Birding is rarely spoken in the same breath as rock n' roll, but 91.7 WMSE station manager Tom Crawford is one of the city's biggest champions of both passions.
Crawford, the tattooed and broad-shouldered tower of a man responsible for the immense growth and success of the listener-supported radio station in his 27 years there has also been an avid bird watcher since childhood.
When he's not busy keeping the city's airwaves safe for independent radio, he's often out pursuing his other quieter hobby, one he says has been as constant and fulfilling in his life as his love of music.
OnMilwaukee.com: How long have you been a birder?
Tom Crawford: Since I was about 10, 11 years old.
OMC: Did you start out going out with your family?
TC: I just always had a profound interest in science, from as early as I can remember. My mother was a chemist so I mean it was pretty pervasive. We had to learn the table of the elements. We had to know all the state capitals. We had to know all the world capitals, the country, the continents. We had to know the difference between mammals and insects and birds.
I remember being 6 or 7 and I would never kill bugs or flies, I would just catch them and let them go and she thought that was really strange. And then one day I came home with a spider in a mayonnaise jar and said "Look this is really pretty what I brought home." So she cut holes in the mayonnaise jar and put in a stick and the spider laid an egg and little spiders crawled out of the holes in the mayonnaise jar, and I have always kind of been that way.
In fourth grade I was given a book about birds and then it just went on from there. The turning point was being in sixth grade and a kid that lived in our neighborhood's dad was the head of the Milwaukee Public Museum. We got to get behind the scenes and see the collections.
Back then they were holding these classes for kids and one of them was in microbiology and the other was in birding and you went on two birding trips. You went to the federal bird banding preserve in Manitowoc and the other one was to Horicon Marsh. You could go like two weekends during migration season ... Because I knew the director and his kid they let us go both days. Both weekends for the price of one, and it changed my life.
It's like two and a half miles of mist nets hung through the forest and the birds fly through there into the mist nets and it enraptures them. They can't really struggle. It doesn't strangle them. You just go in, figure out what species it is, put on the band and let the birds go.
OMC: Was there a particular bird on that first trip that you saw that stands out to you?
TC: It was a warbler called a Redstart. And I was just like "How amazing." And I saw a Redstart in a book and I thought here is this bird with these beautiful blacks and oranges and reds. It looks like it's half on fire and half painted black. It looks like Jackson Pollock only had orange and tried to paint a black bird that was running away from him. And I thought "This is the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen." And next thing you know I am holding it ... That was the coolest thing in the world.
And then when we went to Horicon Marsh That just solidified bird watching for me. Immediately that Christmas I told my mother "'Birds of North America' this is the book. Don't get me anything else." I just kept repeating myself, "Birds of North America," "Birds of North America." So you know of course this big beautiful hard bound book shows up, and I have just been doing it ever since.
OMC: Do you keep a "life book" of all the birds you've spotted?
TC: My life book is a combination of scraps of paper that are in boxes or bags or books or on tables. I occasionally write things down. I am not that together. It's a combination of where all my field guides are, what I wrote in them, to my tabs, to losing a book with a life list in it to a divorce.
It's up here. (pointing to head). I'm not that thorough. I have my life list. I know what I want to see. It's in my head.
A life bird is Tom Waits. A life bird is a ride in a '63 split-window 427 Corvette at 110 miles per hour. It's kissing the girl. There are so many life bird experiences, and I think that to me came later in life to be able to have the list.
People call it the bucket list. Bull sh!t. I think a life bird is more of a positive thing. Why don't you just call your list the sh!t I should do before I die. Life bird is things that I've achieved. It's really profound if I've checked something off my list.
OMC: What do you get out of the experience of going out and birding?
TC: Part of it is the serenity that the experience brings. Part of it is hoping to see something that has never been seen before. There is a certain competitive side to it; who saw what, and when, and where. And part of it is just being outside and not being inside, experiencing nature.
Milwaukee is a very beautiful and profound place to bird watch, and people scratch their head and go 'Urban center? A place to bird watch?' And it's amazing.
I got away from it for a while and got drawn back in like 1998, 1999 I really got back into it heavy and ran into some people and one of the guys was working on the "Wisconsin Breeding Bird Atlas." They divided the state up into these quadrants and there was a certain amount of people that literally had to report and detail their findings and keep diaries of all their findings. Then the Department of Natural Resources put it all into a book to show trends about migrations and the growth and depletion of species.
I got to hang around with and still do like four of the best birders in the state. Sometimes I don't feel I am capable or qualified to carry their field glasses to a watching, but at times I'm just honored to be in their presence. Because every time I am with them it's an amazing learning experience. So part of birdwatching is being with the right people and being with knowledgeable people. And never be afraid to ask questions. And questions -- whatever -- dumb, smart, good, just ask questions and that's definitely how you get better.
