SPEAKER_00 0:00

One of that, one of this, one of that, and pretty soon you have ones of like fifty species in front of you. So what we say is in the tropics, species are common, but individuals are rare.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Hi everyone. Welcome to Blackbird Troy, the podcast where we explore birds, nature, and the amazing people who study and protect them. I'm Nation and I love birding. In each episode, I'll take you on adventures to meet bird experts and learn cool things about the birds all around us. In my last episode, Dr. Bob told me how he became a birder and why he spent his life helping people connect with nature. In this episode, we continued our conversation and talked about some of his favorite birdic adventures, amazing stories from the field, and what we can all do tell birds. I hope you enjoy the rest of our conversation. Let's get started. What's the rarest bird you've ever seen?

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Oh, what's that? There was a well in Central Park, there was one an owl that showed up in December 2004. Oh, it's from the mountains.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

You can find an eagle owl?

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Oh no, no, that was a recent one. That's good. That's good. No, this one is a north was that bird in there. I was like, Yeah, that's a long time ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Somebody mounted they sent a catapult and catapult it into the U United States when you're trying to catapult it back into so it could live somewhere else.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Yeah, that was Broadway. That was a very strange couple years there. But the one that I'm thinking of is uh is actually found in the mountains of Colorado, too, and upstate New York, but only so far as very upstate New York. It's up in the mountains high up. It's an owl, oh, it's named after somebody's which one boreal.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Well, it's not named after yeah, Boreal, Boreal.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

That's it, that's it. Wow, Mason. Wow, ding, ding, ding, ding. You won the million dollar question. You you you take cash only, or you accept a check?

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Uh take a check.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Okay, I'll write it now and we'll put it in the mail and send it to you. It should be there soon. You know, you gotta go to Harvard, so put it, you know, invest it. Don't don't don't go out and spend it on ice cream.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

I won't.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

That's good. That's good. Yeah, Borel Al. It it had never been seen in New York since like 1860 or 1870.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

That's like 100 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

So, yeah, exactly. Oh, yeah, well, that's a long time ago. That's even older than me, and that's tough to do. So it showed up in Central Park for about four weeks, three weeks, and people come from all over to see it. Yeah, so that was that was amazing, yeah. Yeah, so that's that's one, yeah. Yeah, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Have you ever seen a bird that completely surprised you?

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Yeah, I'm thinking I'm trying to think of birds that I was like not going to be impressed with, and then when I saw them, I was like, wow, that that's really you know what? Albatrosses. I thought before I saw an albatross, it was like a big seagull, you know. But when you see an albatross flying uh next to the boat that you're on, and it's like four feet away because they're such amazing flyers, you can almost reach out and touch them, and they have this big eye, this big beak, and they're not flapping, they're just gliding. You're like, wow, that's that's not a big seagull, that's like uh something different.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Yeah, I was like, I think they've spent like like a year over the ocean migrating.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

Yeah, they fly a lot, yeah. Yeah, to bring food home for their kids. They they range like you know more than I do in my whole lifetime in a week.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

What's your greatest birding adventure?

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Running Raptor Watchers hawk counts in Thailand and Nepal when we really didn't know how many birds were migrating, what species, what the timing was. Those were really good experiences. And then you know Lammergeyers, bearded vultures. You know that one? Have you seen that one yet?

SPEAKER_01 4:12

I haven't seen one, but I've heard of it.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Okay, yeah. Look look it up. We used to you bearded vultures eat a lot of bones, they're one of the few animals on earth that can yeah, they can eat just bones. So in Nepal, we used to think, okay, well, maybe we can see a bearded vulture, you know. So we started putting out putting out bur uh bones, and they started coming in and they would take the bones away, and it was like getting expensive. So the fun part was what we figured out to do is to use fishing line and tie the bones to the ground, and then they would try to you know yank them away, and we would walk up to within 10 feet of them and be taking pictures. So that was a good adventure, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Well, uh, people got lost albert.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Oh, yeah. Yeah, uh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, on trails, you know. You you think you know your way back. Uh, you know the story of Hans Link Retro? Uh that's that that happens.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Oh yeah, one time we were um at Sapstica Woods and there's four miles of trails, probably locked it. Probably uh we were like the map, they're not right. So we go try to try to stay on the let's say the William Trail. We turn to stay on the William Trail, but now we're on the uh Sydney trail, and then we turn to get back onto the William Trail, and now we're on the Carl Trail and something like that.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Yeah, so how did your family work that out?

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Everybody must have been kind of like frustrated and stressed, and yeah, we're frustrated, but the cool thing is that well, no matter how you've been walking on the trails, you always get back to this.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Yeah, yeah. Somehow you always survive, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you worked it out with your family, you know. That was more important than the birds you saw that day. That's a really good, you know, thing to have. You know, my family would have put out guns and started shooting at one another.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Uh okay. Have you ever had a close encounter with another animal?

