A ‘Mad Birder’ gets cuckoo

Luke Dempsey chronicles a life that’s for the birds

Although British-born writer Luke Dempsey, author of “A Supremely Bad Idea: Three Mad Birders and Their Quest to See It All” (Bloomsbury, $25), is cuckoo over birds, he isn’t as nuts as his subtitle suggests. Rather, he was as surprised by his spiral into the world of birding mania as you and I would be. We talked to Dempsey about his chronicle of falling in love with birds and the method to his so-called madness.

How did this little hobby of yours morph into a full-fledged obsession?
I had a house in Pennsylvania, and two friends who were into birds were staying over. When we would go out for walks, they would point out different kinds of birds. We saw this beautiful bird called a common yellowthroat. I had no idea that such a bird existed — that it nested in my yard. When I would be in New York during the week, I would sneak out in the morning to see what birds were there. I eventually found out where each bird was nesting, which tree they lived in and I was invested in knowing this. Then my friends told me that I could increase the number of birds I could see if I traveled, and by then, I had the bug.

So you traveled across the country, looking at birds. Totally normal.
In the book, I write that bird watching is a synonym for “completely unf---able.“ It’s so true.

Did you take notes during your travels?
No, the whole book is completely made up. I actually saw all the birds online. I’m the James Frey of birding! But no, I did keep a small journal of the crazy things that people said to me and all the incredibly mad people I met. A lot of the book is not about birds, really, but about an English guy discovering this beautiful country.

Does anything fun happen while birding? Like, say, drinking or dancing?
No. We start before dawn and leave after dusk and spend hours and hours standing in a field looking at birds, not talking. When we do talk, it’s about the next bird we might or might not see. Like I said, we’re crazy.