Watch Reasons to Celebrate: A Joy-filled Auction & Conversation with J. Drew Lanham

Thank you to everyone who attended BirdNote's 2025 year-end event, featuring ornithologist, poet, and MacArthur Fellow J. Drew Lanham, PhD, CWB (Certified Wildlife Biologist).

Together, we reflected on BirdNote’s impact over 20 years, shared stories of radical joy, and celebrated the power of storytelling to inspire action for birds. We also revealed the results of our From Love to Action survey — including the incredible milestone that BirdNote has inspired over 1 million actions for birds! Read more here. And, a special thank you to musician Jocelyn Mackenzie for her special musical performance!

If you missed the event or would like to relive the hour, you can watch the recording and be inspired by the power of storytelling. All proceeds from this event support BirdNote's mission to inspire people to take action for birds and our shared environment. To support BirdNote's storytelling, visit this link to give a gift.

About our Guests

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Dr. J. Drew Lanham received a BA (1988), an MS (1990), and a PhD (1997) from Clemson University, where he is currently Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Master Teacher in the Forestry and Environmental Conservation Department.

Lanham is also a 2022 MacArthur Fellow, an inaugural fellow of the Audubon-Toyota Together Green Initiative and is an Advisory Council member of the North American Association for Environmental Education. He is also an emeritus member of BirdNote’s Board of Directors.

He's most recently authored the book of poetry, Joy is the Justice We Give Ourselves. Lanham is the poet laureate of Edgefield, South Carolina, and the author ofother books such asThe Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature and Sparrow Envy, which received the Reed Award from the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Southern Book Prize, and was a finalist for the John Burroughs Medal.

He's also written Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts (2021) and has published in a variety of leading journals and media platforms, including Audubon, Orion, Vanity Fair, Forest Ecology and Management, Oxford American, Flycatcher, and Wilderness. And he's featured in several anthologies, including The Colors of Nature, State of the Heart, Bartram’s Living Legacy, and Carolina Writers at Home.  

^{Photo Credit: Dudley Edmundson}

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Jocelyn Mackenzie is a Brooklyn-based musician, maker, and medium who creates intimate pop songs for a generation of seekers. A "hyper-creative" according to Broadway World, her diverse yet integrated skills inherently inform one another and are inextricably intermingled in her creative process. Mackenzie released her debut full length solo album PUSH on Ani DiFranco's label Righteous Babe Records in 2021, which Under the Radar described as "triumphant, spirited, powerful, and jubilant." She now has several releases on Righteous Babe, including latest live record “COME ON” released in 2024. Joined on stage by her husband, bandmate, and collaborator Harry Bolles, their shape-shifting sound is at once personal and universal. At her core, Mackenzie's extra-sensory skills inform her songwriting and visual art, integrating media and meaning to create work that is both sensual and personal.