that. Birding has become an integral part of my life. It's not something that I necessarily set aside time to do, it's just, it's on all the time. If there's light in the sky and I'm outside, I'm birding.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. I love this because I think that there's this misconception that to bird, you've got to wear these khaki pants, get a binocular, have a book, and then you got to go somewhere. But you're saying you can do it outside at the coffee shop.
Dudley Edmondson:
Oh, you can do it anywhere. And I guess I should preface all this to say that a lot of that has to do with the fact that I've been birding 40 years, so I don't need to see every single mark and hear every sound because I have this Rolodex of images that is four decades old, and what happens is my brain just matches up what I'm seeing with the information that's already in my brain, and then, da da da da da, almost like jackpot in a slot machine and tells me that's a northern harrier.
Shelby Stanger:
What did you do to cultivate this knowledge?
Dudley Edmondson:
Repetitive. Just doing it all the time.
Shelby Stanger:
But do you take a book? I mean, you've gone from ...
Dudley Edmondson:
I used to. I used to take books with, I used to always carry binoculars, and then I also used to listen to, when I was going birding, driving to the location, I would listen to cassettes of bird calls or CDs that were birds that I would likely see when I got to where I was going to go.
Shelby Stanger:
One thing Dudley loves about these animals is knowing just how far they travel. A warbler he sees in northern Minnesota can be in South America in a matter of weeks or the golden eagles he spots from his backyard, they've traveled hundreds of miles from the prairies of Saskatchewan, Canada. It's almost like Dudley can travel vicariously through birds.
Do you have a fun or a memorable birding story that you can tell us?
Dudley Edmondson:
Well, just a couple of years ago, two or three years ago, there was a big invasion of common redpolls, which is a species of bird that nests in the Arctic, and they tend to start heading north towards the end of winter. And so here, in northern Minnesota, they pass through as they're heading back north and they eat thistle seed, and if you're lucky enough for them to find your feeders, they will come in the tens and sometimes the hundreds and eat seed literally until it's gone. And again, these birds are from the Arctic, so they're not very familiar with people and don't have a lot of fear.
And so they were in my backyard at my thistle feeders and I was able to actually sit on the ground in and amongst them and they would land on me. And I was able to get these amazing photographs. And one bird landed on the end of my camera lens and I had my glasses on like I do now, and it landed on the lens close enough that it could see its reflection in my reading glasses. And it stopped. And it looked like, "Who is that? Who is that looking back at me?" It clearly had never seen itself before, right? And so, I thought to myself, what is going through this bird's mind, that is seeing itself for the first time? What is it thinking? And again, this is like a foot from my nose. So it was a very unique and interesting view into the mind of a bird who's seeing itself for the very first time.
Shelby Stanger:
What do you love about birding?
Dudley Edmondson:
I am a person who craves knowledge, information, learning new things, and I think birds, there's such a variety, colorations, behaviors, habitats, that you're always learning something about them. And so having here in Minnesota, I want to say 500 or more different kinds of birds you can see here? Minnesota is an amazing state. I mean, we have everything from prickly pear cactus in the southwest corner to giant century plus old white pines in the north. And that variation in habitat gives you a lot of different kinds of birds that are possible to see. It's just the possibility of new information that birds offer. It's endless and therefore I can't stop.
Shelby Stanger:
What have birds taught you about yourself and life?
Dudley Edmondson:
That's a good question. I mean, I'm not sure I have an answer. I do know that birds make you feel like eternally hopeful? Birds are that they always seem to be cheerful, in a good mood and they just bring good vibes. And I think that that positive energy that birds tend to have is probably part of what attracts people to them. And to me also, there's just a level of familiarity with birds, but with nature in general. You get to the point where you know exactly what time of year it is based on what you're seeing based on the birds, the insects. I know Canadian tiger swallowtail butterflies tend to be some of the earliest butterflies and blackbirds tend to gather at a certain time of the year. I mean, almost you could literally tell time with nature.
Shelby Stanger:
When we come back. Dudley talks about his career as a nature photographer and cinematographer. He also tells us about his passion for sharing stories about Black, Indigenous and other people of color working and studying outside.
Over the last 40 years, Dudley Edmondson has become an expert birder and skilled outdoorsman. He guides birding trips in Texas, goes fly-fishing and is an experienced hiker. When Dudley started birding in high school, he never thought it would become more than a hobby. But spending so much time outside laid the groundwork for him to build a career as a nature photographer, cinematographer and author.
So your job is nature photographer as well as birder and author, is that right?
Dudley Edmondson:
I do filmmaking as well.
Shelby Stanger:
And filmmaker. Okay, so you do it all. How did you come to this career?
Dudley Edmondson:
I tend to be a guy who just, as I've said many times, I get bored easy, so I'm constantly coming up with new things, but always having that foundation. Nature and the environment has been my foundation for my entire adult life. There's a component of the out of doors and nature that's involved in everything I do. So as the photography, maybe you're familiar with the photography market, kind of slowed down just like the newspaper/magazine market slowed down because the technology and cameras improved, and so it kind of killed that photography market. So these days, mostly what I do is filmmaking.
Shelby Stanger:
Did you go to school for photography or film?
Dudley Edmondson:
No. If you want to call them skills, every skill I have is self-taught, and that is part of the fact that I understood early on that I was an experiential learner. I need to see things, I need to be hands-on with stuff to actually learn something. Reading a few paragraphs, nothing. But put it in my hand, show me how to do it, and then I can mimic that behavior or the motions and movements you're doing. And then I teach my brain. So I've always been that type of person who learns by doing, and that's how I taught myself photography and filmmaking, taught myself how to swim, watching numerous YouTube videos of Australian swimmers.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. Wait, back up. How old were you when you taught yourself how to swim?
