EP:444 | The Decline of America’s Wild Birds

On this episode we’re joined by two scientists from the US Geological Survey and we discuss the precipitous decline of many wild birds across America. Dr. Jeff Hostetler and David Ziolkowski explain the USGS breeding bird survey process and the data that’s been collected for almost 60 years on the many wild birds species we all seem to take for granted. It’s shocking to learn of the big decline in many of them. It’s an interesting and insightful, yet alarming discussion.  

Listen, Learn and Enjoy.

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

I'm Jeff Foxworthy and welcome to Gamekeeper Podcast. If you want to learn more about farming for wildlife and habitat management, then buddy, you are in the right place. Join the Gamekeeper crew direct from Baltiok Land Enhancement Studio as they discuss the latest wildlife and habitat management practices, news, and of course honey. There's no telling what you'll learn, but I'm going to tell you. I bet it's interesting. Enjoy.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

We're live in three, two, one, three.

SPEAKER_09 0:53

So everybody, welcome. Here we are at West Point, Mississippi. We've did you hear those gnat sounds?

SPEAKER_06 1:01

Those were birds.

SPEAKER_07 1:02

I thought this, but no turkey gobble.

SPEAKER_09 1:04

What happened? No, no, no turkey gobbles. What about that? Name some of the birds you heard. The first one was a Ted Mouse, and there was a cardinal in there and a morning dog. I watched the video.

SPEAKER_06 1:14

I thought I heard of it. Bobby would have never known that.

SPEAKER_08 1:17

There's not a heard of Virio in there. But it sound like Did we not hear paleated? That's not here pileated.

SPEAKER_06 1:23

That's the ambiance in between those gobbles out there that make it so cold in the spring.

SPEAKER_07 1:28

Nothing like listening to I can tell what time of year it is by what the birds are saying.

SPEAKER_09 1:32

You sure can. How about that one?

SPEAKER_06 1:34

Best blood pressure medicine just about there is.

SPEAKER_09 1:36

That's a good way to put it. So we're we're gonna talk about something today. There's uh let me just let me just read this or just read it. Have we got something to read? Before we get these guys interviewed. You got your readers, we got us music queued up, Richie. We all love birds. And most of us grew up hunting birds with BB guns. I'm I'm just gonna say Bobby, no way. But that meant we all loved birds. Oh, Bobby. Did you know that bird populations across nearly all of America's habitats have been declining, including familiar and beloved species like the American robins and morning dogs, even where they were were once most numerous. Because of these shifts have occurred over decades, it's easy for these changes to go unnoticed. Fortunately, the USGS, North American Breeding Bird Survey, has been meticulously tracking these trends and other fascinating bird-related data for nearly 60 years. Oh, wow. This week we have two scientists from the survey that will share their insights and shed light on the ongoing story of our nation's birds. So, without any further ado, I give you Dr. Jeff Hostettler and David Zelkowski from the USGS.

SPEAKER_07 2:50

Thanks for being here, fellas. Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 2:53

Hey y'all. And I'll say it for having us. Like the military, thank you for your service. I'll say it right up front, no doubt about it. Thank you very much. That's very meaningful.

SPEAKER_09 3:03

Yeah. I was shocked to know that uh to learn that some that some of our birds that we we just take this for granted sometimes.

SPEAKER_07 3:10

We do, we live in a birds a beautiful place in a rural area. And I I you know, you never think about a shortage of songbirds because we get to spend a lot of time outside.

SPEAKER_06 3:19

You know, we we do rightfully so stay so concerned about you know our beloved game birds that you know we we're kind of not just because we love to hunt and all, but because that's kind of our life's calling to look after them too. And the point I'll make is that it's been begging us, and we haven't really listened to anybody yet that can say this, but it some of the trends we see on the stuff we love just begs to be some kind of broad climate whatever climatological, or you know, instead of that's predators alone or disease alone or something, it could be disease, but some bigger thing. Yeah, it's because things happen on such a broad, diverse area uh in that manner. So I know that they have got probably as much data because they're following everything and they're following trends for such a long time, that it explains why we're we're we're fighting a harder uphill battle in the last 20 or 30 years than we used to. Yeah, and anything we can do to get the understanding out there, not not that they probably can tell us what to do or whatever. I cannot wait to listen to it and just learn more. David, let's go to you first.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Yeah, I mean, that resonates with me entirely. You know, what what people think of as as normal bird abundance really depends on when you started paying attention. And you know, for many of us, we started as kids, right? We were sportsmen, fishermen, hunting, hiking, whatever, outside. And maybe that's when we started paying attention, but maybe we didn't pay attention as much as we did when we got older and maybe bought a house and got a sense of place. And and once you start paying attention, you start noticing some things are changing. And at that point, you know, you don't want to be in a situation where you just have to compare your own recollection to just a couple years back, and that's where fortunately the federal government has invested in a program and it's been running for a long time now, dates all the way back to the 1960s, and it collects information that helps us compare what's happening today to what happened then. And Jeff and I are very fortunate to to work with uh some wonderful folks here in the government that run this program, and so we've we've been lucky to gain a lot of insight on what's happened over time since since we were kids and way before since the generation before us were kids. Wow.

