I’d Rather Be Birdwatching

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Correne George: Let's see if we can get a good -- we'll go quiet and see if we can get a look at it.

[00:00:07] Katya Rucker: It's a Sunday morning at the end of October, and I'm walking with Correne George, a lifelong birder, and two other birdwatching enthusiasts who have their binoculars at the ready. We're following the song of a Carolina wren, which Correne says, sounds like it's saying tea kettle tea kettle tea kettle [birdsong] [00:00:30] 

[00:00:30] Correne George: Okay, it’s out in the sun, it’s out in the sun. [birdsong]

[00:00:35] Katya Rucker: We have a perfect view of the wren, which is perched on a thin branch in direct sunlight, opening its beak to call to another Carolina wren on the other side of the field. It's a rare, unobstructed look or as birders call it, a good look, and time seems to stand still for all of us as we watch it sing.

[00:00:56] Birdwatching feels a little like playing Pokemon Go in [00:01:00] that you could come upon hundreds of species at any moment, some common and some rare, but you have to be much more on your toes because the sightings can be fleeting.  

[00:01:10] Correne George: Oh, we got, we got seabirds! 

[00:01:13] Katya Rucker: Those three? 

[00:01:15] Correne George: Cormorants, double crested cormorants. 

[00:01:16] Another blue jay with an acorn. They're collecting the acorns today for sure. And then there's another robin. Oh, a little tiny guy. Ooh, it left. No, more tiny guys. No, don't leave, don’t leave. Okay. So there's a couple of guys in there. I think they’re goldfinch by the way they flew. 

[00:01:28] Woah, Nashville, warbler. [00:01:30] Whoa, whoa. Okay look right through here near the ground it’s hopping around. You'll see some yellow, it has a white eye ring. We're not crazy, there’s warblers here! 

[00:01:37] Katya Rucker: And in between sightings, Correne is a treasure trove of surprising facts about the species of birds we're seeing.  

[00:01:46] Correne George: So starlings, house sparrows, um, mute swans, the big white swans, are all from England. Some guy was a Shakespeare enthusiast. And he wanted to release all the birds that were in Shakespeare out into the wild. So [00:02:00]  

[00:02:01] Katya Rucker: None of them are native?

[00:02:01] Correne George: He did that. And things happened. Yeah. They're not native. Two more starlings right there. You can tell by their torpedo shape. That’s the word I was looking for, torpedo.

[00:02:14] Katya Rucker: Welcome to I'd Rather Be Birdwatching, the seventh episode of the I'd Rather Be podcast. I'm your host, Katya Rucker. The question I'm trying to answer in each episode of this podcast is basically, “What makes [00:02:30] this hobby or passion so great? What does it do for the mind, the body and soul that keeps people so devoted to it?”

[00:02:39] So that's what I'm here to learn from Correne who has 37 years of birdwatching to draw upon as she tells us what exactly birdwatching is and why she and other birders love it so much.  

[00:02:51] Correne George: Birdwatching is looking for, and hopefully finding birds. And that could be, um, just in your backyard at a feeder. Or going out to look for [00:03:00] them, like at a wildlife sanctuary or a local park.

[00:03:03] Um, and then what was the last part of it? 

[00:03:05] Katya Rucker: What's the purpose? Why do people do it? 

[00:03:10] Correne George: Because it's awesome and relaxing and birds are awesome. Um, I think, I think it's both, I think people really like -- a lot of people really like birds. As you saw today, there were a lot of birds versus like, what else did we see? Nothing, just squirrels really. So you can see a high diversity of them. In a small area, too. [00:03:30] Um, and then I think some of it's just that lovely healing power, you know, of going birdwatching too. 

[00:03:35] Katya Rucker: Since we had just spent the morning birdwatching, I found I kind of knew what Correne meant when she said there's a healing power to it. And I wondered what it was about the act of searching and finding that could make us feel this way. 

[00:03:51] Correne George: I'm copying somebody else here because I read this thing recently. It was, I thought it was so perfect. He likened birdwatching to a mixture of hunting [00:04:00] and meditation. And I thought that was perfect because yeah, it's like in humans to be hunters.

[00:04:06] Um, but also when you're out in nature, you're, you're having that meditative peaceful quality. Um, and you might've seen some of that today as we're just kind of watching and looking at the birds. It's pretty relaxing even though I talk a lot, I don’t how relaxing it was. But, especially when you go by yourself, it's very, very meditative, but it can be with others too. So I think it's just that mixture [00:04:30] of yeah, like searching and relaxation you get from it, and inner peace that, and just, and also just obviously being outside, um, that magic.

