(gentle music) (whimsical music) - When my late father's eyesight was failing, he could no longer make out birds from his porch.

He called them little brown flitterooneys, and that's what birds are for many people: fast moving bundles of feathers.

A few, of course are well known if not always loved: crows, seagulls, pigeons, Canada geese, birds known for calling, honking, or prolific pooping.

But back in the day when bird watching was a new thing, there were a few people who were evangelical about our local birds, and one of them believed that learning the songs, habits, and plumage of local birds was not only a joy in itself, but a useful tool to becoming good citizens.

Meet Adelaide Lowry Pollock, Seattle's Bird Lady.

(birds chirping) (whimsical music) Today she would be an influencer, and one with serious credentials.

Pollock was a pioneer educator in Seattle.

She taught in one-room schools in the 1880s, and by the turn of the century, she was appointed principal of Queen Anne Grade School.

(gentle music) She was the first female principal in a graded Seattle public school.

Pollock was well-educated herself.

In addition to her teacher certificate, she was a graduate of Stanford University Phi Beta Kappa, and she got her master's degree from the University of Washington.

In the early 1900s, her school and its neighborhood were growing.

Most children at that time wouldn't advance much beyond fourth grade, so kids had to learn the three R's quickly, reading, writing, and arithmetic.

But at Pollock's school, you could add a B to the R's, for birds.

Pollock wanted her urban students to get out and study local nature.

(birds chirping) Birds attuned you to the environment.

A bird-friendly city was a good city, period.

So classes at the school took this to heart.

Students went on field trips around Queen Anne to identify and map bird nests.

They went birdwatching at Mount Pleasant, the local cemetery.

They read bird poetry and studied the habits of birds: hummingbirds, robins, flickers, wrens, juncos, even western bluebirds, which, back in the early 1900s, still nested in the city.

You didn't have fancy binoculars in those days, but you might use a pair of your mom's opera glasses.

And as Seattle grew, she wanted to build more housing, for birds.

Fourth grade classes were assigned to build bird houses that were friendly to local species.

The kids turned out all kinds, box houses, duplexes.

bungalows, and log cabins, fit for nesting songbirds.

(birds chirping) After some 18 years at the Queen Anne School, Pollock shipped out to do her bit in World War I, (suspenseful music) working with the Red Cross, YMCA and the US Army in France, schooling soldiers in citizenship.

She even managed to do a little birdwatching over there, befriending, for example, some nightingales.

When she returned to Seattle, she turned from administration to civic activism.

The city became her bird classroom.

She spoke about birds to civic groups, taught ornithology at the University of Washington.

She borrowed stuffed bird specimens, and played recordings of bird songs for her talks.

(bird chirping) She took youth groups like the Girl Scouts and Campfire Girls into the mountains and forests for birdwatching.

Newspapers nicknamed her Seattle's Bird Lady, but she called herself Bird Woman.

There were some large tomes about Washington birds, like the two volumes set by Dawson and Bull's, published in 1909.

Not exactly a reference guide you'd wanna lug into the field, but with excellent color plates.

She wrote two birding books of her own: "Excursions About Birdland" was the first in 1924, a pocket-sized guide to Western birds, printed in green ink and meant to be read before the campfire, but also containing key information for novice birders.

She also wrote a series of essays about her experiences with young people and nature, which she collected into an illustrated book in 1930, "Wings Over Land and Sea."

The book she wrote, quote, "seeks to initiate its readers into that increasing number of people who are seeking their pleasure in the study of nature and her feathered citizens."

Pollock was an educator of her times.

Historian Margaret Gribskov has described her as having all the qualities the Seattle School District looked for, including, quote, "decorous professionalism, American citizenry, patriotism, unfailing energy, Protestant beliefs, formal training, a liberal education, and spinsterhood."

Seattle female teachers had to be single in Pollock's day.

(gentle music) Back then, schools were seen as the front lines of turning an increasingly diverse population into assimilated Americans.

Pollock was on board with that.

If she saw birds as feathered citizens, she also wanted to shape a responsible and patriotic citizenry, albeit a mostly white one.

The group she spoke to were largely segregated.

She helped found the Seattle Audubon Society Chapter, which has recently changed its name due to John James Audubon's enslavement of Black people.

The Seattle group now calls itself Birds Connect Seattle, and hopes to diversify the white-dominated birding community.

(bird chirping) Ms. Pollock made a mark beyond birds.

She helped found a national organization of women in educational administration.

She co-founded a home for retired teachers who, as a group, had no pensions, and were chronically underpaid.

That became Ida Culver House.

Pollock retired there herself.

She died in 1938, doing what she loved, failed by a fatal stroke while birdwatching with a friend on Vashon Island.

(birds chirping) (gentle music) Gribskov laments that Pollock has mostly been lost to history, both because she was female, and because she was an educator.

Historians she observed have often overlooked women teachers, and community activities in their grand narratives, even if such things are foundational.

The historic West Queen Anne School still stands, but has been converted to high-end condos.

Teachers like Pollock were among the first residents in Queen Anne Hill's apartment boom of the early 20th century.

Today, many teachers can't afford to live in the city.

Birds aren't the only ones with a housing problem.

(gentle music) (birds chirping) For more on this episode, listen to the Mossback Podcast.

Just search for Mossback wherever you listen.