Joe Cooney

by Madonna Luers

Joe Cooney remembers how a singing bird back in 2013 got him started as a bird enthusiast.

“My wife Catherine and I were walking my dog in a field not far from the Painted Rocks area near the Little Spokane River,” he said. There was a bird singing loudly and she asked, “I wonder what that bird is?” “I had no idea how to identify it, but googled “singing bird,” then “singing bird in Spokane,” then switched to YouTube and a few hours later stumbled across the Western Meadowlark. Despite that laborious way to identify a bird, I was hooked. We bought a pair of Vortex Diamondback binoculars and a bird identification book and set off to identify every bird in Spokane County.”

At first, they looked around lakes where easy-to-see ducks could be predictably found, but they only counted new species that they both saw. Their progress together was slow, identifying maybe 60 species over three years. Joe decided the plan was not working too well and set out on his own. They both agreed it was better to pursue their outdoor interests separately.

“I had no idea there were so many different birds,” Joe said. “Growing up in New York I knew Blue Jays, Cardinals, Crows, Sparrows, and Sea Gulls. I was amazed to learn there are a lot of gull species and none of them are named Sea Gulls.”

Joe was born in 1965 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, but grew up in Baldwin, New York on the south shore of Long Island. After high school he joined the U.S. Air Force with his first duty station in South Dakota. In 1993 he was transferred to the middle of the San Joaquin Valley of California and finally in 1995 he was stationed at Fairchild AFB and lived in Spokane after retiring from the USAF.

“In 2017 we moved to a cottage that Catherine owned in the Northern Neck region of Virgina near the tiny town of White Stone,” he said, “a lovely little spot on Mosquito Point, just across from Mosquito Island, five miles up the Rappahannock River from the Chesapeake Bay. It was just beautiful. I identified 131 bird species in our yard alone.” 

In 2021 Joe and Catherine moved back to the Spokane area and finally settled in Cheney. A year later their granddaughter Brooklyn came to live with them. That’s when Joe joined Spokane Audubon Society, something he said he was reluctant to do when they lived in Spokane earlier because he didn’t have confidence in his bird identification skills then.

“I was intimidated then by the thought of being around bird experts,” he recalled, “but of course I’ve realized that’s actually how you improve your birding skills.”

Joe was a member and had served on the board of the Northern Neck Audubon Society in Virginia and was the chapter’s president at the time they moved back to Spokane.  Now he participates in the Cheney and Spokane Christmas Bird Counts, the Great Backyard Bird Count, conducts two routes with the Winter Raptor Survey, and in May 2025 was elected to the Spokane Audubon Society board of directors.  But his favorite thing, “besides hanging out with my granddaughter,” is leading regular bird walks for the chapter at nearby Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge. 

“I like meeting new folks who are on their first bird walk and hopefully I don’t scare them away,” he said.  “I enjoy the whole comradery of it, like a quiet social event with intermittent talking about birds, or plants, or butterflies. I plan on doing them again this year with a little bit of a twist by adding Friday night walks as well as the Saturday morning ones.”

Joe says he doesn’t specifically travel just to bird, but if he’s on a trip he will find a few hours to “poke around for local birds.”  He has lots of memorable birding experiences though, like when he spotted his 250th bird, a Brown Creeper, climbing up his neighbor’s tree in Virginia.

“I remember that not for the species milestone nor the creeper,” he recalled, “but for the Sharp-shinned Hawk that chased a Blue Jay into the next tree over. The jay escaped and flew off, giving its best Red-Shouldered Hawk impersonation. That was just remarkable to witness.”

Another encounter he remembers that was “almost a spiritual experience” was seeing his first Snowy Owl at Lido Beach in New York where it stayed all winter in 1984. He now knows that Snowy owls are a sure winter sighting on the South Shore of Long Island near Jones Beach.

Another favorite experience was one of his first bird walks at George Washington’s birthplace in Virginia.  “The leaders and experienced birders on the trip were arguing over a dozen ducks on the water,” he recalled.  “Either the color was right, and the size was wrong or the size was right but the colors were off.  For 15 minutes they called out species until one of the guys stood up from his scope and exclaimed, ‘They’re just decoys!’  I knew then that I could relax and enjoy hanging around better birders.”

For its absurdity alone, Joe recalls driving out on Spokane County’s West Plains up on North Wood Road and coming across an Emu following a tractor in a field.  “I was aware it was an escaped bird and asked the guys in the field if they knew anybody who had an Emu farm but they did not,” he said. “I recorded it on eBird and I’m pretty sure I am the only birder in Spokane with an Emu on my list.”

Joe doesn’t really have a favorite bird, but he loves raptors.  He says he always roots for them because chasing down prey is “a hard way to make a living.”

His first tip for new birders is to purchase the best binoculars you can afford because a good pair will increase the experience of bird watching and last a lifetime.  While a cheap pair will leave you frustrated and then ultimately give up.  The second thing is to slow down.

“When I started, I would see a bird, look through the book, look at the bird, look at the book, finally get to the right section and look at the bird again and the bird was gone,” he said.  “I didn’t really take the time to think about size, shape, color, beak size and shape, leg length and color, and stand out markings like eye rings. When you slow down and consider these things, it’s easier to get to identification. Finally watching bird behavior really slows you down even more, but ultimately it speeds up your ability to identify a bird.”

Joe thinks more young people will become interested in birding if we meet and engage them where they’re at. Young kids can identify birds just by color. As they get older, you introduce them to species and incorporate various identification technologies, like eBird and Merlin. Good equipment is key.

“If they can’t see anything through the $25 binoculars you gave them, you have lost them and maybe forever,” he said.  “When you give them good binoculars where they can see things clearly, you just hooked them.” 

Joe believes the most important issue for the future of birds is citizen engagement and compromise.   

“Vote like birds’ lives depend on it because they do,” he said. “We also need to seek compromise in situations where it looks like all or nothing.”

He recalled the construction of the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel project in Virginia, where the federal government was allowing contractors to skirt the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and disregard nesting sea birds affected by construction. But citizens protested and a compromise was reached where new nesting islands were created and tern colonies were successfully drawn to the replacement with recorded calls.

“We need to preserve habitat in ways that everybody feels like they won,” he said. “Intolerance and all-or-nothing approaches are not the best way forward.”