I shouldn’t be surprised at the intensity and duration of my grief at the demise of Bird Watcher’s Digest. It was BWD that brought me everything. I submitted my first cover painting, a ruby-crowned kinglet, in 1986, when I was 28, and no one could have been more excited than me when my first article, “Magnolia Morning,” was published in 1988. It was about being the only one awake in my sleeping dorm during final exams. I used to get up at daybreak and jump on my bike to go birding at Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Mass, but I couldn’t go that morning because I had a huge exam. And there in the dark hallway was a male magnolia warbler, fluttering around after coming in an open window. I caught him and held that perfectly stunning little being in my hand. I knocked on my friend Nick’s door to wake him up and show it to him before we went to the exam hall. And we let it go out the window. It was a moment of grace, and that moment moved me to write.
At that point, I figured I was a bird painter and illustrator for life, and writing was sort of a back burner thing. But being published in BWD changed things. I wrote a column for the magazine’s subsidiary publication, Watching Backyard Birds, for more than 20 years, and my first book, Letters from Eden, was a compilation of the best of those. Writing is a muscle, and only regular exercise will make it strong. BWD gave me that. I adored our first editor, Mary Beacom Bowers, a woman of arts and letters, with a refined grace that I strove to emulate as I read copy, scribbling things like, “This would curl a lot of reader hair” in the margins. And Mary, in her turn, advocated for my work. I’ll always be grateful for that. I finally got a column, “True Nature,” in the magazine proper in 2008.
Mary Beacom Bowers, the magazine's first editor, center, with Elsa and Bill Thompson Jr.
I woke up this morning thinking about that, and marveling that BWD’s first columnist was Roger Tory Peterson. Elsa and Bill thought to ask him, and he said yes, writing “All Things Reconsidered” and bringing his huge following to a modest little digest with big aspirations. At the peak of its popularity, perhaps in the mid 1990’s, BWD had 90,000 subscribers worldwide. Wonderful writing is much of the reason.
Kenn Kaufman wrote a terrific column for years, taking up Dr. Peterson’s banner. Al Batt sprinkled the magazine with folksy pixie dust. Alvaro Jaramillo taught bird identification so gracefully. Diane and Mike Porter conducted exhaustive optics reviews and roundups that were illuminating and helpful, and Diane’s writing was poetic and powerful. Paul Baicich rounded up always-fascinating bits of research and conservation news. Dr. David Bird intrigued and amused with his spritely writing on bird behavior. Mark Garland took reader questions to deeper levels, ever the illuminator. Pete Dunne imparted birding tips only a seasoned eagle-eye could. I greatly looked forward to reading each of Scott Weidensaul’s lyrically woven remembrances of a life spent in scientific inquiry. It’s been rich, so rich. BWD truly gathered a galaxy of stars, and I apologize to everyone I’ve not mentioned by name.
From there, I thought about how the magazine brought me everything else. After collaborating with him on a cover painting (his idea, my execution), I finally met Bill Thompson III in 1991—at the World Series of Birding in Cape May, NJ. He was there with a girlfriend (!) but was excited to meet me in person. Same. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be married, and I was pretty darn sure I didn’t want to have kids. In short order, he had talked me into both, plus a move to Appalachian Ohio. Yikes. We bought land and a house together in 1992, and were married in 1993. Such was the power of his persuasion. I am writing this under that same roof, and our wonderful kids are home for the holidays and still asleep. Ah, it’s so rich, to have created two such beings, and to see their father’s traits coming through, knowing that parts of him live on in them.
Maybe the magazine should have stopped when Bill did. It was his energy that kept it going all those years, anyway, always goading and leading, always networking and brainstorming and pulling, pulling, pulling, like an ox in the collar he pulled, with everything he had. Of course, he always had the support of a fantastic staff, comprised of amazingly dedicated, energetic, creative people who gave their all to keep it going. That thought is a snapshot of his commitment, his indispensability.
But here’s the thing. Nobody can tell someone who is dying that that his family's magazine will die with him. We all had to try to carry it forward. He had worked so blessed hard for most of his life to carry on his parents’ dream and business. His love of connecting people, his boundless energy and enthusiasm for helping people connect with birds and each other were a perfect match for the demands of the job. It was a job that became his entire identity. And his mom Elsa was still answering the phone, connecting graciously with subscribers, when a housefire took her life in May 2019, only two months after Bill left. I don’t think she ever tired of hearing the delight in subscribers’ voices when they realized they were speaking to The Elsa Thompson! So there was a legacy that the staff felt keenly was theirs to carry forward, as best they could.
