Dwain Vaughns II on Seeing Plane Physics in Birds

BirdNote^®

Dwain Vaughns II on Seeing Plane Physics in Birds

Written by Conor Gearin

This is BirdNote.

    [American Robin and other birds singing]

Dwain Vaughns, II, worked as a pilot for 11 years until he developed a rare chronic pain condition called complex regional pain syndrome after an accident.

Dwain Vaughns, II: From that, I was no longer able to fly. Everything I had worked for came to a screeching halt.

As part of a recreational therapy program, Dwain signed up for a birding trip, but that day he found himself struggling with a racing heart rate.

Dwain Vaughns, II: One of the things with CRPS is the more like my heart rate goes up, the more my pain goes up. I was sitting there with one of the volunteers, and she was like, well, you can also identify birds by just listening to them and whatnot. And I’m like, whatever, just kind of appeasing her.

They focused on a Carolina Wren.

    [Carolina Wren song]

Dwain Vaughns, II: By just sitting there and listening to the birds, it was lowering my heart rate — and my pain started going down. And so all of a sudden I developed this like really intimate relationship with the birds. They became this healing force for me.

And Dwain found that the birds reconnected him to his past as a pilot.

    [Red-tailed Hawk flight calls]

Dwain Vaughns, II: Especially like the birds of prey, coming down to maybe grab something on the water, and then you get that aircraft coming in for a landing kind of position. You know, you see the feet come out, like the landing gear. The wings, you know, bend back, and you get the flaps — the wing tips come up.

[Red-tailed Hawk flight call]

Dwain Vaughns, II: All of a sudden, my lives started to overlap.

These days, Dwain is a photographer — and you can see some of his excellent work on our website, BirdNote dot org. I’m Conor Gearin.

###

Senior Producer: John Kessler
Producer: Mark Bramhill
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Conor Gearin
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. American Robin ML569302931 recorded by Cormier Data, Carolina Wren ML325816941 recorded by Wil Hershberger, Osprey ML217862641 recorded by Wil Hershberger, Red-tailed Hawk ML136088011 recorded by Glenn Seeholzer

BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2023 BirdNote December 2023
Narrator: Conor Gearin

ID# vaughnsd-01-2023-12-14    vaughnsd-01