[00:04:40] Katya Rucker: Correne went on to share a birding experience she had when she was by herself that really illustrated for me what she meant about how magical birding can be.

[00:04:51] Just a heads up that we had moved inside a classroom in the Boston Nature Center after our walk. And that's why the recording is going to sound more echoey. 

[00:05:00] Correne George: I do have some memories of just one, one spring day of just like, surrounded by birds. And they're just like, it was like, it was almost in my mind, it was like a river above my head. And I was just like, my mouth was agape and I was like, “Wow.” You know, like it was like a movie, you know, and they just surrounded me. And so spring is so special in the minds of birders, because it is so mega exciting and, you know, the colors, the songs, the -- it's [00:05:30] insane. And especially for like maybe two weeks.

[00:05:33] And so, it can be overwhelming. Sometimes you're like, I don't know where to turn my head right now. And, but that's the best part of it. And just having the same -- one tree with like five different warblers on is just, what am I looking at? You know? 

[00:05:49] Katya Rucker: I asked Correne if she felt she's had to make any sacrifices to devote the time she wants to, to birding. And her answer reminded me that when it comes to the things we're most passionate about in [00:06:00] life, what might seem like a big sacrifice to others really doesn't feel like much of a sacrifice to us. 

[00:06:06] Correne George: I don't know if I really made any big ones. Um, I mean, I did change my entire career, and was in biotech for 19 years and you know, when my group was laid off, I decided to, to chase my dream of being a naturalist, a teacher naturalist. Which I have, but, um, you know, I'm just, part-time now and I'm still struggling with that. And, um, Covid has kind of really [00:06:30] hurt a lot of these fields and the opportunities because we work with schools a lot, you know, and those have been affected a lot by Covid.

[00:06:36] Um, so that's been frustrating. But, um, just being able to do what I love, even if it's just part-time is just so fantastic. And you go home with a smile on your face. Like, oh man, that was so great.

[00:06:50] Katya Rucker: Because there's no defined path or instructions manual out there for how to discover what might become a source of passion and joy in our [00:07:00] lives, I'm always curious what it is about someone's personality or other interests that they feel make them particularly well suited to their hobby. So in Correne’s case, what makes who she is a perfect match for birdwatching? 

[00:07:14] Correne George: I think it's a mixture of, you know, like I love science, I was a biology major with environmental science, um, and having that slight OCD, like “I like to know what things are” personality, um, mixed [00:07:30] with, I like to -- I'm not a fast moving person, that stresses me out. So birdwatching, you have to go really slow to see a lot. And I mean, sometimes I'm just standing in the same spot for like half an hour and that would drive a lot of people crazy, but it teaches you a lot of patience.

[00:07:48] So I think it's a mixture of, I have kind of infinite patience for, for nature. I don't have infinite patience for people, but I have that infinite patience, but [00:08:00] that's grown over time as I've gotten older. 

[00:08:02] Katya Rucker: So we have Correne’s love for science, her need to know what things are, and her infinite patience for all nature has to offer. Another key detail I learned about Correne on our walk is that she's always prepared. She never goes anywhere without her binoculars because after all, birds are all around us, whenever we're outside. 

[00:08:24] Correne George: I guess I brought them to a concert once. And it was, um, one of the people there was Lenny Kravitz. You know how he’s like, [00:08:30] so handsome, and this girl was like, this girl was like offering me a joint to use my binoculars just so she could look at Lenny Kravitz closer. And then I was like, “I don't need the joint, but here you go.” She's like, “Oh my God, he’s so cute!” And I’m like, “Oh my God, I'm a celebrity just for bringing binoculars. It was one of my funniest memories.” 

[00:08:47] Katya Rucker: When we saw some other people birding off in the distance, Correne used her binoculars to see if she knew any of them, and it turned out she didn't. But this proved to me that birding was just scratching the surface of the [00:09:00] many practical uses of binoculars. But when using them for birding, binoculars are especially helpful when you're trying to identify smaller species, like sparrows. Correne tells us that it's the time of year that we might, if we're lucky, see some winter migrants starting to show up, like the tree sparrow, field sparrow, or fox sparrow. 

[00:09:21] Correne George: Sparrows are really hard. [laughing] They're all little tiny brown birds. And uh, they, as I say, they can be jerks because they're, you can't, you can't, you can [00:09:30] spend all this time and they don't come out and you can see like one sliver of its head, and that’s it!

