Culture Study Podcast - How to Fall in Love with Birding

00:00:00.000 this is the culture study podcast and i'm ann helen peterson and i'm ryan goldberg journalist

00:00:12.100 and author of bird city adventures in new york's urban wilds so let's start out can you tell me

00:00:18.260 the story of your spark bird but also tell me what a spark bird is so a spark bird is the bird that

00:00:27.780 really catalyzes your your interest in birding it's sort of like you almost have like a before

00:00:35.900 and after moment and the spark bird is the bird that excites that moment it's the bird that once

00:00:41.700 you see that you think to yourself how have i not been seeing birds this whole time and it become

00:00:50.500 it's sort of like the start of your birding journey really begins that with that one bird

00:00:54.920 my spark bird is an eastern toey it's a type of sparrow it's sort of russet and black it's not

00:01:02.740 uncommon it's quite common in like the eastern half of the u.s and it kind of roots around in

00:01:08.300 the leaf litter and kicking around for bugs and things like that and i saw an eastern toey in the

00:01:16.460 spring of 2016 i was out birding actually with my aunt who had introduced me to it with my

00:01:23.000 girlfriend at the time now wife and also my parents my aunt in the family is like the

00:01:29.280 the or birder she's the one who's introduced all of us to it and so we were birding at a place just

00:01:35.380 outside new york city which is where i live in new jersey at a place called sandy hook and i saw this

00:01:41.460 eastern toey actually come out of the leaf litter where it normally resides and it perched up on a

00:01:48.200 little cedar tree and started singing and this bird was so it was a male because the male songbirds

00:01:53.940 are typically the ones that do the singing in the spring and so this toey was just giving it his all

00:01:59.000 he was like singing like his life depended on it and in a way it kind of did he's singing to

00:02:04.300 attract a mate and i just saw that bird up there beautiful colors and i was just sort of floored

00:02:11.240 by it and that was really was my spark bird and that kind of set off a spark a series of spark

00:02:17.560 experiences, really. I live in New York. And so I went home and was like, where can I go birding

00:02:24.480 in New York City? Is there any place to bird here? And as it turns out, there are amazing,

00:02:29.880 incredible, and many places to go birding. This is a great segue to my next question,

00:02:33.660 which is that I think a lot of people might assume that urban locales are not great places

00:02:38.980 to go birding. But as you point out, urban places, especially urban places that are coastal,

00:02:45.000 are incredible places to go birding and i'm trying to remember the stat in the book that like you can

00:02:51.640 basically see like half of the the birds in the united states in new york is that right yeah it's

00:02:57.760 a little less but it's sort of like a third of all the birds that have ever been seen in the united

00:03:02.480 states and that includes hawaii and alaska which gets birds that you don't see in the continental

00:03:07.320 u.s so new york has seen has a record of like about a third of all those species so somewhere

00:03:13.340 around like 430 species of birds have been seen in new york city well and also if you think about

00:03:19.360 it so first of all most of the people that i know who are deep down this rabbit hole are actually

00:03:24.120 from new york and i wonder if it's because and we'll talk more about this through the course of

00:03:28.660 the episode but i wonder if it's because there's just so much more infrastructure like there's

00:03:33.820 community there's people who know the places to go when you go to those places you see other people

00:03:38.800 you open the book with a story of doing counts and like what it's like to go birding with someone

00:03:45.400 else and then to like have someone else be like what did you see like that feeling of like other

00:03:49.860 people are doing this with you seems to be a part of it what do you think absolutely i would have

00:03:55.720 never imagined that new york would have this incredible community of naturalists and i'm

00:04:02.200 almost like i was about to say urban naturalists but they're just naturalists who happen to live

00:04:06.880 in a city the thing about new york and a lot of cities in general and especially coastal cities

00:04:12.880 so birds sort of often their age-old migration routes often run along you know well there's sort

00:04:19.820 of along the pacific along the atlantic and also like up the center of the country and and in fact

00:04:24.140 like the most birds in north america migrate up the center of the country but in cities there's

00:04:29.640 so much of the natural areas have been paved over so essentially when birds are migrating they're

00:04:34.740 getting funneled into the places that we've left for them you know the parks the cemeteries and

00:04:40.580 those places are almost mimicking the natural areas that would have been there before humans

00:04:45.560 totally eradicated the landscape and so the birds are getting funneled into these places

00:04:52.400 in new york city they actually it's sort of actually the phenomenon is called the central

00:04:56.720 park effect and it's that like essentially birds see all this concrete when they're migrating

00:05:02.860 and then they go to the green and it creates like situations of incredible concentration

00:05:08.960 and so in new york we have the most people the birds are getting funneled into a very small

00:05:16.160 percentage of the of the landscape and birders are seeing such incredible concentrations of birds

00:05:24.020 and i think what's so special about that too is that like living in a city you almost have this

00:05:31.460 expectation that, you know, you're not in a wild place. And I certainly had that feeling until I

00:05:38.080 started birding in 2016. And it was sort of like, once I got into birding, I was seeing the wildness

00:05:44.120 everywhere in New York. And I think that is actually like a really poignant realization to

00:05:49.860 have that you could live in an urban place and actually be surrounded by wildness as embodied

00:05:55.680 by birds. Yeah. And also Greenwood Cemetery, right? I love that you mentioned cemeteries as

00:06:02.420 like a place. I mean, I used to love just like going on a meandering walk through like Sunset

00:06:06.480 Park and then up to the cemetery. And it is, it's one of like these, it's like a green oasis.

00:06:14.240 You know, there's Prospect Park as well in Brooklyn, but like there are these places that

00:06:17.920 have been set aside because of smart city planning that allows you, like I've never

00:06:23.560 thought about going birding there but that seems like it's a wonderful contemplative thing to do

00:06:27.800 in a cemetery yeah and you're the especially like on weekdays the only people i think at greenwood

00:06:33.460 are birders like if you see most of the people i see at greenwood are fellow birders and obviously

00:06:38.800 some people coming to visit their loved ones but um it's actually so cool about greenwood is that

00:06:45.440 they some years ago they sort of realized that a lot of the people that were coming there

00:06:51.360 were coming there for birding and for tranquility and so they've actually pivoted a lot with their

00:06:58.920 landscape management to rewild some parts of the cemetery so greenwood is becoming like an even

00:07:04.460 better birding location because of the decisions that are being made by their horticulturalists

00:07:10.180 okay this is exactly the sort of stuff that i wanted to talk about i'm very excited

00:07:14.200 we have really good questions and they're going to bring us through all different corners of

00:07:20.000 birding culture. So this first question comes from Allison and will set us up for the rest of the

00:07:24.560 episode. It seems like birding has become incredibly popular in the last five years.

