BWD, North America’s premier popular magazine for birders, was conceived in January 2022, and came to life just a few months later, debuting with the May/June issue. Its cover featured a gorgeous Henslow’s sparrow, painted by Julie Zickefoose.
That magazine was not volume 1, issue 1, because it rose from the ashes of Bird Watcher’s Digest, which shuttered for financial reasons in December 2021. The final issue of Bird Watcher’s Digest to be printed was January/February 2022, which was Vol. 44, No. 3. Not knowing that the company was soon to fail, staff had prepared most of the March/April 2022 issue, and made it available to subscribers in digital form only, scrambling to produce it during their last week of work.
That storied little (digest size) magazine was beloved by many, and many hearts sank when it went under. BWD magazine is a different company with different owners and a much more eye-catching format, but the editorial team and many contributors joyfully and gratefully jumped on the new and better-built boat! The history of our predecessor, Bird Watcher’s Digest, is worth remembering, though, because where we came from is so important to where we are now and where we are going. It is a history worth keeping alive.
Genesis
Bird Watcher’s Digest was headquartered in Marietta, Ohio, home of Marietta College, where Elsa Ekenstierna and Bill Thompson Jr. were students in the mid 1950s. Both were amateur musicians, and they met when Elsa auditioned for Bill’s jazz band. He was a pianist, and she a singer with a husky, sexy, alto voice. He proposed after their first date, and she accepted. Elsa was originally from Bayonne, New Jersey; Bill’s family lived in Marietta Ohio.
After graduating from college in the late 1950s, they made their home in Pella, Iowa, when Bill accepted a position at Central College. Elsa gave birth to two sons a year apart—in 1962 and 1963: Bill Thompson III (BT3), and Andy Thompson. Bill’s grandmother Margaret Thompson claimed that his first word was “junco.” And BT3 swore that when he was a little boy—probably six years old or so—he saw a snowy owl one winter in a farm field near their rural home. He was amazed, enthralled! It was his first memory of seeing a bird—any bird. At age 6, BT3 spotted his spark bird. That’s when he realized that birds are really cool.
A few years later, Billy and Andy were joined by a baby sister, Laura. Their dad accepted a position with the Marietta College administration, so the family returned to Marietta. By then, the early ’70s, most of Bill’s and Elsa’s college pals had moved away, and other than Bill’s mother and aunt, they really didn’t know too many people or have many close friends.
There was, however, a weekly column in the local newspaper, the Marietta Times, titled Birds I View, written by a local birder named Pat Murphy. Elsa enjoyed reading the column and eventually decided to go on an outing with the Betsey Birders, the local birding club. She was instantly smitten with birds and birding, and made close friends with members of the group. Pat Murphy became the birding mentor to the Thompson family. Pat’s enthusiasm for bird watching was infectious, and soon young Billy and Andy were going birding with the mostly middle-aged women in the club. The boys took to birding like fish to water. They learned bird sounds faster than the adults in the group, and they were eager learners about all things bird. By his pre-teens, BT3 was already a serious birder.
Like their parents, Billy and Andy were musicians and clearly had an ear and aptitude for sound. Music was a big part of the Thompson family, and live music was part of their daily lives and frequent parties. Billy and Andy both learned to play guitar, and Bill learned bass guitar, as well, so he could accompany his parents on jazz standards.
Elsa, Billy, and Andy went birding just about every weekend. It took Bill Jr., a few years to get bitten by the birding bug, but he did eventually when, on a family outing, he spotted and correctly identified a sora. That did it for him, and birding became a family affair.
By the mid-1970s, all three Thompson kids were in school, and Elsa was bored, feeling tied to the kitchen. She needed something to occupy her lonesome days. She was a fantastic cook and toyed with the idea of opening a restaurant. But after a fabled family meeting in which they discussed the wisdom of opening a restaurant or starting a goat farm, they decided to try to fill an empty niche by creating a popular magazine for bird watchers.
To be accurate, Audubon Magazine was in existence at the time, serving as a communication platform for the nonprofit, membership-based National Audubon Society; and what is now the American Birding Association’s Birding magazine was an eight-fold newsletter for ABA members. There were other publications at the time that served membership-based birding organizations, and there were certainly ornithological journals and local bird-club newsletters, but in 1978, there were no popular magazines devoted solely to birding. None.