[00:09:33] Katya Rucker: They're challenging, but it does help if you know where to look. Correne tells us that another trick for birding is knowing where different types of birds prefer to hang out: on the ground, in the trees, or somewhere in the middle.

[00:09:47] When we were talking back in the classroom after our walk, I asked Correne what the highest learning curve is when it comes to birding. 

[00:09:55] Correne George: The highest of the high is songs, because I [00:10:00] still struggle with songs sometimes, and I’ve been birding for 37 years. And just today we saw a Carolina wren with four, I counted four, at least, maybe five different songs and noises that we heard coming from Carolina wren. Um, and multiply that by the hundreds of birds that are here. It's challenging. Um, so, and most birds have a song, uh, a call to each other, like a communication [00:10:30] call, an alarm call, and a flight song. Forget about that, that's a different topic. Um, and then some birds have dialects, which is crazy, like song sparrows have dialects and have a slightly different song depending on where you were in the country. And that's true for a lot of birds, which I think is fascinating. Um, and the more you travel and see different things and hear things, you'll realize it, that that sounds different than the song sparrows [00:11:00] that -- like even, versus, I have family in Maine and Mass. So those are the two states where I spend the most time. Even between Maine and Mass, there's different accents, kind of like people! 

[00:11:11] Katya Rucker: This learning curve seemed to grow even steeper as Correne described it to me. We've got hundreds of species of birds, and then maybe four different songs for each species, and then add the bird equivalent of a Boston accent versus a Southern accent? 

[00:11:25] Correne George: It's really challenging. And I think the only way you can learn that is just [00:11:30] practice. And now they have an app actually for that. Um, the Merlin app, I don't have, but it can identify songs for you,, which is a big game changer. It's not perfect.

[00:11:40] Um, but it's a big help for new people because you know, it's one thing identifying by, you know, visual, but, a lot of times, you can't see the bird and that's the hard part and you can hear it. And you're like, I don't know what this is. So if you're new and starting out, you know, [00:12:00] I think I do recommend people to use that Merlin app. It's very new. Um, I think it's run by Cornell as well. Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

[00:12:07] Katya Rucker: Ornithology, as you can probably guess, is the study of birds. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which is about a five minute drive from the Cornell University main campus in upstate New York, is a huge proponent of citizen science. Citizen science is scientific research conducted by members of the general public. And it's a huge help to professional [00:12:30] scientists. I mean, just think about it. Anyone anywhere in the world can be an amateur birdwatcher and log their bird observations. And there are only so many ornithologists out there trying to collect the same kind of data. The lab has a massive citizen scientist database called eBird which receives more than a hundred million bird sightings every year from birdwatchers, and the eBird database helped them build the Merlin app that Correne just mentioned. And that's spelled M E R L I [00:13:00] N if you're interested in downloading it. The app will use the date and your location, along with photos or sound clips you capture to help you identify the birds you're seeing and hearing.

[00:13:11] And Correne has two more tips to make identifying birds a little bit easier when you're just starting out.

[00:13:17] Correne George: What I like to tell people is to learn the songs for the most common birds, the 20 to 25 birds that you see and hear -- learn those songs. And then you can filter out when you hear [00:13:30] something else. Because most of the time you're going to hear the same birds, except in spring migration when it's crazy.

[00:13:36] Um, so if you learn those 20 to 25 birds, that's going to be a game changer. Learn those songs of those common birds, which I can always come up with a list of those. Um, and the other thing, forgetting about songs, just visual -- learning like, their profile in flight. Like we saw today. If you can ID their profile in flight, um, [00:14:00] just through practice like blue jays and robins today, um, after awhile, you can tell them from very far away by the flight pattern, by their shape. Even if they're silent. 

[00:14:09] Katya Rucker: We saw or heard 24 different species of birds on our two-hour walk that morning, according to the hastily scribbled log I kept in my notebook. Encountering a new species usually went something like this. 

[00:14:23] Correne George: The other one I don't see right now, I think it's still hiding, actually if you listen, hear that “eeh?” That's [00:14:30] one of the Goldfinch noises. They’re really cute, um, they're here all winter. They'll be here all winter. They're pretty hardy. A lot of birds eat like insects at certain times of the year, and, um, different kinds of, you know, non-plant material, but goldfinch are 100% strict vegetarians. They are 100%.

[00:14:50] Katya Rucker: And many times along the walk, Correne would pull out her birding field guide, which has pictures of every bird you might see in North America. [00:15:00] Closely related species were displayed on the same page, which allowed us to see the subtle differences and markings that differentiate one species from another.

