TACOMA, Wash. — At the Dahlia Trial Garden in Tacoma's Point Defiance Park, most people come for the colors. Matt Kracht is here for the bees.
"Bees are fantastic," Kracht said. "They're really fascinating. They're fuzzy and cute and they sort of move in slow motion and they are super chill."
After spending a good part of the pandemic researching, sketching and painting these "buzzworthy sorcerers of the insect world," Kracht has published "OMFG, Bees!" A guidebook to all things bees.
"It's kind of a loving look at bees," Kracht said.
That might come as a surprise to those familiar with Kracht's previous best-selling field guides, "Dumb Birds."
"Let's face it," the book jacket reads, "birds are dumb and they never shut up."
Though Kracht doesn't really hate birds, he wrote and illustrated the guides like a cursing crank.
"There's a lot of foul language if you'll excuse the pun," Kracht laughed.
Both books try to convince the world that birds like the Canada Goose, in a word, suck.
"Thanks a lot Canada," Kracht wrote. "These <BLEEPS> are often considered pest species... Basically everything about these geese just makes you want to choke them."
For decades Kracht had a corporate job. Then in 2018 he became a professional bird hater, calling mallards dullards.
"If someone is feeding bread to a bunch of ducks at a park, chances are this bread hog is in the scuffle shoving other ducks out of the way to get it," he wrote. "It has a striking bottle green head and could be a very pretty bird if it just lost some weight. All that bread though."
"I was concerned initially that I would be hated by ornithologists, but actually they find a lot of humor in it," Kracht said. "So the only hate mail I get is about the cursing."
On a page devoted to <Bleep> Crows, Kracht wrote "Caw Caw Caw Caw Caw Caw Caw Caw Caw. That's pretty much it with these jerks."
In a way Kracht had been punching up with birds. With bees, during a pandemic, Kracht's cranky character just no longer seemed to fit.
"I wanted to do something that felt more positive," Kracht said. "Also I didn't want to beat up on bees because they're struggling right now. All the pollinators are."
"I think we can all agree these chunky little fudge balls are freaking adorable," he wrote, displaying a new, more tolerant author's voice.
It seems like a pretty good life. Visiting gardens and knocking out best sellers. Matt Kracht has no complaints.
"Life is good," Kracht said. "The birds and the bees have been good to me."
KING 5's Evening celebrates the Northwest. Contact us: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Email.