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Uh, let me think. Let me think. Let me think. Yeah, snakes. I almost I had a you gotta look up king cobras. King cobras 15, 20 feet. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, you like that? Yeah, oh yeah. King cobras are scary because they can when they slithering along the yes, they they get up, and you know, they can like up to your eyes. Yes, when you're sitting down, yes, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And they can move faster than you can run, you know. I mean, I was stunned the first time I saw a king cobra. I was sitting in a little tent watching birds, and all of a sudden, this giant snake comes toward me and it ended up right outside the blind I was in, you know, on the other side of my camera, just going yeah, yeah, it was that heart attack.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Have you ever gone looking for one bird? Let's say I'm going to look for this prairie warplar, and then I go out there and I see Northern Perula. Has that ever happened to you, but with any two kinds of birds?

SPEAKER_00 7:16

You mean you get skunked. You don't find the prairie warbler, you find something else, or you find both of them.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

You find something else that you think might have been a better find.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Oh, oh, I see what you mean. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I understand what you're doing. Wow, I'd have to think about that. Probably, you know, that that's where luck kicks in. You know, you want to do something, you want to do X, and all of a sudden Y happens, and then you're like, Wow, that was even better. I didn't expect that. Yeah, you know, that that that's a that's a good one. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

One time I was looking for a wood duck and I got a raven, and then I lost all the wood duck. So that was right.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Wow, you got a twofer, a twofer one. Yeah, you know, ravens nest in New York City now for like the last 20 years. I never would have thought you would have told me this in 1980, 80, 85. I would have said, You crazy, you know. People are gonna you think ravens. No, that's a bird of the mountains, remote areas, upstate New York, you know, with a good people.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Three times, yeah. Yeah, but see my sister actually spotted one when we were driving. I was like, bird, okay, you always spot stormings on look out the one. I was like, Wow, that's really good.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

You heard them go walk, walk. They make they don't sound like crows, they completely different.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Yeah, what are some challenges birds face today?

SPEAKER_00 8:41

Especially wow, not enough people liking them, I think is the most important thing, or not enough people being aware that they're nice, they're pretty, they're important, you know. Yeah, they're so great. Yeah, yeah. Just think if everybody liked birds, not just like you know, chicken for dinner, you know, or or scrambled eggs, but if they like birds just for being birds, they'd want to protect them. And then to do that, they'd have to protect their habitats. Like, wow, a twofer, you know.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Yeah, you'd be walking around looking for is this swings, is this whinesin's thrush still.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Yeah, what bird do you want to see most or next? Which bird, if you could go anywhere to see anything, which bird would it be?

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Well, it's probably probably a warbershams, right? Probably either Kentucky Warber, uh-huh, a white-throated swift, uh, or I would really like to get a picture of a prairie warber.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Oh, yeah, you should, you know, more toward Albany. They have pine barrens there. Prairie warbers would be, you know, should be fairly saw them here.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

There's a really good spot here, yeah. Um where I saw it, and then I was like, and then uh I see it, and I'm like, I drew my camera out, and I was like, this is behind the leaves. I can just see the stripes.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

Yeah, so it's it's more just as important to get a picture of a bird as to see a new bird. Like you really haven't seen it until you got a picture of it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Frustrating. Do they help birds? That's a good question. You know, I I think on a practice, like in New York City, if you in an area where birds collide with your windows because they reflect, you know, the trees and the sky a lot, just put up some netting or something to make the glass visible to birds. But I think to you have to do kind of like a positive message. I would say, you know, eat as much fried chicken, curd, you know, curried chicken as you want, but then also just look at go out and look for birds, see what you can find. It's pretty amazing what you can find just in your own backyard. I mean, you like you, you, you, you you sound like you have some good birds over there. You have cat birds in your backyard. You do get sapsuckers, you get yellow bellied sapsuckers in your backyard? Three taps. Wow. Wow. Yeah, you're really lucky. Yeah, you see, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

I haven't in a while. Maybe like that's that's three bucks.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

So yeah. I started doing this here, but it was really cool.

unknown 11:22

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Do you like that? Do are Williamson sapsuckers nicer than yellow bellied sapsuckers?

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Well, I probably would have liked to see Williamson Sapsucker here.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Yeah, you know, that would be making that one better because you know, in our minds, you know, what you haven't really seen is always in one's imagination, you know, better than the reality. It's like a country you haven't been to, you know. I mean, that must be a great place. And then you get there and you find out it's like every other place, except you know, it's got bigger mountains or bigger forests or whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Is birding more about your eyes or your ears? What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 11:57

For me, it's my eyes. For other people, it's their ears. I have good eyes, I see movement. So I pick it up fast. Yeah. How about you?