OMC: How often do you get a chance to go birding?
TC: Everyday. Is it like out with the glasses sitting for an hour? It's like "Oh. So that's how he spends his time. He's not running a radio station, he's out by the lakefront." No, it's not like that.
You get up in the morning and you drive to work. I can go two ways to work. There is one major way. It's like go down the street and go to work. I instead choose to go up through South Shore Park, drive the entire length of South Shore Park. Look out above the water every single morning on my way to work and get up, drive it all the way to where the Coast Guard impoundment is, get on I-794 there and then literally take the slow lane while constantly looking to see what's in the water. Or see what's sitting on top of the cargo terminals or get an eye for gulls. Look at the Double-Crested Cormorants as they sit along the petroleum pier lights in the summer time and sun themselves.
I do that on purpose and the main reason is the lake is just a place of amazing serenity that will just kind of set your morning and your day to kind of a very peaceful and amazing beginning. But at the same time I am always out looking for birds.
TC: Not yet. I will do that very soon. I was in a discussion with someone who is a bird watcher and she asked me what my first bird tattoo would be. Here are my leading candidates. There is only a handful that I would do. A crow is the first one for sure. The crow is the most amazing bird.
OMC: What do you find so appealing about the crow?
TC: It was cemented for me when I was 14 years old. A friend and I were walking down the street. We went to the grocery store and bought a pound of cherries and we were going to go down and walk down by the lake.
We were just kind of hanging out and drinking sodas. We knew these two women at the corner store and they knew us and we were still kind of kids. You were 14 but kind of at that age where it was like "I am not a kid," "Yeah you're a kid." We're walking and there is this house that's on Superior and Oklahoma and it's on a triangle. It's one of only like three houses on this short block but it takes up the majority of the block and the guy who owned this house was a character and his name was Pierre.
Pierre had a wooden roof that completely molded over. He had trees all around his brick home and one of the trees was a cherry tree. And we were walking past there and we see Pierre. We called him Pierre because he wore a beret and that got to be his nickname. He always had the beret and a scarf. And sure enough he is sitting out there and he goes "My crow" and we look at the cherries that are on the ground. He goes, "I'll call my crow over here." His crow just hangs around the house and comes when he calls it. He calls his crow over and he says "Throw a cherry on the ground, watch him, watch how smart he is." So we throw a cherry on the ground. The crow grabs it, flies up and drops the cherry. Breaks the cherry open and just takes out the pit and eats the cherry and sits there waiting for us.
He goes 'Throw another one on the ground kid' The crow instead of pecking, pecking, pecking, had figured out that if you drop the cherry the cleaner the seed will come out. He ate like maybe a dozen cherries and then flew off. The best part was though, that crow the next couple years we'd go back with a bag of cherries and feed Pierre's crow.
It was the coolest thing and then later in life I got to work at an animal rehabilitation place for a while and the person that handled the raptors we got into a discussion about crows and she had studied them and done some research work on them. And I just found our conversation were just fascinating.
And my name is Crawford and Crawford in old and middle English means at the crossing of the crow. So there is a little namesake there as well.
OMC: Do you have any advice for people looking to get into birding?
TC: I think a great starting point is a book. Just pick up a book.
And really keep your eyes open to what's around. It's probably the best way. The Schlitz Audubon Nature Center is a great place to go and get started and ask questions, because birding and birding tours are a big part of what Schlitz Audubon does. Riveredge Nature Center is awesome. Those guys are amazing. There are a lot of resources online where people can figure it out.
Milwaukee is really amazing because there is the Coast Guard impoundment ... That area, just that little Eco-system that is cemented off ... One of the things that I always tell people who are fledgling and who want to get into it is the best place to watch birds -- where more species have been seen than anywhere else in the State of Wisconsin -- is in the city of Milwaukee and its smaller than most city parks and it's the Coast Guard impoundment.
Birdwatching Magazine lists its 50 hot spots in America and the Coast Guard impoundment is always in the top 15 if not the top 10 in the country. Pre Sept. 11 you had trees there. There was a marsh. You had songbirds who were in the trees. You had shore birds who were by the water. You had ducks that would be outside the perimeter. I think there have been like over 340 species seen at the Coast Guard impoundment. And people don't know that ... People immediately say "Oh, it's got to be Horicon Marsh," but it's not.
OMC: Anything else you'd like to share about birding?
TC: If you see somebody bird watching don't be afraid to ask them questions, seriously, don't. Our lakefront, I think so many people take what it has and what it gives for granted;other than that it is something that's upsetting because you can't always swim in it.
I think sometimes our behavior toward the whole experience of our city being on that lake ... there is so much more than just the obvious recreational use. We are the problem of why the water is the way it is. But there is so much beauty that it provides and gives and one of the most amazing things is the birds and the amazing amount of species that it endlessly shows, gives and provides.