Publishing a magazine from scratch meant that the family retirement fund and college savings accounts for all three kids had to be diverted into this venture. The family of five, including Laura, who was about 10 at the time, voted unanimously in favor of starting a magazine for bird watchers.
Elsa and Bill Jr., along with Marietta College journalism professor William Sheppard and Marietta Times newspaper columnist Pat Murphy, hatched a plan to create a birding magazine, and in September 1978, Volume 1, Number 1 of Bird Watcher’s Digest was produced in the Thompson family home on Warren Street, in Marietta, Ohio.
It was truly a digest, and almost all of its content was reprinted from other sources. At the time, dozens of newspapers across the county published birding columns, and the Thompsons subscribed to an aggregation service—a clipping service—that would mail paper copies of all birding columns, magazine articles, and newsletter stories about birds and bird watching. Every month, Elsa, BT2, Pat, and the first and longtime editor of Bird Watcher’s Digest, Mary Beacom Bowers, pored over all those stories, picking the best ones for reprinting in Bird Watcher’s Digest.
On the cover of Volume 1, Number 1, of Bird Watcher’s Digest is a price of $1.50, but the Thompsons printed and mailed 34,000 copies of this debut issue for free, including to every subscriber of the Marietta Times newspaper, and to birding columnists and bird clubs across the country. A pull-out postcard in the back of the first issue offered subscriptions for $7 per year (six issues).
That a magazine with global distribution was being produced in Marietta was big news locally. Bill Thompson III, a high-schooler and an avid birder, recalls being teased for his family’s new venture. He told the story of sitting in class one warm spring day when the classroom’s windows were open (Marietta High School had no air conditioning at that time) and he was distracted by the song of a familiar bird. His teacher noticed him perk up and look outside.
“Mr. Thompson,” said the teacher condescendingly, “Is that a bird you hear out there?” Bill said it was. “Well, what kind of bird, Mr. Thompson? Share your bird knowledge with the rest of us.” Bill said he thought to himself, Why, why, why does it have to be a tufted titmouse? Should I lie, and pretend it’s something else? “It’s a tufted titmouse,” he mumbled softly. “What’s that?” the teacher persisted. “It’s a tufted titmouse!” Bill nearly shouted. The class erupted in laughter. “A tufted TITmouse?” repeated the teacher. “Well, Mr. Thompson, tell me: Have you ever seen one of these tufted TITmouses? Or maybe a pair of them?” I can only imagine how red Bill turned as a 16-year-old, but a few decades later, it’s a story he shared in good humor.
Bird Watcher’s Digest operated in the Thompson family living room and den for four years. Then, Bill and Elsa moved the business into the second floor of an office building a few miles away, on Acme Street in Marietta. Eventually, they bought that building and took over every room, including installing a mainframe computer to handle the subscriber database. That machine that filled an entire office. It took a crane, lifting it through the window, to install the behemoth.
BT3 Returns to His Roots
Bill, then Andy, and later, Laura went off to college, grateful for scholarships and jobs. Bill’s first real job out of college was at Ogilvie and Mather, a public relations firm in New York City. Even though far from his family, he kept on birding, and recalled birding in Central Park, and nearly getting mugged. The perpetrator approached him from behind and demanded Bill’s wallet. He reached into his pocket with his left hand as he turned toward the thug, and with his right hand, swung his heavy binoculars at his assailant. Bill knocked the thief to the ground, then took off running. That incident did not deter him from birding in Central Park.
In the September/October 1985 issue of Bird Watcher’s Digest, the words of Bill Thompson III debuted in a story titled “A Birding Tour of Israel.” Some of the birders 23-year-old BT3 met on that Israel trip remained close friends for life.
In honor of the 10th anniversary issue ofthe magazine, the September/October 1988 issue, BT3 wrote his second article in the magazine, titled “A Bird Watcher’s Decade.” He asked some of the luminaries of birding at the time one question: “What has been the most significant or important development in bird watching during the last ten years?” Roger Tory Peterson, Donald and Lilian Stokes, Pete Dunne, and ornithologist Chandler Robbins, among others, provided answers. By then, BT3 himself was on his way to becoming a luminary in the world of birding.
