Thirty years in the making, the ‘ABC Bird Book’ becomes a reality for research assistant

When Howard Bruner’s son, Nathan Wren, was born, Bruner was inspired to put his artistic skills to work and create a nature book aimed for children.

Nathan Wren is now 27, and a business major at Oregon State University, and Bruner has finally completed his book.

Over the decades, however, the idea has transformed into the “ABC Bird Book,” an idea inspired by Nathan, who pointed out that among all of nature’s creatures, his dad loves birds the most.

Bruner was originally an art major but never completed his degree, instead becoming a builder. While living and working in Astoria, he began visiting schools and teaching nature courses to students.

“Back there I was the oddball naturalist in a resource dependent community,” he said.

Finally, his wife convinced Bruner to make teaching a career, because he was starting to spend more time in the classroom than he was doing contract work.

The family moved to Corvallis, where Bruner hoped to pursue a degree in education and then return to Astoria to implement a naturalist program in the schools.

However, fate intervened. The then School of Education at OSU was going through tumultuous times and was being absorbed into the College of Home Economics, and it appeared that getting a teaching degree wasn’t going to be the best idea.

Instead, Bruner discovered the botany department, which suited his love of nature.

After earning a bachelor’s degree, he pursued a master’s degree in natural resources by focusing on harlequin ducks, which allowed him to spend a lot of time with his favorite creatures, birds.

Now Bruner, 56, is a senior faculty research assistant in OSU’s forest science department, and spends his time keeping track of 100,000 research trees in plots around the Northwest and California. He visits the plots in the spring and summer, and works on his research in the fall and winter.

The job allows him to get out to nature, and in his spare time he takes oil paints and canvas into the woods, to paint landscapes.

“I’m trying to pick up a little of the energy that’s out there in my paintings,” Bruner said.

Landscapes can exhibit a bit of the energy one feels in a natural setting, he said.

When Bruner’s boss, Kari O’Connell, became pregnant, the news became the ready excuse for Bruner to finally complete his children’s book, so that he could give it as a present to the new baby, William.

“It’s the inspiration I needed,” Bruner said.

He spent his free time completing 26 oil paintings — one for each letter of the alphabet. Most of the illustrations are songbirds found on the West Coast. He used photographs and identification manuals as resources, but a life-long birder, he also used memory and instinct when painting the pictures.

“Some of them are Gestalt,” he said, so imbedded in his brain that he could sense when he made a beak too big, or perched a bird in an unnatural way.

The image that made him the most excited was his bird for the letter “I” — the Ivory billed woodpecker. That particular woodpecker had been thought extinct until scientists discovered one last year.

But it’s too hard for Bruner to pick out a favorite among his beloved birds, although he admits a preference for a striking, crimson-eyed Northwest native, the spotted towhee.

“Boy, I love birds,” he said. “I love all birds.”

While his book is self-published for now, he’s not discounting the hope to one day have it professionally published. But what’s important to him is that his work might somehow inspire kids to the love of birds he feels.

“What I’d love is that they get excited about birds,” he said.

By introducing children to the color and variety of the bird world, he said he hopes to get them “sparked” about our feathered friends, “so that they look at birds as more than just one thing.”

“And then of course,” he said, “that they learn their ABCs.”