Dudley Edmondson:
Probably in my 40s.
Shelby Stanger:
And you learned how to swim by watching YouTube videos?
Dudley Edmondson:
And then mimicking the behaviors and understanding that you need to push water in the opposite direction of where you want to go.
Shelby Stanger:
That's awesome. I'm always inspired by people who learn to swim or bike in their forties. Because learning things in your forties gets hard. But it's so rewarding when you do.
Dudley Edmondson:
I think so, definitely, because people are telling you at that point in your life, you might not be able to learn a whole lot more because your brain's older, but it's like, no, you can, I mean, learning is, at least to me, it's a lifelong thing and certainly is, I think, part of what helps me get up every day and feel great. Okay, what am I going to learn today? What am I going to teach myself today? I was learning about volcanoes before I came here, in Iceland and the eruptions and all of the cool things that happened in that process, and it's like, yep, I learned some new stuff today.
Shelby Stanger:
I'm curious with the photography and filmmaking, what are you enjoying documenting right now?
Dudley Edmondson:
I mean, getting the out-of-doors more ethnically and culturally diverse and getting voices of people of color heard in everything from conservation to outdoor recreation has been a huge passion of mine since my first book, The Black & Brown Faces in America's Wild Places that I wrote in 2006. And so I've been trying to expand that with storytelling, filmmaking, and so I'm always looking for stories of people that are doing amazing things in the out-of-doors. I'm finishing up my fourth book. It's called The People the Planet Needs Now. It's the perspectives and stories of roughly about 25 BIPOC scientists and environmental and social justice activists from around the world giving their perspectives on everything from climate change to industrial waste. And so that's really, I consider that to be really the next stage of my career is getting that book done and talking to people around the country about it, and hopefully in best-case scenario, bringing some of the storytellers with me and letting them tell their stories.
Shelby Stanger:
When Dudley started out, he was one of the only Black birders and nature photographers that he knew. That's part of why he spent his career focused on getting more people of color outside. In Dudley's new book, The People the Planet Needs Now, he features scientists, researchers and activists around the country, including previous Wild Ideas guest, Corina Newsome. Dudley hopes that by sharing these stories, more people of color feel encouraged to go after their own wild ideas in the outdoors.
So what's the advice that you give most often to aspiring birders, photographers?
Dudley Edmondson:
Just keep practicing, find the thing that you love to do and continue doing it. I mean, happiness seems to be a thing that as human beings we think is temporary. We think that bad things are normal, and happiness is like a cloud or mist that it just happens for a short period of time and then it goes away. And that is not true. You can be happy indefinitely, but you have to make sure that you do the work to make it happen. You can affect change in your life, and if happiness means that you're a beach bum and you wait tables in the winter or whatever, and then you surf all summer, then that's what it is. Just do it.
Shelby Stanger:
You calling me out, Dudley? I mean ...
Dudley Edmondson:
I just think that people should pursue their happiness more than they do. People chase money and prestige and these "achievements", and I think people should put more energy and effort into pursuing happiness and less about having a six-figure job and a three bedroom, two bath house. Although shelter and money is important, but happiness is also important.
Shelby Stanger:
Any advice to people who just want to live more wildly? Maybe they want to pursue a wild idea and have a wild career?
Dudley Edmondson:
I mean, I think the first thing that immediately comes to mind is get used to thinking differently and being potentially, temporarily, mentally or physically uncomfortable. We're so accustomed to being comfortable and being in, having the ability, really, to control our environments. I mean, I'm in a studio now talking to you, and I'm sure that we can make this room any temperature we wanted and in nature in the out-of-doors, you don't have that luxury. You have to dress for it or be uncomfortable, or die perhaps if you're really a bad planner. So I just feel like being uncomfortable and enjoying new experiences and just challenging yourself is part of it, because when you achieve the things that you wanted to achieve, it's so much more rewarding. I remember the very first time I started traveling back in the very, very early eighties, I would drive from my home in Columbus, Ohio to Chesapeake Bay to go bird watching and camp.
I didn't stay in hotels. I car camped. And at one point it dawned on me, I said, if you can survive on your own wits, sleeping in campgrounds in the woods and parks and things like that, if you can do all that on your own for 10 days in a row, what can't you do? I challenged myself and then I started to realize that if I can do this, I can do just about anything. And that's what I think adventure does is it teaches people how, surviving is maybe too simple, but you think more critically, you MacGyver stuff. It's like, well, I need shelter. My tent pole's busted, three days ago a windstorm came through, but I still have the tent. How do I make this work?
And so you just get to this point where you just become a really good problem solver. I think that's one of the things that adventure has taught me is my problem solving skills are huge because of just having had these experiences where, you know what? I'm out here. I can't go to Walmart. I can't change the channel or change the thermostat. I've got to find another layer. I've got to figure something out to make this thing work. I'm running out of Vienna sausages. And so you have to improvise and adapt, and that is what nature adventure teaches you is all of those amazing skills.
Shelby Stanger:
You can learn more about Dudley, his work and his books on his website, dudleyedmondson.com. You can also follow him on Instagram at dudley.edmondson. That's D-U-D-L-E-Y dot E-D-M-O-N-D-S-O-N. If you liked this episode, check out our interview with Corina Newsome, a friend of Dudley's who's also an incredibly enthusiastic birder. You can find the link to that episode in our show notes.
Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas and Sam Peers Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producers are Jenny Barber and Hanna Boyd. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby. As always, we love it when you follow the show. Take time to rate it and write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.