On the masthead of that issue, Bill Thompson III was listed as an editorial associate. It was his toe in the door of joining the family business. In the May/June 1990 issue, Bill Thompson III, is listed as managing editor, working under Mary Beacom Bowers, who had served as editor since the second issue. BT3 moved to Baltimore to work with Mary. By 1992, Bill was back in the Marietta area, taking on more editorial and outreach duties all the time. With Mary’s retirement announcement in the March/April 1995 issue, BT3 became editor.
Meanwhile, the cover of the November/December 1986 issue of Bird Watcher’s Digest featured a painting of a ruby-crowned kinglet by Julie Zickefoose, the first of dozens of Julie’s artworks to grace the covers. In the May/June 1988 issue, Julie’s story “Magnolia Morning” and her painting of a Magnolia Warbler appeared inside the issue. It was her first exposure in a national magazine. In honor of the 30th anniversary of the magazine, Julie’s column, True Nature, debuted in the September/October 2008 issue, and it continues today—in BWD magazine. Julie and BT3 were married on September 11, 1993, having forged a connection when Bill talked her into painting redpolls for the magazine’s cover in 1991.
In the early 1990s, Andy Thompson came aboard as an advertising assistant, then director of advertising, then as vice president for advertising and marketing, and in the early 2000s, his parents anointed him publisher. Eventually, Laura Thompson became circulation director, so all five members of the Thompson family had some role in the company and in the magazine. But really, Elsa Thompson was the originator and matriarch of the company. Bill Thompson Jr. died in 2011, but by then Bill Thompson III was steering the ship. After Elsa, BT3 was the heart and soul, the visionary of the company.
In 1997, BT3’s first book was published, Bird Watching for Dummies, and it became one of the best-selling titles in the For Dummies series.
A sidenote: In the 1990s, Jessica Vaughan, an English major at Marietta College, served as an editorial intern at the magazine—one of many, but BT3 thought her special enough to acknowledge her in Bird Watching for Dummies. Truly, she was an intern for the ages. He long hoped that someday she’d join the staff in a permanent position. Remember this paragraph!
BT3 started cranking out books, including Bird Homes and Habitats, The Young Birder’s Guide, and The New Birder’s Guide (both part of Houghton Mifflin’s Peterson Field Guides series), Identifying and Feeding Birds, Hummingbirds and Butterflies (coauthor), Identify Yourself (coauthor), regional backyard guides for the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, and West; and Bird Watcher’s Digest began publishing booklets, totaling 14 titles, including Enjoying Bluebirds More, by Julie Zickefoose; Enjoying Purple Martins More; and Enjoying Squirrels More (or Less), the title of which Jimmy Fallon found funny enough to feature on his Late Night show.The booklet series ushered in a booming period for the business. WalMart carried many of those titles for several years, as did Wild Birds Unlimited stores and independent wild bird-feeding stores across North America.
Bill became well-known and well-respected in the birding community, a frequent and popular keynote presenter at birding festivals across the country and around the world, an A-list birder, and an amazing birding guide. His fun and funny contributions to the magazine made subscribers to Bird Watcher’s Digest feel like they knew him, like he was a good friend.At some point in the 1980s, Bird Watcher’s Digest began producing a second periodical, Backyard Birding News, six times a year in months alternating with its flagship magazine. This subsidiary effort eventually evolved into Watching Backyard Birds, which was more of a small magazine than its newsletter-style predecessor. A fun feature of WBB was Birdsquatch, a figment of BT3’s slightly warped imagination. Birdsquatch answered backyard bird Q-and-As in his unique, hairy, and slightly stinky way.
The new millennium brought new ideas, including becoming the host and sponsor of the Midwest Birding Symposium, e-newsletters, blogs, and podcasts, expos and tours, all intended to connect birders with each other and with birding companies: optics manufacturers, tour groups, and birding destinations. Modeled after the British Birdwatching Fair, BT3 imagined and brought to life the American Birding Expo first in Columbus, Ohio, and then in Philadelphia, calling it “The World of Birding in One Place.” Vendors attended from across North America and around the world. During this busy time, Jessica Vaughan reconnected with the magazine, and became a freelance editor, proofreading each issue before it went to press.
