Care Santos and the ornithologist obsessed with Shakespeare's birds

Thanks, albeit indirectly, to William Shakespeare, starlings have become one of the most hated birds in the United States. This invasive species was introduced to New York in the 19th century by an ornithologist who wanted to bring all the birds that the British playwright and poet had cited in his works from the Old Continent. Ironically, the only one that settled was one that only appeared in one line of Henry IV. The character in question responsible for such a feat was Eugene Schieffelin, from a good family, but who lived without much fanfare, so much so that no portrait of him has been preserved and the one on Wikipedia does not correspond to him. The writer Care Santos (Mataró, 1970) stumbled upon the life of this eccentric American during lockdown, when she was able to tackle the pile of books that always accumulates on her bedside table.

The book that told Schieffelin's madness was How Shakespeare Changed Everything and she had found it in one of her essential stops when she travels to New York each year, the chaotic Strand bookstore: "It cures me of everything." She was surprised to see that there was no book about the ornithologist and, although the documentation task seemed complicated, Santos had all the time in the world.

She got to work, waiting to be able to complete the story with one of the most important stages in her creative process, fieldwork. She had tickets for the spring three years ago, but the trip kept getting delayed. She didn't travel until the head of Ornithology at the New York Museum of Natural History, with whom she corresponded for research, told her that the worst was over. It was then that she was able to visit the places where the mysterious ornithologist had lived; little remained of them, like his house, now converted into a clothing store.

Care Santos had to use her imagination, also necessary to fill in the historical gaps left by Schieffelin. Although the other members of his family were very popular, he seemed not to have existed and was only given a little attention when he took an interest in Shakespeare's birds, with some brief news published in the press. "It's very frustrating, but at the same time it gives a lot of freedom," says the writer. She even had to talk to specialists to calculate how many starlings had been brought to the United States by ship, considering that 30 pairs arrived and managed to reproduce.

The first draft of El loco de los pájaros (Destino) or El boig dels ocells (Columna) was ready in 2020, but it has taken her a long time to finish it, especially considering that the author wrote it in Catalan and Spanish simultaneously. With the exception of the setting, the first time Santos treads it literarily, some of her usual ingredients appear, such as being based on a real case and, above all, being set in the 19th century. "I feel at home. I was born out of my time, I am a chronological error," she defends. Schieffelin's life could only ask for a lighthearted tone, while remaining very descriptive, traveling through New York, walking through Central Park or Fifth Avenue, as the author longed to do when she started writing.

As much as Schieffelin's life provides for a good laugh, Care Santos has caught his passion for ornithology. While she outlines her next novel, where she will return to Barcelona and jump a century, the writer, also known for her young adult books, has set up a nursery in the garden to attract birds. She knows the names of the species in Maresme and even goes on excursions with her daughter to look for the rarest ones.