07-31: Remembering Tom Johnson
The American Birding Podcast
naswick
4.7 • 632 Ratings
🗓️ 3 August 2023
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The birding community is collectively mourning the recent loss of Cape May birder Tom Johnson. Tom was a world-renowned birder and a prodigious contributor to the ABA's media, with insightful articles, phenomenal photography, and occasional appearances on the American Birding Podcast. We've collected a few of his appearances here on the podcast and offer them in remembrance of his incredible influence on all of us with his amazing skill, his generous spirit, and his good humor. We at the ABA, along with his many friends in the birding world and beyond, will miss him very much.
If you have a Tom Johnson memory you'd like to share, please consider recording it on the voice recording app on your phone and send it to [email protected]. We'd love to collect them.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This episode of the American Birding podcast is sponsored by our friends at Biodo Books. |
| 0:03.8 | Remember that ABA members get a discount on all orders from Biodo Books. |
| 0:07.5 | You can check them out at BidioBooks.com. |
| 0:18.5 | Hello and welcome to the American Birding Podcast from the American Burning Association. I'm Nate Swick. |
| 0:24.3 | It's been just over a week since the burning community first heard the awful news about the unexpected death of Tom Johnson. |
| 0:32.8 | If you're not on social media, this might be the first you've heard of it, and if so, I'm sorry to be the bearer |
| 0:38.2 | of that bad news. It has been a period of collective mourning for a person who was a giant, |
| 0:43.5 | both literally and figuratively in our community and to many, perhaps the finest field birder in |
| 0:49.0 | North America. I didn't know Tom as well as some. I'd run into him on a couple occasions, and he had been a guest on this podcast a few times. |
| 0:58.1 | I knew him to be an exceptional person for about as many reasons as a human can be exceptional. |
| 1:04.7 | He was a white, hot, skilled, birder, and photographer, a thoughtful researcher, a profoundly curious and insightful thinker |
| 1:13.3 | about not only birds and bird identification, but the birding world in general. |
| 1:18.5 | And there have been a lot of social media tributes from his friends in the last week that |
| 1:23.0 | have touched on all these things. But the ones that resonate the most have to do with his humanity. |
| 1:29.0 | Because when you are as good at something as Tom was about birds, it's easy to have a little bit |
| 1:36.8 | of ego about it. It's not always intentional. It's just that when you know so much, you can come |
| 1:41.8 | off as haughty or intimidating. The thing about Tom is that |
| 1:45.2 | he never did, which is remarkable. I first met Tom at an ABA event in Philadelphia a few years |
| 1:53.1 | ago, and at the time, I had been an admirer from afar for some time. Tom's photography and |
| 1:58.9 | storytelling skills were exceptional, and I'll be honest, |
| 2:02.5 | seeing someone like that in the flesh can be a little daunting. Don't meet your heroes, right? |
| 2:07.7 | But Tom came right up to me and right off the bat told me how much he enjoyed the podcast, |
... |
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