Jonathan Feakins

Jonathan Feakins’s first job out of university was as an Urban Park Ranger in the Bronx. While working out of the nature center at Van Cortlandt Park, he managed to win a copy of “How to Be a (Bad) Birdwatcher” from an essay contest at 10000birds.com. He did so by confessing that, three months earlier, he couldn’t tell a woodthrush from a woodchipper.

In the nearly twenty years since that wicked NYC summer, Jonathan has done pretty much anything that pays (and a lot that doesn’t). He’s strapped children into flight simulators at space camps, explained liver regeneration to squeamish visitors at anatomy museums, dissected mosquito ovaries in zoo basements, sailed tall ships along the Hudson, and cooked pancakes for senior citizens. He’s also spent more than a decade slinging used books for fun and profit (mostly the former).

Before a world-shuttering pandemic changed everything, Jonathan also wandered around a lot. He has guided volcano tours in Nicaragua, washed dishes in New Zealand, earned a largely-neglected master’s degree in Quebec, recorded oral history in Uganda, and witnessed the Northern Lights in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin. His photo is from when he visited Seoul’s Owl Museum while teaching English in Busan, South Korea.

Jonathan adores this world, learning more about it, and then enthusiastically sharing these discoveries with his fellow humans.