SPEAKER_09 5:46

Jeff, would you uh would you tell us a little bit about yourself and the USGS?

SPEAKER_04 5:53

Uh sure. I um I grew up here in Maryland. I've also lived in Ohio, North Carolina, and Florida. Uh I was always interested in nature um and birds and ecology. Um also interested in computers and computer programming, uh other quantitative things. So I took me a while to figure out how to combine those interests in a way that worked for me. Uh eventually it was uh you know, uh modeling populations of wild animals to see how they're doing and how they might do in the future. Um and as far as USGS, it's uh we had a ge geological survey in its name, but it's the science agency for the Department of Interior. Uh so they handle all kinds of science for the other agencies within the Department of Interior.

SPEAKER_09 6:52

Yeah, that makes sense because Dudley and I've been talking about just what all you guys might do.

SPEAKER_08 6:56

Yeah, I think like soil surveys are included in that. Uh lots of cool stuff.

SPEAKER_07 7:04

Yeah, that uh I used to use this old website, Web Soil Survey. Remember that one USGS. Uh yeah. It was the only place to get soil information early on. Unless you went to the courthouse and found pulled your own maps, yeah, and read them yourself.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Yeah. David.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Yeah, USGS does a lot. It's a big organization, very uh heavily invested in the science of all kinds. But you know, the one thing that unifies all of us in the GS is that uh we really put a very high priority on collecting the best science we can. Really gold science standard, our gold standard uh science is what we do all across the board. Could be volcanoes, soil, could be uh natural biota, biology of the continent, all of it. We do it as best we can.

SPEAKER_09 7:51

Very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Fascinating. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 7:53

So, David, we're fixing to ask you guys some rapid fire questions. Before we do that, we just heard from Jeff. Could you just give a little bit a little bit of a background on you for our audience?

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Yeah, like Jeff, I'm I'm a native Marylander. I grew up in the Northern Bay region, so big uh waterfowling country up there, and was a sportsman as a kid, and uh probably wasn't as accomplished as Jeff. In fact, I'm sure about that early off. I hooked a lot of school and hopped a lot of trains and went fishing with my pads and found out that I I really had a an interest in not necessarily uh how much we were catching or how big it was, but really what it was. And that led into um, well, now about 35, 40 years of biology uh work. And I've been very fortunate to work uh across the country here and abroad and other countries in the tropics and over in Europe and lots of different fields from ecology to evolutionary biology and biogeography, toxicology. But I've been here for a little while now, been with the North American Breeding Bird Survey here in Laurel, Maryland for about uh a little over 20 years now.

SPEAKER_09 8:59

You know, I recognize that word Laurel, Maryland. I've killed some bands that said, you know, reported to Laurel, Maryland.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

You got it. We're really fortunate here at the Eastern Ecological Science Center. We're one of the center science centers of the U.S. Geological Survey in the Mid-Atlantic, and we have two of the world's largest wildlife surveillance programs here, those being the North American Beer Breeding Bird Survey, which we call BBS for short, and the birdbanding lab, which is downstairs from us, or BBL for short.

SPEAKER_08 9:30

How about that? Okay. We know these guys a lot better than we thought we did.

SPEAKER_09 9:35

Yeah. There you go. Hi, Dudley. Why don't you do your rapid fire?

SPEAKER_08 9:38

Okay, guys. So uh let's just say uh David, you answer first, and Jeff, you answer next. Um, some of these questions will be serious, some of them fun. Uh, so just try to give me a quick answer and we'll we'll get to know y'all better. So uh David, then Jeff on on each question. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Let's do it. Sure.