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Uh, it's probably my eyes. That's how I identify everything. I just really cool abilities. So if I see something like right here, I like to turn my head toward it. And then as soon as I get a good look at that bird, I can usually identify it.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Mm-hmm.

unknown 12:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

If I have never heard of it, never seen of it, never seen a picture of it, then I'm like, I do not know what that is. But if I've heard of it, if I've seen a picture of it and I have not seen it, I can usually identify it.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

How do you go about identifying it? You write down any details about it, or you have a good mind and a good memory.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Yeah, probably a good memory. And then it's like something just clicks. You click and you know what it is.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Okay, here's another question for you. For you, what's more important to see the details and be able to identify a bird or to watch its behavior and see what it's doing and to understand it in its environment?

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Well, um, it's probably the details. It helps me identify birds a lot.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, that's that's that's yeah, that's really good. There's no right answer to that, by the way. And that can change in life too. So good.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

And what do you think the biggest mistake that gear birders make?

SPEAKER_00 13:31

To make it into a competition, that they have to see as many species as in other words, to make it like uh work, you know, not that and lose the fun of it, and then get involved in petty politics with other birders. Like, how many did you see? Well, I saw more, or what I saw was better, or the way you're going birding is wrong. You know, you shouldn't have bright colors like that, or you shouldn't use sound. They get involved in all sorts of petty, silly emotional things that it's not why they started birding. They started birding because they like birds and made them feel happy, and they were like discovering stuff, you know. But being people, we all, you know, etc. You know, like well, my sister at home. You know, I know I love my sister and I know she's important to me, but somehow we always end up into a fight, and I don't know, even know how that happens. It's like a magic thing, you know, and then we get along, you know, so it like changes, yeah. So don't worry, if you don't get along with your sister all the time, I understand. Yeah, I give you some strategies for how to get back at her. If you know, like she goes to take a shower, turn on all the cold water in the house, and then the water gets too hot in the shower, and then when you hear a screaming, run back and change it all to cold or hot. Sorry, don't do that. Your mother's gonna shoot me pretty soon. Look at me a favor, take a look at your mom. See how if she's looking mad right now. Tell her Bob apologizes, but Bob's got an evil mind sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

That's a really good question for you. I noticed that during our bird walk, you played sounds. Yes, is it okay for everyone to play sounds?

SPEAKER_00 15:10

You're asking a really good question. I think we would go crazy in Central Park if everybody played sounds, you know. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

Imagine if you're seeing this cuckoo and you want to get it singing, and you know that it's gonna start singing, but then the cuckoo can't hear that you're playing the call because somebody's playing a rabbit con. Like, dude, there's a cuckoo right here.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Yeah, yeah. You're asking a really good philosophical, ethical sort of question. You know, what is my responsibility to other birders in the park? You know, some people don't like that I play sound, it bothers them. They want to hear peace and quiet and just you know, natural bird scene. Other people are listening for birds, so maybe my playing a call confuses them or interferes with them being able to see, right? So I have to balance that with, you know, sometimes I have you saw on my that walk that day, I had a lot of people. So we can't all go in the woods and look for a bird, but if I play a call and the bird comes to us, then everybody can see it. So that to me becomes more important because you know, we have 20, 30 people at a time, and it's it's less of a bad effect on the woods and the birds. If we don't have to go trapsing into the woods, walking into the woods, we can line everybody along the fence and then see what comes in, like fishing. You know, that's the way I look at it, is what I'm doing. But you're asking a really good question. There's no right or wrong answer, and it varies from place to place.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

Okay, so the last couple of questions are some really simple questions. I hope they're really fast. Okay, if you can bird anywhere in the world tomorrow, where would you go?

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Back to New York, where I'm going no. Uh tomorrow. Nepal is a lot of fun with all the vultures that are there.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

Is there one bird that you still dream about skiing?

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Wow, you know, swallowtail kite is one that while we're here, I really like to have a nice look at.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

I would I would love to see a swallowtail kite.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

You'll get it, you'll get your chance. Don't worry, you you got a bright future ahead of you. You know, it's like the TV shows next week. Next week seems a long way away. It gets here.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Okay. You ready for the lightning round?

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

Fair bird.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Which one?

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Favorite bird.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Oh, favorite bird, uh, screech owl.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Okay. So that also accounts for your favorite owl.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Yeah. You're gonna be aware.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Favorite hawk?

SPEAKER_00 17:43

Uh paragraph. Protonetary water bird. A wood duck.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Favorite migration season.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

Autumn. Autumn. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

Most underrated bird.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

A white throat sparrow. Out sparrow. Yeah. Stuff that nobody looks at twice.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

One bird, everyone should know.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Wow, that's a really good question. Oi, oi, oi, oi, oi. The raven.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Yeah, that's pretty good. Okay, that's the end of the lightning round.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Wow, that's a really good question.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Okay. Thank you so much for spending time with me today. Dr. Bob, thank you so much for talking with me today and sharing your incredible bird adventures from around the world. I learned so much about birds, birding, and the amazing places they can take us. I hope everyone listening did too. If you enjoy this episode, please follow Blackbird Joy so you don't miss future adventures. I'll be talking with bird scientists, birds, authors, and other people who love birds as much as I do. Until next time, get outside, look up, and find some joy birds. Bye.