00:07:29.240 But what was the actual mechanism for that? For context, I grew up with a father who was really

00:07:33.780 into birding. So I was aware of it as a hobby even before I started birding myself. More specifically,

00:07:39.420 I was aware of it as a hobby that was transmitted primarily by people who were already steeped in

00:07:43.780 the culture, sharing their localized knowledge and expertise with younger or more novice birders.

00:07:48.460 now it seems like everybody likes birding but how are they getting into it how are they learning

00:07:53.480 who are they learning from okay so you were part of this trend I was yeah and also the I think the

00:08:00.200 book in some ways like that there's a framework there about your journey and a lot of other

00:08:04.640 people's journeys so what's happening are millennials just getting old this is like

00:08:12.040 this is sort of like a real uh like common thing on social media right now which is sort of like

00:08:17.220 when did i wake up and become a birder what decisions did i make in life that led me to this

00:08:22.260 point um i mean allison's right that it really birding i think historically has been a real

00:08:29.240 mentorship culture and so when i started it was sort of before the advent of a lot of the now

00:08:37.340 really popular apps like merlin bird id which i'll talk about but um i started birding before

00:08:44.080 that, I joined the Brooklyn Bird Club, which has been around since 1909. And very quickly, I became

00:08:51.980 friends with and developed sort of like a mentorship from several older and seasoned

00:08:57.020 birders. And, you know, for the longest time, you would sort of learn from the field guides that

00:09:02.560 were out there, you would learn from books, and you would learn from, you know, people who've

00:09:05.920 been birding for decades, they would teach you things that you just don't find in the field

00:09:10.780 guides um but what allison's saying like in the last five years she's uh allison's hitting on

00:09:17.500 something which is that like the pandemic changed everything i think for birding and so it was

00:09:22.940 during that time as you know that people you know they were in lockdown they were at home maybe they

00:09:29.120 were outside but social distancing and like all of a sudden you were sort of like what do i do with

00:09:34.460 myself or even like i'm home now during the day and i hear bird song um you know and this is the

00:09:41.200 spring of 2020 and yeah birds migrate north in the spring and and they go south in the fall so

00:09:46.880 and birds are singing in the spring um birds don't typically sing in the fall so people were at home

00:09:52.740 as they were going for walks when they started like migrating birds were starting to arrive

00:09:57.940 across the continent and i think people were just like hearing things that they hadn't heard before

00:10:03.120 also like the noises and the sounds especially if you live in a city were like dialed down

00:10:09.540 yeah so yeah so I think that like that was a key moment where people really started to get into

00:10:15.220 birding and in fact like people call themselves a pandemic birder so like I know birders who

00:10:20.400 describe themselves as a pandemic birder it's like a common term right right like just to kind

00:10:25.680 of situate yourself as like this is how I got into it and and I think that that like signals

00:10:31.760 some things positive and negative probably to other people. It's like, I'm still a relative

00:10:36.560 novice perhaps, right? But also there's an eagerness. And I think you're right that this

00:10:42.040 is like, I'm a big gardener. And so I was a gardener before the pandemic. But during the

00:10:48.380 pandemic, there was a massive rise in gardening too. Like what are things that you can do

00:10:53.860 without being in close proximity to other people? And birding is one of them. Running is one of

00:11:00.680 them gardening but i also think like as we'll talk about later like you have the technology

00:11:06.680 that facilitates it and you have the infrastructure in place and this is true with gardening as well

00:11:11.600 so you had these clubs you had like i'm a dahlia grower and there are these like

00:11:16.600 like these clubs that have been in place for decades and have been very hungry for new blood

00:11:23.620 right like they are thrilled like they're kind of it's kind of itchy but also they're so excited

00:11:29.660 yeah when i joined the brooklyn bird club um my my my wife and i when we joined yeah we went to

00:11:36.980 like a like a mixer that the club put on and it was like a low-key way for them to also recruit

00:11:43.040 you into various committees that the club has 100 yeah and i got roped into editing the newsletter

00:11:49.000 from that that particular cocktail hour and we were honestly like 20 years younger than everybody

00:11:57.920 else there you know at the time we were in our like early to mid 30s so and now i feel like the

00:12:03.060 boomer of of the club like there are people that are younger than me that are more connected to

00:12:08.860 technology than me so yeah there was the infrastructure in place the brooklyn bird

00:12:13.940 club i know is like a member of it that our membership doubled like in that first year

00:12:18.880 of the pandemic and it has stayed that way um i mean our membership like it costs 25 to join so

00:12:25.640 and and all the walks we do are free and everything so you had these like older clubs

00:12:30.280 that have been around a long time some of which have been on like life support yeah not so much

00:12:35.500 recently but like probably in the 60s and 70s i hear stories from some of the old timers about

00:12:40.960 the club being on you know our club being on life support um you have like you know some really

00:12:46.460 great established naturalist societies in new york like the linane society new york city bird

00:12:52.880 alliance so you had like these established groups that you know yeah we're like you know so happy to

00:12:59.200 have new members but then you also like there has also been such a growth especially in urban

00:13:05.000 birding like with younger people and people starting their own clubs so like in new york

00:13:09.600 the feminist bird club was started by brooklyn birders and that is now has chapters in a number

00:13:16.140 of cities and and like different countries um you had like the queer birders club in new york

00:13:22.100 black birders week was started by a group called black af and stem collective in 2020 and that is

00:13:28.720 like a way to highlight different perspectives different people like that this is an activity

00:13:34.180 that is inclusive and it's for everyone um so yeah you had like the old guard and the new guard