SPEAKER_08 10:01

All right. Name an ecoregion or habitat type or ecosystem that you just really enjoy learning about.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Oh, sagebrush ecosystems would be for me.

SPEAKER_08 10:11

Okay, Jeff.

SPEAKER_04 10:14

Uh I'd say uh the temperate rainforests, uh like Pacific Northwest.

SPEAKER_08 10:20

Okay, awesome. Uh do you hunt, fish, or outdoor recreate in any way?

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Yes, uh, all of the above.

SPEAKER_04 10:31

Okay. I I definitely hike and uh birdwatch and uh canoe and uh other recreation. I I'm not a hunter. Okay.

SPEAKER_08 10:41

I love canoeing myself and hiking. Have you ever studied a bird species that is now extinct?

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Oh boy, that's a good question. Um I mean, I think uh any ornithologist has probably gotten uh quite a fill of ivory-billed woodpecker for a decade or so that we've investigated quite a bit. I've certainly held a lot of specimens and looked at a lot of the collections information on that. So I'm gonna say partially yes on that one.

SPEAKER_08 11:17

Okay, Jeff? Uh no. Okay. Uh do you eat breakfast? Yes or no? Yes, I do. Yes. Uh name a species you are just currently very interested in, a bird species.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Oh, uh Virginia Rail.

SPEAKER_08 11:39

Oh yellow warbler. There you go. Where is the furthest location uh bird studies have taken you?

SPEAKER_01 11:48

Uh I would say probably Gabon, Africa. Whoa.

SPEAKER_04 11:54

I don't do a lot of traveling uh for birds. I guess I've gone to conferences with uh all in North America. Okay.

SPEAKER_08 12:02

Um have you ever done any work with wild turkeys?

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Uh not to their benefit, to mine. Okay. We have a lot in common.

SPEAKER_04 12:14

What about you, Jeff? Uh no, I was just uh pulling up stuff on their trends uh before before this call. But uh good. I'm glad.

SPEAKER_07 12:23

I can't wait to hear some of that. Can't wait to hear.

SPEAKER_08 12:25

All right, next question. Do you ever drink city water out of the sink, or does it have to come bottled or filtered?

SPEAKER_01 12:31

Uh yeah, I I drink city water. I'm not that proud. Ain't scared.

SPEAKER_08 12:38

Uh I I I do as well, though I prefer a filtered. That's kind of my answer. Uh, have you ever eaten an egg that wasn't a duck or a chicken egg?

SPEAKER_00 12:49

Yes. Yes. Quail eggs. There you go.

SPEAKER_08 12:54

Same. All right. I ate a Canada goose egg from a golf course one time.

SPEAKER_06 13:00

I don't believe out a cold that, brother.

SPEAKER_08 13:02

Name a name a species of tree that comes to mind that you just enjoy looking at.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Oh, swamp white oak. There we go.

SPEAKER_08 13:12

How about that?

SPEAKER_04 13:13

American beach. Ooh.

SPEAKER_08 13:15

And uh last last but not least, have you ever contacted a tick-borne illness or found a box of ticks while working out in the field?

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Well, I've I've had four tick-borne illnesses, and I have found a box of tic-tacks in the field. I don't know if that counts. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 13:37

Uh yeah, I got Lyme disease uh a long time ago. It's so common, y'all. It is. Okay.

SPEAKER_09 13:44

Thanks for answering those questions. That was fun.

SPEAKER_07 13:46

We appreciate it.

unknown 13:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 13:47

Yeah, those are good. Rapid fire is brought to you by our friends at Nutrient Ag Solutions. That's right. And uh, who are also interested in what's going on with the wild birds. 100%. Amazing. So all right, guys. So who wants to start first and just kind of give us uh where do we start on this? David, I'm gonna look at you first. Where do we start?

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Well, you know, I think we could start by talking about what's happening. It's certainly um what Jeff and I can do is um, you know, we work for a science agency and then we hand off our science to other uh bureaus that are within the Department of Interior to go ahead and make some decisions and to actually implement some management plans. But that's not uh technically what we do. What we do is we we say with confidence what has changed, which species are increasing, which are decreasing, and by how much, and we we do so by running surveys, uh by analyzing data, and by making um sort of broad oversights about how the world is changing. And not all birds are declining. There are some clear winners and losers, but you know, bird groups show some broad pan uh patterns, and right now the dominant pattern is broad sort of multi-group declines across habitats.

