Lili Taylor Leaps From Stage to Page With a Birdy New Memoir

Even at age 10, Lili Taylor had an eye for birds. She remembers doodling an advertisement for the birdseed sold at her dad’s hardware store—it featured a despondent-looking creature she dubbed “hungry bird.” But the Emmy-nominated actor didn’t start birding in earnest until around 20 years ago. Feeling depleted after more than two decades working on stage and screen, she left New York City for a respite at her house upstate. There, in “solitude and silence,” Taylor began to tune in to the avian dramas all around her. As she recounts in her new memoir, Turning to Birds, it was just the “oomph” she needed to return to her own demanding life.

The book, Taylor’s first, charts her blossoming as a birder, from a casual, out-the-window observer to a binocular-toting, festival-going enthusiast who puts up feeders wherever she’s sent on location. Taylor sees a kinship between birding and acting: Both require core skills of “listening, attention, and investigation.” Intriguingly, though, she describes her career mainly as a job like any other (apart from the unusual hours). Sure, she stars in television shows and Broadway plays—but birds, in Taylor’s telling, are far more glamorous. The celebrated thespian sounds starstruck when she describes witnessing the immense assembly of Sandhill Cranes on the Platte River or watching Chimney Swifts swirl down to roost at dusk.  

Taylor’s wonder has also led her to become an advocate—or as she likes to put it, an “ambassador”—for birds (she has been a National Audubon Society board member since 2016). “I’ve gotten really clear about what I love,” she told Audubon, “and I’m getting ideas about what I can do about that.” Sometimes she finds opportunities to help birds close to home, such as by filling her garden with native plants. But more and more often, Taylor is looking outward: contributing to community science, collaborating on Audubon’s Grammy-winning Birdsong Project and other creative efforts, and doing what she can to spread the word about the threats birds face. Her book is the latest step.

The occasional mention of other movie stars aside, Turning to Birds is a profoundly relatable story about falling in love with the avian world. Taylor initially doubts her species identification skills, then builds them up. She finds that birding is often more rewarding alongside friends. Taylor knows that getting into birds—or contemplating what we can do to protect them—can be overwhelming, so her book is approachable by design. “Keeping it simple and keeping it personal,” is how she describes her intent. “Here’s what I’ve been trying to do, and here’s where you can start.”

Turning to Birds by Lili Taylor, Crown, 208 pages, $30. Available here from Crown.

This story originally ran in the Summer 2025 issue as “Stage to Page.” To receive our print magazine, become a member by making a donation today.