00:13:40.000 um and yeah there were these like there were these groups that could kind of bring you in

00:13:45.200 but i think also what allison's question really gets that too is just the technology

00:13:51.100 has changed so much in a really short period of time you know people use like i mentioned

00:13:56.280 merlin bird id which is an app developed by the cornell lab of ornithology and this will help you

00:14:03.400 not help you it will identify the sounds of birds and does a really good job of it it'll also like

00:14:09.620 help you identify visually based on like certain things you put in or if you upload a photo and so

00:14:16.640 i think like there's so much information out there on on the internet now so many websites

00:14:21.600 and then also just like social media has kind of picked up birding and it's sort of having a moment

00:14:26.780 it's actually really funny i i'm not very active on social media um but like friends send me videos

00:14:33.620 from tiktok and from instagram and like i see these and they're hilarious and like there was

00:14:38.960 one recently that i thought was so funny it was like a hungover bird watcher in new york city

00:14:43.120 32 year old hungover bird watcher in new york city and he's just like getting out there and

00:14:49.900 talking about all the bad decisions he's made in his life that have led him to this point

00:14:53.640 looking so forlorn and like i saw this guy birding in brooklyn in prospect park in may

00:14:59.980 like after that video and like you know in like hushed tones i was like there's the hungover

00:15:04.040 bird watcher i you know this is something i've thought a lot about in terms of like finding

00:15:10.360 hobbies like there's also these things like I joked about the fact that millennials are getting

00:15:14.440 older but I think millennials and and maybe even like older Gen Z it's trying to figure out okay

00:15:20.280 like who am I apart from my ability to work who am I what do I actually like to do and I think

00:15:27.940 finding a hobby and especially one that that I think like and we'll talk about this later

00:15:32.260 scratches some itches in terms of like categorization and checking things off lists

00:15:38.900 And as you said, it's almost like the app lowers the barrier to entry, because I think in the past, like I and this was always this remains my barrier to entry is that I don't have the ear for it.

00:15:53.280 I have not or I have not developed. I have not yet developed the ear for distinguishing calls. And the app kind of gives you like, OK, well, here's a start. And then if you can identify that, then you can kind of go from there.

00:16:05.880 and then there's just like the the idea that like what if we do something together right this is

00:16:10.820 like i think also in part pandemic fueled is a response to the isolation of the pandemic and a

00:16:17.900 desire to figure out how do we hang out again as adults absolutely i mean the community aspect

00:16:24.900 is i think my favorite part of birding now i don't know if i would have expected that going in

00:16:33.740 yeah but like i have a birding crew in brooklyn and it is like the most fun i was about to say

00:16:41.600 wholesome but it's not like we love to party like our birding crew goes hard when we're done

00:16:46.880 birding we sort of have a clubhouse which is a bar and in in windsor terrace in brooklyn called

00:16:52.620 adirondack where it's like we all meet up after birding and so um but this but our group is like

00:16:59.240 we come from like all walks of life an entire spectrum of age race ethnicity class and like

00:17:07.820 all these people coming together and and oftentimes like we don't have that much in common other than

00:17:13.760 birding right but it's such like a strong kind of passion that it like bonds you know this like

00:17:19.640 eccentric eclectic group of people yeah and that's the thing when you're really into something you

00:17:24.400 can talk about it for a really long time. There's a lot to talk about. The Culture City podcast is

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00:21:24.540 Next question is about what are the possible benefits of birding?

00:21:27.760 And this comes from Anjali.

00:21:29.740 Is there anything about birding and cognition or focus relative to other mindfulness techniques?

00:21:35.620 I'm thinking especially about older folks who are experiencing normal age-related memory changes.

00:21:41.100 I'm a 40-year-old who informally got on the birding train years ago,

00:21:45.100 and I've tried to get my 77-year-old mother on board for years.

00:21:48.340 We finally cracked open her new hyperfixation on a family trip to Costa Rica

00:21:52.900 and now a huge part of her every day is oriented around the neighborhood birds.

00:21:57.540 I just walked in from the evening commute to a recap of two robins,

00:22:01.280 four blue jays, and two red-bellied woodpeckers on her afternoon walk. 1.00

00:22:05.520 She's notoriously terrible at technology.

00:22:08.160 I just walked her through attaching something to an email for the 50th time,

00:22:11.520 but she is somehow very facile with the Merlin app.

00:22:14.560 Her short-term memory has been slowly going the last few years.

00:22:17.900 I think it's normal aging, but with the birding,

00:22:20.360 I feel like her ability to focus and pay attention has improved.

00:22:23.920 Is this just another way into mindfulness?

00:22:27.240 Okay, so I love this idea of focus and mindfulness as part of birding.

00:22:31.500 So what's your experience with that and others' experience with that?

00:22:35.180 Yeah, I mean, birding is very much like prolonged noticing.

00:22:39.920 Like you really have to focus in on what you're looking at.

00:22:42.620 And like when you first start birding, it's really hard.

00:22:46.260 It's like actually really hard.

00:22:47.660 It's actually can be very frustrating.

00:22:49.240 you're like what is that like i it moves fast it's small it's up in the trees i can't identify it

00:22:56.020 so you actually have to like just i mean it's probably why it's not for everyone but it's like

00:23:00.960 you have to really slow down and try to be very much mindful of what you're seeing to make an

00:23:08.000 identification of a bird you really want to look at like the bird's size the bird's shape like

00:23:13.720 some species of birds like are very similar so you're looking for really small differences like

00:23:20.680 the length of the tail or the pattern of the undertale and so i think you have to be very much

00:23:28.620 in the moment noticing and like keeping mental notes of what you're seeing and often in like a

00:23:35.600 blink of an eye um to be able to just identify that bird or to be able to listen for it um to

00:23:42.900 be able to listen to the song and to think about the bird song and describe it describe like the

00:23:48.800 features of it so i do think that like for me personally when i first started birding it really

00:23:56.180 like awakened all my senses yeah um and living in a place like new york like that maybe was a slight

00:24:03.840 curse and i'll explain why but because the first time i went birding um like i mentioned it was

00:24:11.380 2016 um or the first time i went birding new york city after this spark bird experience i had