BT3 and his mom Elsa, who thought the whole thing up in the first place.
August 2011, on our Indigo Hill.
The Bill's. Oh what sweet jazz they made together. How we miss their music!
So many times over the almost three decades he was working for the family business, I wished Bill could do something else, that is to say something that didn’t require his entire heart and psyche to keep afloat. It was never easy, and only for a few sparkling years during the Clinton administration was it profitable. Nor was it as simple as “If you have enough subscribers your magazine is successful, and you make money.” Ever. It was, “How are we going to deal with this latest increase in postage (paper, printing, fill in the blank…) How are we going to bring in more revenue just so we can keep printing and sending the magazine? How to pay this printing bill and still make payroll?” And so he swung deals and wrote books, and he got me to write parts of them for him, and the proceeds went to the magazine. I was briefly involved helping host Reader Rendezvous’, an idea hatched in 2014, until I realized it was more than I could take on and still hold down the fort at home. Somehow, the editorial and production staff split those duties and all that traveling and still managed to produce a bimonthly magazine! Superhumans.
My covers in chronological order, minus the most recent (yellow-billed cuckoo). There was an article accompanying each one.
As Contributing Editor, I stuck to writing my column, editing and painting covers, providing photos, bird ID’s, and answers to reader questions, acting as a one-stop bird factotum. I’d read each issue for spelling and grammar and scientific accuracy. Then I passed it on to Bill, and later to Dawn Hewitt, our delightful editor of recent years. And I am proud of that work, and my association with the magazine. For 35 of the 43 years it existed, I was contributing something. I was never officially on staff, but I stood beside these very fine people and supported them as best I could, especially in the last two years, when Bill, their idea factory and primary power source suddenly and sadly winked out. I’m proud of the 29 cover paintings I executed, proud of the thousands of words I wrote. Most of all I’m proud of a gallant staff that took a gut punch and somehow carried on for two more years, doing everything they could to carry on Bill’s and the Thompson family’s legacy. I am humbled and honored by their effort.
But now I am grieving. Instead of fading away, the shock of having it all end four days before Christmas, of seeing the staff receive the news that it was over, has only grown. I had a major article written and Cover # 30 on the drawing board when everything screeched to a halt. Please know this: Nobody among the staff saw this coming. Everything in me wants to soften the blow and make it better, but I have no way to do that. It’s taken me days to write this, because what I dread is making it worse. I have to accept that the magazine’s demise is out of my control, and trust that the myriad details of bringing the curtain down on this many-faceted operation will be worked out in time. That you’ll hear back about the trip you signed up for or the gift subscriptions you bought. The only thing I can really do is share my sadness with you. Thank you so much for subscribing and supporting BWD for so many years. As the last leaf on the original tree, I feel a sharp sense of duty, as if my longevity with this magazine carries a responsibility to reach out, to try to soften the blow for you.
This magazine started at a kitchen table in Marietta, Ohio 43 years ago, from the notion of a newly baptized birder (Elsa Thompson) who looked around and saw that there was no publication devoted to birding. She decided to fill that void. She pulled in my father-in-law Bill Jr., my husband Bill III, his brother Andy, and sister Laura along the way. And it was a good idea, and a great magazine they created. I remember when the galleys were printed out in column-sized chunks and passed through a machine that applied hot wax to the back. The waxed columns were then manually positioned on boards, and photographed to produce the spreads. Bill would come home with words stuck to his forearms sometimes after using an X-Acto knife to make corrections. And slowly it went digital, and was ever so much easier to edit and proof and correct. There have been so many changes for the better.
Now 2022 is taking its first tentative steps forward, and I’m holding the newly arrived Jan/Feb issue, Vol. 44, No. 3, in my hand. I took it out of its wrapper with reverence. It’s so beautiful, with a cover by ace photographer Bruce Wunderlich, our Production Director who just lost his dream job. That makes me deeply sad, as does knowing that there will be no more magazines coming. I loved the direction it was headed, with such rich potential for connecting even more people to the joy of birdwatching. I already miss Bird Watcher’s Digest, and the beautiful people who have worked so hard to carry it forward, more than I can say. Loss, we’ve had enough of you.
I haven’t been able to sleep much lately—there are far too many thoughts banging around in my head, needing to be let out. Writing this personal account of my time with the magazine has helped some. Perhaps, by sharing this history and just a few of the million complex and difficult feelings I have, then opening comments on the blog, I can give you a place to express yourselves as well. Closure is so very important, and I’m looking for a little by writing to you. Maybe you can find a little, writing back to me. Thank you so much.
Sunday, January 12, 2025
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