[00:15:09] We spotted a red bellied woodpecker and a downy woodpecker. So Correne turned to her page on woodpeckers to show us two species that would be much harder, or in one case, likely impossible to find in the wild. 

[00:15:22] Correne George: So this is a beautiful pileated woodpecker. They’re fantastic. This is the famous, legendary, ivory-billed, check them out online. You can see [00:15:30] videos of them from the 1930s. The last confirmed sighting was the forties. However, it was a huge thing in 2005, I think, where people were like, I definitely saw it and heard them, and they live in like Louisiana, um, down south in the, in the swamps, and then they migrate to Cuba. So people think there could still possibly be a few in Cuba.

[00:15:49] Um, but they're very, um, they're very loud and they're gigantic. So they're like, well, how do I miss them? They live in very unforgiving, remote, scary-to-get-to places. Very hard to get to. [00:16:00] So there's still a flicker in every birder that like, we hope that they're not extinct, you know. But sometimes people are like, well, you're confusing these two. You saw a pileated you didn't see an ivory-billed. You can see kind of the difference, there’s like white. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of white. But if you saw one flying from far away, you'd be like, see -- Oh, yeah -- And everyone wants to see an ivory-billed. Every birder in the world.

[00:16:23] Katya Rucker: There's a link to side-by-side pictures of the ivory-billed and pileated woodpeckers in the show [00:16:30] notes for this episode at idratherbepodcast.com. So you can take a look and see what differences you notice between the two. Extinct species are a particular fascination for birders. And while extinctions have declined in the past 50 years, thanks to conservation efforts, at least in the Americas, there are still 223 critically endangered bird species in the world, which means they're all at imminent risk of going extinct in the very near future. Many of these critically endangered [00:17:00] birds live in tropical forest habitats in countries like Brazil and Indonesia, according to the organization Bird Life International.

[00:17:08] In the Americas, most of the extinctions in the last 50 years have been birds native to Hawaii. But Correne tells us about a species that went extinct almost a hundred years ago that still hits close to home for her.

[00:17:20] Correne George: One video I can’t watch because it makes me cry a lot is a heath hen, and the heath hen was a -- I'm from Cape Cod, so it strikes me as very personal. So the last heath hen, they're kind [00:17:30] of like a prairie chicken, so you guys have heard of prairie chickens, right? [other birder] “What is the name of the bird again?” It's called the heath hen, which a heath is kind of like a scrubby, sandy habitat. And, um, so anyway prairie chickens are these birds that live out in the Midwest.

[00:17:45] And, um, they declined a lot because of development and oil stuff and things like that. But the heath hen was similar to a prairie chicken and it lived in the east. And there's a video of the very last heath hen and he's dancing to attract females. [00:18:00] And there’s no one to attract, and like, I just sobbed when I watched it, but just to be able to see an extinct species moving and dancing is fantastic. And you can actually just find it online. 

[00:18:10] Katya Rucker: This video of one of the last heath hens dancing is also linked in the show notes for the episode. What makes the story of the heath hen particularly sad is that there was an effort on Martha's Vineyard to save the species, and a preserve was set up, but there were so few heath hens left that they couldn't recover enough of their numbers to withstand natural threats, [00:18:30] like an unlucky wildfire, predators, or disease. On a happier note, there are still hundreds of amazing bird species to observe whether we're sitting in a city park or walking through a path in the woods. And for Correne, a little extra effort to see the species she loves most is well worth it. 

Yeah. I'm sure it's hard to pick, but do you have a favorite species or you know, one that you're always like, this is a good day if I got to see it.

[00:18:56] Correne George: Okay. I have to give you my seabird friend. Um, so [00:19:00] yes, one of my all-time favorites is called the Northern gannet. And they're just so fantastic. And I recently saw someone in May on my birthday and I was like, I got a gannet it for my birthday. And I almost cried, because they're just special to me.

[00:19:14] They're neon -- bright neon white. And they, um, I feel like you see them in bad weather. So you have to struggle to see them. And then when they're, when they're hunting fish, they, they, they dive. They fold their whole body until they, [00:19:30] and they look like they're diving and like bullets going into water. And it's just, it's like arrows, that's a better word, I was trying to say, like going into the water, and if you see hundreds of them, it's like insane, you know, arrows, torpedo action. Yeah. So, um, I would definitely say gannets for me, it's always a good day if I see gannets.

[00:19:46] Katya Rucker: Hundreds of gannets fishing in the ocean, if you check out YouTube, really does look like a barrage of missiles hitting the water at full speed.