00:24:17.640 yeah was with the brooklyn bird club and it was like a spring migration walk in may of 2016

00:24:23.600 and i like kind of like was overwhelmed by the both the amount of birds we were seeing

00:24:30.340 the different kinds of birds the species names were all new to me and i remember like being in

00:24:37.240 prospect parks uh forest which is the only forest in the in brooklyn it's like the last forest and

00:24:44.760 there was this bird that was singing um and it was this like low rolling two note song the bird was

00:24:51.180 going peter peter peter and i turned to this guy next to me named bob who had been he became my

00:24:57.840 immediate mentor in like an hour and i turned to bob and was like what is that singing and he goes

00:25:02.840 it's a tufted titmouse and i honestly feel like in that moment i had never really heard birds sing

00:25:08.340 before until that day like i grew up in the suburbs of new jersey i'm sure we had cardinals

00:25:14.440 and blue jays i honestly don't ever remember listening to a bird until that moment in my life

00:25:20.740 and um the bird flew in and like a tufted titmouse is this like charming little bird it's small it's

00:25:28.000 gray it has like beady black eyes and like a crest like a dorsal fin and it was like kind of comedic

00:25:34.540 almost and i i was like how have i never seen or heard this bird before and when i left the park

00:25:40.020 that day i heard everything like i left prospect park and all of a sudden i heard sirens i heard

00:25:47.520 traffic i heard everything and i think living in new york especially you tune out everything it's

00:25:54.720 like a defense mechanism like you almost have to and so i had blocked out sound but after hearing

00:26:00.460 that tufted titmouse i feel like i became so aware of everything around me that i was hearing

00:26:05.840 everything and to this day it's like you know i hear that so i guess the mindfulness comes in with

00:26:10.600 hear the siren but just like let it pass you know here are these things but within that cacophony

00:26:17.040 i'm also listening for birds now because in new york they could be anywhere so

00:26:20.940 uh side note but i was delighted to learn that the plural of titmouse is either tit mice or tit

00:26:28.900 mouses and also it's not to do with mouse it's that tit mouse is the old english word for bird

00:26:37.760 small bird yeah small bird yeah yeah exactly so yeah england has birds that are like called tits

00:26:45.160 and they're basically like our chickadees there's the great tit and the cold tit uh the blue tit

00:26:52.620 and so these are birds that yeah the tit mouse like with english people who named our tit mouse

00:26:58.100 would have been like those birds would have been brought to mind so yeah it needs just small birds

00:27:03.040 so there are probably sticklers out there that would say it has to be tit mouses because these

00:27:09.540 names don't come from but i still hear people and i think tit mice just sounds better so

00:27:15.080 It does. It does. This reminds me too of in gardening, there are different flowers that

00:27:20.180 have wort, W-O-R-T at the end of it. So like master wort is one of my favorite flowers that

00:27:27.980 grows in my shade garden. And it's not that they look like worts or anything like that. It's that

00:27:32.820 a wort, W-O-R-T was the way to classify something that was medicinal. So it's always interesting

00:27:38.960 that we, like the way that we think of these connotations. And I totally agree with you about

00:27:43.880 like the way that in new york like in order to survive with all like the assault of sounds and

00:27:51.100 smells and everything that you you develop these coping mechanisms that allow you to to not notice

00:27:57.680 almost right and that things that are that teach you to notice are really effective

00:28:02.420 i live on an island of 900 something full-time residents and there are very few cars and

00:28:10.680 especially during the times when the ferry's not running there are even fewer cars and when I'm

00:28:16.280 walking the dogs I or running I walk or I run in the middle of the road and so you become very very

00:28:23.160 attuned to like here's the sound of a car coming but also that's the sound of a bird or that's the

00:28:31.340 sound of like you know there's just different animals that you hear but especially birds and

00:28:36.420 I think that like, either you can subtract away sounds the way that I have in an incredibly rural

00:28:42.320 space, or you can isolate the sounds the way that you do when you're when you're birding. And then

00:28:48.000 it allows you to hear everything else as well. It's really nice. Okay, next question. I love

00:28:55.420 this one. This comes from Mel. What is it about birding as a hobby that sneaks up on you so

00:29:00.380 quickly? One minute you're young and cool. The next you're creeping through the woods looking

00:29:04.660 for Pileated Woodpecker's Merlin app in hand.

00:29:08.420 Hey, I feel like this is familiar to you.

00:29:10.740 What do you think it is that makes it like an,

00:29:13.440 it has like a, what's the word for it?

00:29:15.840 Like a hockey stick growth.

00:29:17.440 Like I know one bird, I know a hundred birds.

00:29:20.900 And I, this is true, I think for a lot of immersive hobbies.

00:29:24.660 Like I grew four dahlias and then I grew 400 dahlias

00:29:29.160 and this year I'm growing 1200 dahlias.

00:29:31.640 so what's like what is the exponential growth component uh hearing that question i'm like

00:29:39.640 how much time do we have do we have four hours yeah yeah i think like gosh there's so many ways

00:29:47.720 to answer this i think that certainly the there is a like a collecting aspect of birding that

00:29:56.260 is like very a very big part of it i think not for everyone and like people have different styles of

00:30:02.680 birding so i think the sort of the listing aspect which is birds lend themselves to this kind of

00:30:11.420 sense of collection and listing and so people will have their life list they will have their

00:30:16.900 county list their state list their local patch list like which is like maybe the near part you

00:30:23.920 know the closest park to you that you bird the most most frequently so people like it kind of

00:30:29.040 just lends itself to that they're like something like maybe 900 birds in north america and 10 000

00:30:34.640 the world so there's like just enough that it's like a challenge to try to see them all if you

00:30:42.240 want to but it's like an attainable challenge you know and it's not like you have to memorize

00:30:46.840 so many things it's you know and and you start to learn about different birds that you know migrate

00:30:53.100 through maybe where you live and then you then begin to see like if one shows up that doesn't

00:30:57.800 belong there you start to you know you you learn these things so it's it is like it has that from

00:31:03.860 a hobby perspective it really lends itself to that type of categorization i think for me personally