“Bird Watcher’s Digest is more than a magazine,” BT3 liked to say. Bill operated under the conventional wisdom that more and diverse income streams would help support the core business. However, all these ventures took valuable staff time, and added to an almost unimaginable load of responsibility, most of which rested on BT3’s broad shoulders. Ultimately, the side ventures contributed to the company’s financial demise. Such initiatives are costly, and therefore risky.
Bill lived and breathed for Bird Watcher’s Digest. When he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in December 2018, everything in his speeding orbit began to wobble. After an 11-week battle, Bill Thompson III died on March 25, 2019. I suspect that many of you who are reading this have met BT3; maybe you birded with him, or heard him speak or sing, or otherwise felt like you knew him through Bird Watcher’s Digest. On the morning Bill died, American Birding Association President Jeff Gordon and Board of Directors Vice-Chair Julie Davis presented him with the organization’s Roger Tory Peterson Award for Promoting the Cause of Birding. By all accounts, Bill contributed much to bird conservation and to the world of birding for many years, and his passing left a void that can never be filled.
A few days before he died, BT3 appointed me to be the editor of the magazine. I had served as managing editor since August 2013. I’d have much preferred to continue in that role, with BT3 as my beloved boss and mentor.
Exactly two months after Bill died, another tragedy struck. His mother, Elsa Ekenstierna Thompson, died in a fire that destroyed the Thompson family home in Marietta. With no founding family members left in the business, the company limped along for another couple of years, with the staff doing their best to loyally stay the course with Bird Watcher’s Digest and Watching Backyard Birds, to produce podcasts and e-newsletters.
When Covid-19 hit, most of the staff started working from home, and the decision to sell the Bird Watcher’s Digest office building on Acme Street seemed logical. Few of the staff knew the dire condition of the company’s finances. Suddenly, it all collapsed. Staff were laid off on December 24, 2021, making for a glum pandemic Christmas.
The birth of BWD Magazine
Thankfully, that’s not the end of the story. One of BT3’s dearest friends, Ben Lizdas, had a connection with Rich Luhr, publisher of Airstream Life, a niche magazine with a loyal following—similar to Bird Watcher’s Digest (but on solid financial ground). Rich heard about the failure of the magazine and thought it was a tragedy, but not being a birder, he wasn’t prepared to get involved by himself. Fortunately, through his wife, Rich was connected to Mike Sacopulos, who is an enthusiastic birder—and as a bonus, an attorney.
Within two months of Bird Watcher’s Digest’s demise, Ben contacted Jessica Vaughan—who was not willing to let the magazine die—and Julie, also on board, but treading carefully after an avalanche of loss.
Discussions ensued. Mike and Rich purchased the digital assets of Bird Watcher’s Digest, but not the company itself, and the editorial staff of Bird Watcher’s Digest were eager to pick up where they left off: Jessica Vaughan, editor; Julie Zickefoose, advising editor, cover art curator and True Nature columnist; Dawn Hewitt, managing editor and Spotlight columnist; and Bruce Wunderlich, photography editor and Birdtography columnist.
The last print issue of Bird Watcher’s Digest was the January/February 2022 issue; a digital edition of the March/April 2022 issue was cobbled together for subscribers. There was no May/June 2022 issue, but subscribers to Bird Watcher’s Digest were thrilled—some to tears, we’ve heard—to find a July/August 2022 issue of BWD magazine in their mailboxes, a phoenix, bigger and more colorful than the digest-size magazine they had loved. Columnists they loved, including Scott Weidensaul, Julie Zickefoose, Pete Dunne, Al Batt, and others, were back. The response was overwhelming, gratifying, and extremely encouraging. And here we (still) are.
See how we keep rolling: In early 2024, Wiley publishers sought out the editors of BWD magazine to update BT3’s 1997 book, Bird Watching for Dummies. Consider that in 1997, there was no eBird, no Merlin, no other birding apps, no cell phones, and digital cameras were prohibitively expensive. AOL and Usenet newsgroups were the way tech-savvy birders shared hot tips, but many still used landline-based birding hotlines or even phone trees to rare share bird sightings. Indeed, this book was clearly in need of major revision. And so, look for Bird Watching for Dummies, second edition, by Jessica Vaughan, Dawn Hewitt, and Julie Zickefoose, available April 15, 2025.
