Birds Saved Melissa Hafting in a Time of Grief. She Wants to Save Them in Return.

It was the birds that got Melissa Hafting through. 

When Hafting—an ecologist, photographer, and lifelong birder—watched both of her parents pass away from illness in just over a year’s time, she struggled under the weight of her grief. But turning to the avian world helped her to keep moving forward. “After I lost my parents, I would go outside and not be able to see any beauty. The skies were darker, the world felt colder,” she writes in her recent book, Dare to Bird. “But when a bird appeared, it helped me to see there was still some light.”

The book, published in June, shares Hafting’s perspective on how birds can lift us up—and what we owe them in return. Her short essays are paired with selections of her photographs, showcasing a wide range of species near her home in Canada and far beyond. A Mountain Bluebird, a favorite of her mom's, reminds Hafting of happy memories the two shared in nature together. The Spotted Owl, nearly extinct in British Columbia after heavy logging of old-growth forests, connects Hafting to the importance of conserving bird habitat. And the ʻAkiapolaʻau, an elusive Hawaiian honeycreeper, represents the thrills of seeking rare birds.

Hafting is dedicated to sharing with others the joy she finds in birds: She runs British Columbia's Rare Bird Alert page, and in 2014 founded the BC Young Birders Program to build an inclusive community for tweens and teens interested in the hobby. And she’s passionate about supporting her avian neighbors in return—advocating for ethical bird photography practices, working on local conservation projects, and educating others about climate change and habitat destruction. For her, it’s the least we can do for creatures that bring us comfort and beauty. “Who knows how many tomorrows I have left in my life,” Hafting writes, “but all my tomorrows will be for the birds.”

Audubon spoke with Hafting about her book, her healing journey, and her work building a better future for birds and humans alike. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

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Audubon: I’d love to hear a little bit of the backstory of Dare to Bird. What led you to create this book? 

After my mother died, that's when I started to write this book, because I was going through tons of grief. My mom died from breast cancer in December 2021, on Christmas Eve. Grief just took so much out of me. You don't sleep, you don't eat, your stomach hurts—there's lots of physical stuff. I just found that birds were something that distracted me and gave me some peace of mind, and also allowed me to grieve in public. If you're crying, or if you're sad, the birds don't care.

And then, after my father died—he died suddenly in February 2023, on my mother's birthday—I had to add more to the book after that, because it was a whole new complex sort of grief. The book was intended to be a love letter to birds, explaining how birds have helped me in grief, how they could help others in troubling times they're going through. And not just focusing on sadness and negatives, but the joy that they bring to people and why it's important to save them.

Audubon: In the book, you share some of your memories of birding with your parents. What were those experiences like?

My dad was the first person to take me out looking at birds. I was 5 years old when he started. He bought me my first Golden Field Guide and took me to places like Reifel Bird Sanctuary in Delta, British Columbia. He taught me how to feed chickadees on my hand, so Black-capped Chickadees were my spark bird.

I loved to take my mom out birding. She wasn't a birder, but she loved to see certain birds. Before she died, I took her on a road trip. It was the last trip we ever did together. I took her up to this region in B.C. called the Cariboo region. She got to see so many bluebirds, Yellow-headed Blackbirds, and lots of ducks and waterfowl that were breeding. I loved that I could do that for her, even though she was very sick. She was mostly just car-birding because she could barely walk. 

She died at home, as [per] her wishes, and there was a hospital bed that was in the house. I put it by the window so that she could look at the birds in her yard. She could barely talk at this point, and you could still see that the birds were lifting her up right before she died—looking at Anna’s Hummingbirds, and yellow American Goldfinches. Birds bring joy to people right into the last moments. And I'm so grateful for them for bringing my mom some joy right before she passed.

Audubon: Photography is a huge part of the book. Could you talk about how bird photography became part of your life, in addition to birding?

Well, it's actually my dad, again, who gave me my first camera around 2014. I was mostly just taking little record shots on a point-and-shoot. But once my dad gave me a DSLR camera and lens, that got me into taking pictures of birds, and how much joy that can bring.

Now I just really love taking photos of birds, because it allows you to keep those memories of things that you saw. I have so many pictures that I took with my dad and mom present, and I'll never forget them now. It freezes the beauty in your mind.

Audubon: I also love this idea that you shared in the book, that birds themselves go through a lot of hardships, and they are resilient. What can we learn from them when we’re dealing with our own struggles and losses?

Birds are resilient. They go through terrible things in migration, and many of them still make it through to the other end. Their young get predated, and they keep going, they keep breeding. They have to struggle to find food.

It's a parallel to humans, who have to go through the same stuff, too—the prices of food increasing, loss and grief, tough migrations to find places that are better to live. I just want people to see the strength that's inside them to keep going when they feel like their world is shattered. They can see how birds keep going, too. Despite all these challenges, with climate change and everything affecting them, [birds are] still there. And that's why we need to keep protecting them so that we don't lose them completely, because the world would be a far more dark place without them.

Audubon: Could you talk a little bit about how you put those ideas into action, and what your work looks like around supporting birds?

I have started a Tree Swallow and a Purple Martin nest box project here [in Richmond, B.C.], and it's been successful in raising lots of chicks. We have not very many places for Tree Swallows and Purple Martins to nest naturally, so they need the help. I do a lot of education with the public about ways we can protect birds. I talk about it with the youth that I work with, and get them involved in volunteer projects. The youth have such a passion for conservation, which is really nice to see, because they're going to be the ones left to protect them when we're gone.

I did a big project, too, with rodenticide. I was part of a group here that got the province of B.C. to ban rodenticide use, and that was a long struggle, but we kept persevering. That's why I encourage people not to give up and to actually write your government officials about these things, because it can bring about change. Even though you feel sometimes powerless, you do have a power, and especially when people come together. We were seeing so many owls—Barn Owls, Barred Owls, Great Horned Owls—die from rodenticide. Hopefully this helps them. 

Audubon: You’ve done a lot of work also in making birding more inclusive as a hobby. How would you characterize where we're at with making birding feel welcoming to all kinds of people?

I think we still need a lot of work, because birding is still mostly white and male-dominated. But there's definitely way more education and awareness about barriers that BIPOC people go through, and LGBTQ+ people go through. And I also find that there's more active engagement of these groups of people—having walks for them, groups for them, trying to bring about the message of inclusivity.

That never was the case when I was a young child. I never saw anybody that looked like me. You're seeing many more women, and many more people of color now coming into the hobby, which is fantastic. The more people, the better, to protect birds. And birds are for everyone, you know. Nobody owns the birds. There's still lots of work to do to make people feel welcome, but I think we're definitely down the right path, finally.

Audubon: Where would you say you are on your journey with grief, after writing this book and putting it out into the world?

Well, grief is something that never goes away, to be honest. These people were so important to me. I loved them so much. And anybody who's gone through it knows that you never get over it. Birds have helped me to learn to live with my grief, to accept my grief, and to keep seeing the joy and beauty in the world. And that's why I'm so thankful for them.

Dare to Bird, by Melissa Hafting, 224 pages, $45.00. Available here from Rocky Mountain Books.