00:31:11.440 um really the two things that really you know it got its like hooks into me with was one this sort

00:31:18.120 of community which you know i've talked about but also just like birds are such wild creatures

00:31:25.420 and they really are like a gateway into wildness you know like i said even living in new york

00:31:32.480 like birding has given me a license to explore the city in a way that i hadn't explored it before i

00:31:38.860 started birding so i've lived 20 years in new york and essentially it's now split half and half

00:31:45.140 between when before i was a birder and since i became became a birder and i think like um it

00:31:52.840 just has like allowed me to find places whether it be in new york i mean beaches marshes woods

00:31:59.720 grasslands some really interesting places some really peculiar places like former landfills that

00:32:07.320 have been capped and are now grassland so birds are really like the wildest i think birds are the

00:32:13.180 wildest creatures that we can see in our daily lives um there was like an birding friend of

00:32:19.660 mine who used to say that like nobody goes bear watching and i think false but yeah yeah yeah

00:32:26.940 or he was like basically you can't get that close so maybe you go bear watching but you can't get

00:32:32.260 too close and also there's like three kinds of bears that you could see as opposed to like 900

00:32:38.820 birds in north america that's so true um orcas go by my island semi often and like people will put

00:32:46.740 little spottings on on next door to say like they're at this point or at this point but again

00:32:52.200 you like see their fin and you're like there's an orca that's cool right um whereas when i see

00:32:58.820 an eagle fighting with a seagull just outside my door i'm like that's sick and i am so close to

00:33:05.640 nature being nature absolutely yeah it's really interesting and the sort of intellectual challenge

00:33:12.400 of being able to actually like you know there's different types of gulls and so to be able to

00:33:18.140 identify the gull and like the intellectual challenge of birding is really exciting

00:33:22.420 um to try to make that identification and i think like essentially given how wild birds are

00:33:31.040 They really just connect us to maybe like a wilder part of ourselves, you know, of what it means to be human and to actually realize that we inhabit the same world as these creatures and that their migrations kind of bring it all together, actually.

00:33:46.960 you so yeah well I also think this goes back to the earlier question about mindfulness too

00:33:52.080 once you figure out the soothing qualities of that noticing it's difficult to back off of it

00:34:00.780 you're kind of like this is all I want to do ever and you mentioned this in the book that

00:34:05.120 once you start doing it you're kind of like well why aren't I doing this all the time and so there's

00:34:11.440 an escalation as you figure out, try how to incorporate more of the hobby into your everyday

00:34:17.300 life. Yeah, totally. I mean, my case is like a, I had to go and write a book about it to be able

00:34:23.740 to do it more often. You know, I've been a reporter for like over 20 years and I've been

00:34:30.800 freelance for 17 years. And so I was becoming a little delinquent, I think. Right. You're like,

00:34:38.020 I could write I could pitch a freelance article or I could go birding you know it's spring like

00:34:43.680 no you know I haven't out of office for the whole month of May so I think I realized if I want to

00:34:50.320 be doing this often now I think I found my topic basically I found my subject yeah yeah yeah no and

00:34:55.960 I think that this uh for me I sometimes use now I'm like uh yeah sorry I have to decline that

00:35:01.180 interview because uh it's dahlia digging season or whatever like it becomes a very useful way

00:35:06.340 actually to say no to more work in a way that I think like we we can joke about it being delinquent

00:35:12.200 but it's also like a way to not work all the time which is useful

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00:39:40.020 the way that we approach hobbies and like our tendency to only think about them as work

00:39:46.080 i think we need to talk about this more and mel mentions this app called merlin

00:39:50.400 um and i think we have three questions that are all short but they're all related and they're all

00:39:56.520 kind of about this like categorization impulse just broadly so we're going to play them back

00:40:01.360 to back the first question comes from jess and we're going to include the second part of our

00:40:05.680 question just for fun and also because we already answered it so okay this one comes from jess i

00:40:10.520 have a couple of questions about birding one the subtle pleasure of a life list has it gone too far

00:40:17.640 and two who is letting horny ornithologists name birds things like the fluffy backed tit babbler

00:40:25.820 now that we know what tit comes from we know that it's not a horny ornithologist okay

00:40:31.780 And then we have Katie.

00:40:33.220 What has the incredible popularity of eBird changed about birding culture?

00:40:38.080 And then Melody's going to read this one from Holly.

00:40:40.820 How are folks feeling about the use of Merlin and other apps to turn birding and life lists

00:40:45.840 into just a competition that doesn't really lead to actual knowledge or ability to identify a bird?

00:40:51.980 So first, I think we should talk about the idea of a life list

00:40:55.340 and how it worked before the apps came along.

00:40:58.540 So how did people keep their life lists?

00:41:00.820 How did they share them?

00:41:01.860 How did they talk about them?

00:41:03.440 Speaking about eBird, like most birders use eBird.

00:41:07.460 And eBird is like a sort of public database that was set up by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology

00:41:13.800 and National Audubon Society in the early 2000s.

00:41:16.560 And it is an incredible, incredible tool, incredible resource and database.

00:41:22.500 So everyday birders, everyday enthusiasts are logging their sightings on eBird.

00:41:27.360 and that you can see that with like a you know like on your phone on your computer one or two

00:41:34.740 clicks you can see your life list like so you submit your sightings which are public although

00:41:39.540 I think you can make them private if you want but anyone can see like your sightings for that day

00:41:44.360 at that particular place you list the amount of time you were out how many miles you went

00:41:50.000 the numbers of each bird you can input media and things like that photos recordings and so

00:41:56.360 ebird like allows you as an individual to see with a like one click how many birds on your life list

00:42:03.120 before you would have kept you know a handwritten record of that and i mean i know a few old timers

00:42:09.700 that still do that that do not use ebird but it is an incredible way to categorize this obsession

00:42:16.660 you know and it's also like ebird you know without going too far down a rabbit hole like it's also

00:42:24.540 an incredible resource for scientists they use scientists use that data you know all those

00:42:30.080 observations all those sightings uh they can use that to learn about which birds are maybe having

00:42:36.700 declines in their population which birds are having increases which areas are like maybe