[00:19:56] They come down to Massachusetts and further south in the winter, [00:20:00] but they can be found off the coast of Nova Scotia and Canada year round. As Correne and I neared the end of our conversation, I asked her if birdwatching has taught her any broader life lessons. 

[00:20:12] Correne George: Oh, there's so many, that's a great question. Um, broader life lessons.

[00:20:19] Yeah. Stop and listen to your surroundings and pay attention because you know, sadly, a lot of people pay no [00:20:30] attention to their surroundings and they're, they're not aware and they're, um, and you know, you can't blame them. Everyone's busy and stressed and it's full speed ahead. Um, and also, something that bothers me is people book themselves into a corner. You're so booked, your whole schedule is booked. You have no time. And kids, too. Like when I was a kid, I didn't have 500 different activities after school. Like, and kids today, are like, “Oh I have dance, and then I have this, and then I have this.” I'm like, [00:21:00] “And then when do you get to relax? And like, turn your mind off a little bit?”

[00:21:06] Cause you have homework too on top of all that. And then adults have adult things to do, on top of their jobs. And so you can't blame that, but then if you're booking all these other things, it's, it's like to me, never-ending. And, um, I don't know. I like to just have that time. I'm lucky to have it, but, um, I also make it like, I don't want -- I don't know, that to me would stress me out, [00:21:30] to be that booked. And birding is like the opposite of being booked. [laughing]

[00:21:34] You know, you're out in nature, you're hearing, you’re seeing. It lets your mind kind of just loosen, unravel. 

[00:21:41] Katya Rucker: Recent medical research backs up this last point, so much so that doctors have begun prescribing visits to local green spaces for patients through a program called ParkRx with a goal of helping them manage anxiety and depression or lower their stress levels.

[00:21:59] The evidence [00:22:00] from hundreds of these studies shows that being in nature improves mental health and even cognitive functioning. It can lower blood pressure, heart rate, and stress hormones. After just an hour in nature, many of these physical and mental health symptoms tend to improve, and it makes sense.

[00:22:16] We're giving our brains a chance to rest and unplug from all the stimulation we get from screens, city noises, and general day-to-day distractions. This research is coming out at a time when recent surveys are showing that 25% [00:22:30] of people in the US spend two or fewer hours a week outdoors. In more urban environments, it can be easy to forget to spend time outside, but even a walk in a neighborhood or a visit to a park confers the benefits of nature found in these studies. That memorable experience Correne had of all those birds circling above her head during spring migration took place in the Mount Auburn Cemetery in the extremely urban Cambridge, Massachusetts.

[00:22:56] And the cherry on top of these birding and nature health [00:23:00] benefits is how social an activity birdwatching can be.  

[00:23:04] Correne George: Oh we didn’t even talk about some of the next people you meet. I’ve met some fantastic, super nice people birding. And it's nice when people help each other out like, “Oh, I saw this there.” Even today, we had that, right? So people were saying, “Oh, we saw this there. And we saw this here.” So just the camaraderie too of just meeting nice people. Sometimes you meet nice non-birders, like regulars or dog-walkers in certain places.  And they, and then they ask you really [00:23:30] fun questions too. And then they might not come out in binoculars and start birding with you, but that's going to make them start paying attention to birds too.

[00:23:38] So whatever you can do, you know, to get people's attention on birds and nature. Instead of just looking straight ahead or looking at their phone, to me, that's a win.

[00:23:47] Katya Rucker: Yeah, it seems uniquely perfect for if you want solitude, you can have it, but you can also gain so much from being in a group and some people see things and help each find things. 

[00:23:59] Correne George: Definitely, yeah, it's so much fun. [00:24:00] 

[00:24:05] Katya Rucker:  So there you have it, all the things that make birdwatching so great. I'd like to thank Correne George for introducing me and all of us to the world of birding. Ever since our walk, I'm more aware of the birds in my own neighborhood: the speedy sparrows, the territorial robins, and the paired up mourning doves.

[00:24:24] The next time you're outside, especially if it's early in the morning, take a look and see how many different kinds [00:24:30] of birds you notice. Thanks for listening to the I'd Rather Be podcast. The best way you can help the show grow is by recommending it to friends and family, because these personal recommendations are how most people discover new podcasts.

[00:24:46] The show is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and over a dozen other podcast platforms. This episode was hosted, produced and edited by me, Katya Rucker. Show notes can be found at idratherbepodcast.com. [00:25:00] Have a great week. And thanks so much for your support.