Other Projects
In addition to writing books and painting bird portraits, I've been fortunate to work on a variety of other things. Here are a few of them.
I joined the National Audubon Society when I was 9 years old, and now have worked with them for more than 40 years. From 1984 to 1998 I was Associate Editor of their American Birds. Then I was invited to become a Field Editor for Audubon magazine, a position I have held ever since. It's an honor to work with this award-winning publication. Aside from behind-the-scenes editing work, I also write articles for the magazine and website, and write an occasional column called "Ask Kenn!" to answer bird-related questions from readers.
Example of an article here:
Example of "Ask Kenn!" column here:
Link to Audubon magazine is here:
Since 2014, my wife Kimberly Kaufman and I have been the official "birding experts" for the popular Birds & Blooms magazine. (Our counterpart on the "blooms" side is horticulture expert Melinda Myers.) The magazine is aimed squarely at beginners and backyard enthusiasts, but the editors are totally committed to providing nothing but accurate, high-quality content, and Kimberly and I are pleased to have this chance to communicate with the public.
A link to the magazine's website is here:
In 2011 I was contacted by filmmaker Rob Meyer, who had begun work on a feature-length film revolving around a group of teenaged birders. He was looking for someone to act as a consultant on bird-related details. Since I had been a teenaged birder myself years ago, this sounded like an intriguing project, and I happily agreed to offer advice.
Most of my involvement was by email or phone, but in summer 2012 I spent a couple of days on location with the crew in a state forest in Connecticut -- and I even wound up with a small cameo role in one scene. The film was released in April 2013: A Birder's Guide to Everything, starring Ben Kingsley, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Katie Chang. Kimberly and I attended the world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York.
The film got good reviews, and it's still available on various platforms and streaming services. More information about it on IMDb is at this link.
Paul William Davies (left), Uzo Aduba (center), and Kenn Kaufman at a screening of the first episode of The Residence at the Motion Picture Association in Washington, DC, in March 2025.
A Netflix comedy-drama series . . . a madcap murder mystery set in the White House? I never expected to be involved with anything like that. But the main character in The Residence is not only the world's greatest detective, she is also an avid birder. So I had the fun of joining the project as the birding consultant.
Paul William Davies, the creative genius behind the series, was determined to make the birding references accurate, so we had many conversations as he was developing the script. Uzo Aduba did a brilliant job starring as the detective / birder Cordelia Cupp. I wrote an essay about my experience working on the show, which you can find at this link.
The Bowerbird Collective is an internationally renowned creative musical force. They have produced hundreds of multimedia concerts in Australia (where they are based), the U.K., and North America. In May 2024, they came to Ohio to premiere a new work based on my book A Season on the Wind. Violinist Simone Slattery, cellist Anthony Albrecht, and vocalist Majel Connery performed the concert at the Biggest Week in American Birding festival and then at the Toledo Museum of Art before going on to multiple shows in California and elsewhere. It was one of the great honors of my life to have these musical geniuses responding to one of my books.