00:42:42.720 really important for conserving and protecting that are maybe not in like a national park or

00:42:47.800 State Park so scientists use that data they use eBird and now like in the era of big data they're

00:42:54.740 using eBird along with weather radar to determine like the the changes in bird populations where

00:43:02.540 birds are migrating they're learning so much from it all that said it I don't want to say eBird has

00:43:09.240 like a dark side oh no I think it I mean this is very similar to the conversation that we had in

00:43:15.740 our running episode about like how Strava works with the running community because when it's

00:43:19.800 visible it becomes social and also something that you're comparing with other people and there's

00:43:26.860 influencers and all that sort of thing yeah it becomes like I think eBird has added a level of

00:43:34.240 maybe competitiveness that was always there like the terms bird watching and birding are very

00:43:40.460 different and so until the 70s i think the more common term would have been bird watching you

00:43:46.200 know you're there to watch the birds birding as almost is like more like a sport and like the term

00:43:52.880 birding that became popular in the 70s was like when people were trying to go out and have the

00:43:57.720 big year like see as many species as they possibly could in a year and people were competing against

00:44:03.200 each other for those big year records so the way that data is displayed on ebird is that there is

00:44:09.500 like a top 100 for like e-bird leaders species leaders so in your hot spot in the county in the

00:44:20.040 state in the country even globally there is a top 100 and you can see where you fall in that if you're

00:44:26.800 using e-bird and your information is public and so what's so interesting is um a great book written

00:44:32.680 a few years ago by scott widensaw a great nature writer birding writer and orthologist um called

00:44:39.280 a world on the wing he actually has like a whole chapter devoted to ebird its uses and he says in

00:44:44.920 the book that um ebird was sort of slow on the uptake by birders after it was created but it

00:44:51.740 was only when this feature of the top 100 was introduced that it became more commonly used

00:44:58.440 and probably also the ability to look at your own lifeless but once you could see where you

00:45:03.160 compare to others and have like a goal to, to pursue, it became more popular. Now everyone

00:45:09.220 uses it. I mean, I use it. I, you know, I don't religiously check my life list. I am not really

00:45:16.320 a chaser, um, which is like, you know, going out and chasing every rare bird that comes into my

00:45:21.920 area. Um, what's interesting is I don't really admit that to many birders that I'm not a chaser.

00:45:27.080 like i have it in my book and it's in chapter 14 out of 14 so it's not something that i like

00:45:33.220 readily admit because it's sort of like understood in the culture of birding that if there's a rare

00:45:38.840 bird in your area especially when you have not seen and could be on your lifeless like you are

00:45:43.400 gonna drop everything to go find that bird yeah i mean that's even in the beginning of the book

00:45:48.440 right that like during while you're counting you spot a king eider the person that you're with

00:45:53.940 post it and then like people rush down to try to spot it as well man that is so interesting

00:46:00.520 that the app didn't take off until they like essentially gamified it right that like gave

00:46:07.300 it this competitive edge and i don't mean to imply that like people there because there were chasers

00:46:12.800 before like there were people who would go like i just there's so much in literature birding is

00:46:18.120 such a fixture in literature like people who are cataloging the birds that they see when they're on

00:46:23.500 like the grand tour or whatever you know what I mean like it was definitely something that people

00:46:28.220 would do while they were on trips or take a trip with the specific goal of seeing wildlife broadly

00:46:35.300 but also birds specifically but I do think it's accelerated is there like a whole industry around

00:46:40.620 taking people on trips I'm sure there is oh yeah yeah there's like oh yeah I mean all around the

00:46:46.740 world there are like a number of um field guide companies that you know have like the expert top

00:46:53.740 of the line birders one of the people i write about in my book um is one of those birders who

00:46:59.400 is one of the best birders not only in new york but in the world and his profession is as a full

00:47:06.140 time guide and that is something that has changed i like every fall i like to go to cape may in new

00:47:13.460 Jersey which is one of the great birding locations anywhere in the U.S. and especially in the fall

00:47:19.180 when birds are migrating. Cape May is at the southern tip of New Jersey and it's sort of like

00:47:24.640 this natural trap for migrating birds especially hawks and other birds of prey. So I remember

00:47:32.320 talking to a few birders that are probably in their 60s I would guess and they are professional

00:47:37.700 guides who live in Cape May and they had said that their generation was really the first

00:47:44.060 where that could make a living as birders not like authors right though they are authors and

00:47:49.740 artists but like actually as a birder you could become so good at this and then there are people

00:47:54.920 that will hire you to help juice your list I mean and not just juice your list I that's like maybe a

00:48:01.760 little cynical but also like to bring you to places and help you see birds that you want to

00:48:06.900 see you know and i mean most these trips go all over the world but you know to be able to have

00:48:13.280 that help um to know the right places to go to um yeah this is like a huge sort of eco-tourism

00:48:19.800 business yeah yeah it does remind me though of like the professionalization of hobbies and or

00:48:26.300 the professionalization of passion work like this is something that historically people would do

00:48:31.100 in their off time from whatever they did for pay or if they were people of leisure then they would

00:48:36.980 just do it whenever they wanted to but now there is this idea that like wouldn't it be amazing if

00:48:43.760 I could just do this thing all the time and I could figure out a way to monetize it and I

00:48:48.780 understand the impulse but then sometimes I also think that it like it create it is part of this

00:48:54.060 larger system that I think as Holly is gesturing to like do you think that there is a loss of

00:49:00.420 skills or knowledge when you're trying to, as you say, juice the list? Well, I think Holly's

00:49:06.220 question to talking about Merlin is so interesting. I've like thought about this a lot. So the Merlin

00:49:12.060 bird ID app will identify sounds for you. And I see birders walking around Prospect Park in Brooklyn

00:49:22.100 with their phone attached to a lanyard around their neck running merlin non-stop like it is

00:49:30.820 they will have like four hours of tape and merlin is identifying the birds on there in real time

00:49:37.720 and to me like i i i feel like who am i to judge how people bird and it is like whatever brings

00:49:45.580 happiness to that person is, you know, great. I do think that like, for me personally, I like to

00:49:52.820 keep my phone in my pocket when I'm out birding. You know, I like to feel like I'm sort of communing

00:49:57.860 with nature. I'm very much in the minority there. Like I, I don't have a camera. And most birders

00:50:04.840 do have cameras now so that they can photograph birds. I've like maybe one day we'll get into

00:50:10.320 that but i feel like i'm happy knowing i'm happy if like a bird has slipped by me that i can't

00:50:15.840 identify because i didn't get a photo of it um but i do think something maybe is being lost a little

00:50:20.900 bit with like someone just keeping merlin running non-stop i do think that it's unless you like go

00:50:28.480 back and listen to that tape when you get home you're not gonna probably learn the songs and i

00:50:34.380 know from experience that there are like better ways to actually learn the songs um to learn the

00:50:40.520 birds vocalizations like you know you have to do the research and the homework and i you know maybe

00:50:46.380 people just don't feel like they need to do that that ultimately the goal for them is to like have

00:50:51.280 that identification that they can add to their list um it does make me wonder sometimes like

00:50:57.020 are birder are birder's e-bird checklists like bigger now since marlin like will someone put

00:51:03.960 on there like that this bird was heard but like it was heard by merlin not them uh yeah no i mean

00:51:12.300 it also gets into like this larger conversation about like learning like how does learning work

00:51:19.060 so again in my realm like you can do this thing where you take a picture of a flower and then you

00:51:25.920 know the like even just like apple photos will try to identify the flower for you it is incredibly

00:51:32.620 inaccurate. It is sometimes accurate, but often very inaccurate. And like, does it actually teach

00:51:39.160 you to learn what that thing is? Sometimes I think that it is useful in setting you down the path,

00:51:44.740 right? Like once you learn what something is, then you can start to recognize like that's how

00:51:48.940 learning works. Like someone tells you something and then you look for it yourself. And then what

00:51:53.640 happens the first time that you identify it and then you confirm it. You're like, now I know

00:51:59.500 something but if you're only confirming via tapes that someone else is recognizing it's just like

00:52:05.820 it's not going in your head it's like i'm speaking the if you're always having google translate

00:52:11.120 something for you like are you actually speaking the language no the computer is speaking the

00:52:15.660 language and you're repeating the translation um so yeah it's really interesting and i do think it

00:52:22.860 does get to this larger like if you want to optimize a hobby if you want to have the most

00:52:28.800 things checked off the list if you want to know the most flowers you're out or like i grow the

00:52:33.940 most flowers does it what's the goal maybe that's what i'm trying to think about is like

00:52:40.040 interrogating what is the goal of this hobby what am i trying to do or am i just trying to be like

00:52:44.440 get an a plus in this hobby which is a very millennial thing to do yeah or even like to know

00:52:51.860 that yeah i don't know to be able to look to get that like little endorphin rush from seeing that

00:52:58.700 your list has gone up one i mean you know the measure of your life list isn't necessarily how

00:53:04.780 good of a birder you are it's really often a measure of like do you have the resources to

00:53:10.940 travel to you know travel to the resources to go to places where you will see a new bird

00:53:17.300 like i've birded with people you know friends where they're like talking about how big their

00:53:21.780 life list and i'll say well what was that bird what did that bird look like that you saw and

00:53:26.140 they're like I don't remember the guy just pointed out for me it's like well then did you really see

00:53:30.940 it you know or did you get to appreciate it or enjoy it or make like a mental note of of some

00:53:37.440 of its characteristics yeah it's I mean the same thing applies I think with photography like

00:53:42.480 when you have a camera you cease to notice as as intricately sometimes right but like if you

00:53:49.820 like in your case if you don't have your phone out to take a photo of a bird you're trying to

00:53:54.660 remember what it looks like so that like i took you took a picture with your heart like of the

00:54:01.780 thing that happened um and also i think like what if the best birder was actually someone who could

00:54:09.380 describe with tremendous flourish and accuracy the way that uh like a local bird sounded instead of

00:54:18.060 this like it's almost consumerist impulse to to check off everything on the list

00:54:23.300 yeah yeah it is and i think like um i think like maybe for for some people it changes over time

00:54:30.620 too like you just start to realize like um what gives me the joy in this and i'm sure i know when

00:54:37.720 i started birding i was much more like religious about keeping my list like immediately you know

00:54:44.600 and now it's like i'll wait till i get home and if i'm off a few numbers on the number of robins

00:54:50.640 i saw that day that's fine you know but i think like i think you sort of maybe yeah like you start

00:54:57.520 to realize um what is what is the aspect of this that that i really enjoy and so i do like the like

00:55:05.200 you know the mystery the sort of problem solving of birding that's just so much fun and to have

00:55:11.340 that maybe stripped out a little bit i think like it's something you lose something a little bit

00:55:15.240 i remember like some years ago this was before merlin um i was birding in a great place in

00:55:24.140 canada called called point pili national park and it's like this little sliver of land that

00:55:29.800 juts down into lake erie i think and it's like the sort of southernmost point canada and birds

00:55:36.380 cross the lake and this is like the first piece of land they see and they drop in there and it is

00:55:40.880 an incredible place for birding and you're seeing birds actually land in the morning like land in

00:55:45.080 the treetops yeah over your head and i remember birding uh one day there and i think i'd been

00:55:50.620 birding only a year and a half at this point and this was like a big trip to go on to visit this

00:55:54.680 place and there was one bird i was hearing everywhere the song i was hearing this bird

00:55:59.480 song everywhere i could not identify it i just like i i did my homework i knew a lot of other

00:56:04.100 songs at that point that i had learned and i just could not identify the song it was like a three

00:56:08.740 part song sounded very like machine gun like and i was just like what is this and so i could if

00:56:16.320 merlin had existed i could have played it would have told me immediately it was a tennessee warbler

00:56:20.920 however i didn't have that so i remember like going home that night and now i could look on

00:56:26.740 ebird and see what other people had submitted in their checklist that day and i guess maybe the

00:56:32.160 the analog version would have been flipping through the field guide and looking at every

00:56:36.040 bird's description to figure out what makes a three-part machine gun-like song however like

00:56:40.960 i did at least have e-bird then and i looked at other people's checklists and i saw like some

00:56:46.320 field guide that was leading a group had like 10 tennessee warblers and that was like one bird not

00:56:51.460 on my list and i was like ah okay that's what i was hearing you know i i then i played the song

00:56:56.380 on on my computer and could hear yeah that's what i was hearing so yeah you know there's a there's

00:57:01.020 a little bit of problem solving that goes in and you know i like that i like not maybe having

00:57:05.520 everything to be so clear cut yeah yeah I was thinking about how what I would do is probably

00:57:12.200 like keep repeating the song in my head so that I could remember it and then I would like make a

00:57:16.960 voice memo of it or something so that I would and then play it for someone else they'd be like I

00:57:22.340 have no idea what you're doing here our last question is for people like me who are like this

00:57:27.960 is very interesting how can I get started this question is from Kristen for a relatively new

00:57:33.760 birder who wants to learn everything and integrate themselves into the culture what are your one or

00:57:38.700 two biggest tips things that aren't as obvious as download marlin are join your local audubon

00:57:43.820 society trips right you're the perfect person to answer this question what advice do you have

00:57:49.300 well i think um a few things that come to mind one is so i do think it's good to go on your local

00:57:57.560 Audubon or local bird club walks. I think within that, it's actually a tip would I would have

00:58:03.940 is to join your local birding club. It's actually not just go on the walks, but join the club and

00:58:09.860 get to know the people in it. I mean, it's not maybe that's not a path that everybody would

00:58:15.420 pursue. But I feel like developing mentorship in birding is a wonderful thing. It's wonderful to

00:58:22.180 be able to learn from others who have been doing it for a long time about the birds you just learn

00:58:28.280 so much and not just the birds but you learn about the places and the habitats you learn about the

00:58:34.700 trees the flowers like the old-time birders that i know are like and not just old time but many

00:58:40.760 birders i know you know they have this great knowledge of of like they're just all around

00:58:45.060 naturalists and i think that is a wonderful thing about this hobby and this activity is just

00:58:50.740 becoming accustomed to the natural world and birds give you like that they're the gateway drug for

00:58:56.900 that so that's that's one tip i think what maybe two other ones i would say one is to really learn

00:59:03.260 a bird in terms of identify being able to identify birds but also know the species and like to learn

00:59:09.200 about them almost as individuals is to like learn a bird's what's known as its distribution which is

00:59:14.800 basically like where that bird is supposed to be at which time of year and where it is in the

00:59:23.040 continent, like where it is in the world. And so learning a bird's distribution will really help

00:59:28.560 you to identify that. But when you see a bird, you know, a little warbler, which is like a small,

00:59:34.000 tiny, colorful songbird that migrates between the tropics, like, you know, when you are trying to

00:59:39.540 decipher between maybe a few different types and you're not sure which one it is to think about

00:59:44.420 like what time of year it is, where you are, what type of habitat it is. So learning a bird

00:59:49.600 distribution, I think is also like a way to be able to identify rare birds, um, to uncover birds

00:59:55.940 that like, shouldn't be there at any point in time. And you're like, wait, this is something

00:59:59.720 different. Um, and then the last thing I would say, sorry, but one more, um, is to really learn

01:00:07.780 the birds. If, if, if this is accessible for people and not every, I know people that they

01:00:12.840 just they can't learn bird songs they can't learn bird vocalizations i know you said it's difficult

01:00:18.220 but i feel like learning bird song if if it's possible is like an incredible thing and it's

01:00:24.700 something that when i started birding i learned from more experienced birders that really impressed

01:00:29.980 like ear birding you know and being able to identify birds by ear it it unlocks like the

01:00:37.620 dawn chorus for you so the dawn chorus in spring is when all birds are singing right at dawn

01:00:42.340 and like being able to identify the singers in those chorus in that chorus like allows you to

01:00:49.580 then look for them so if i'm hearing a bird called a black bernian warbler which is like

01:00:55.600 has like a flame orange throat it's such a beautiful bird and it's one of my favorites

01:00:59.800 like if i hear it's ear splittingly high last note then like i'm like oh my god there's a black

01:01:06.500 bernian around i want to see it so being able to bird by ear if that's possible

01:01:11.900 is like it allows you to find more birds and it allows you to like see the birds you really want

01:01:18.380 and like on a great spring day in New York City in Central Park or Prospect Park there are more

01:01:24.300 than a hundred species of birds there you know there might be 110 120 birds and so being able

01:01:29.440 to identify them by ear allows you to find the ones you really want to see it also like tells

01:01:35.260 you which birds are around and there are ways of doing it that are I think really effective

01:01:41.400 essentially i learned this from somebody else who's written about like memorization techniques

01:01:47.380 in birding and he's a great birder and field guide author named tom stevenson and he has like talked

01:01:54.880 about how you can learn songs and basically you create playlists you create like itunes playlists

01:02:01.420 of bird songs you can download something called the macaulay library which is like put out by

01:02:07.700 cornell and that has all the bird songs in north america so basically create playlists starting

01:02:13.920 small and gradually making it bigger and just listen to these birds and it allows you to learn

01:02:19.780 them really really quickly you mean when i hear the let me see if i can do it the

01:02:25.680 of the blue herons outside my window that's how i know it's low tide

01:02:30.180 um i love love love love that advice and i would also just underline that the thing about

01:02:36.380 joining a society, a huge benefit is intergenerational friendships. And I think that

01:02:42.580 that is like, you know, it's mentorship, but it's also just hanging out with people who aren't

01:02:47.140 exactly like you is just a great thing to do for whatever reason. And this is a great reason to do

01:02:52.760 it. Ryan, this has been such a pleasure. Everything I hope for and more. Can you tell us where people

01:02:59.000 can find you on the internet if they want to hear more from you? Sure. So people can go to my website

01:03:04.360 If they want to learn more about me and also learn more about my book, it's ryangoldberg.net

01:03:09.640 is my website and my book, Bird City, which can be found everywhere and just came out.

01:03:16.840 Thanks for listening to the Culture Study Podcast.

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01:04:28.900 You

Culture Study Podcast - December 03, 2025

How to Fall in Love with Birding

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