SPEAKER_08 15:07

That's scary. Um, you know, I've I guess I've you know heard about it, but I I just hadn't really hung out with anybody that you know knows knows about the data and all that. So that's just pretty alarming.

SPEAKER_07 15:19

Yeah, we started by watching the songbird migrations on those maps and and then learned a little more about it. Is the um the I guess the degradation of the population, is it site-specific, is it localized to certain areas, or is it just just very broad?

SPEAKER_04 15:36

It can be very localized, yes. Um it depends on the species. Some species seem to be declining all over the place, others they may be increasing in one part of the range and decreasing elsewhere.

SPEAKER_09 15:49

Can you point out some ones that are some that are we're we're losing that are or you guys are worried about?

SPEAKER_04 15:57

Uh sure. Uh one that might be of interest to you, and uh you you probably know better than I do, uh that um Northern Babway has been declining for decades now. Um and since 1966, uh it's been declining an average of 2.8% per year. That's uh more than 80% since then.

SPEAKER_07 16:24

Well, I tell you what, that is very close to us because we all have talked about, I mean, you've hunted them, you know.

SPEAKER_06 16:29

I grew up, I mean come home from school and get the bird dogs and hunt farm behind my house, and I was whatever, 12, 13 years old, even. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 16:40

Where would we if if we ask you about morning doves, and then if we went on into, you know, just other wild birds, are are there are there ones that we would be surprised to hear that they're not doing as well?

SPEAKER_04 16:52

Yeah, I I'd say morning doves have not declined as much. But um since the mid-60s, they're they're down about 12.5%. So that's that's a fair amount, I'd say.

SPEAKER_08 17:08

Yeah, that that's not nearly as much as what I would think quail would be. And you know, I just assume that you know a lot of this is just habitat related. The, you know, I'm I'm going back to the quail thing, you know, and in air, we've talked about this on other podcasts, but uh in areas that seem to have uh almost a harsher climate to where uh you know like humans change trying to not necessarily trying to change things, but the landscape doesn't change as quickly. So like around here in the humid southeast, you know, we get a lot of rainfall and stuff. You let you let some land go, it turns into it turns into trees. Um but you know, like out in Texas or something, it just kind of stays the same. And so uh I I guess that's you know one thing to think about there. But you know, like Bobby was saying, uh I'm I'm assuming that we just know more about that because it because they're a game bird, and so many humans have a vested interest in them for that reason. But there's got to be a lot of other birds out there that you know we just unfortunately don't really pay a whole lot of attention to, even though we think they're pretty or they have a cool song. But I mean, is that kind of the same thing with all these birds that are going away? Is is it mostly just habitat change?

SPEAKER_01 18:35

I mean, I think it's um um, you know, it's kind of like quail, right? So it's uh it's not even a one-two punch, it's more like a one, two, three, four, five punch. Uh it's all things in combination there. And certainly one of those things that you mentioned there is um what's happening in the region overall and in the mid-Atlantic states, and and you know, more and more in other states too, impermeable surface is uh another really sort of spreading factor. And when you get a lot of impermeable service surface that uh fragments the habitat, and uh more of us generally means uh less w wildlife in most cases. And so there's always that kind of going on in the background there, and there are some species that can tolerate that well, like for example, wild turkey do really well in forest fragments that have a lot of mass production, whereas bobwhite quail don't do very well if you have a small field that's sort of isolated, even if you put the best land cover possible on it, it's still uh very vulnerable to any of the predators that are coming in there and they can't sort of sustain a population that's resilient over time. So that kind of background thing is happening to all species, and and we see it. And you know what's challenging is as you mentioned, you know, for something like Morning Dove, there's a big economic driver there. There's a big uh sportsman culture behind it, and so there's there's a lot of eyes on that resource. But for some of these other birds, especially somewhat obscure ones that occur in low density, um, maybe they're not uh as much in the forefront of people's attention. So that's where these these kinds of programs like the Breeding Bird Survey really matter because in those cases people are really out there sampling on the landscape for all species that that occur, all 700 and some species that we pick up on these surveys across North America. So that gives us some idea for what's going on on all of these species. And then generally what happens is after we start tracking a change in population, that's where my part and Jeff's part kind of ends, and we we turn that over to other folks at that point. And sometimes part of the prescription of what to do is to ask us to start collecting more information. And I mentioned the bird banning lab earlier. We'll we'll move towards more intensive kind of individual marking to try to catch more information about demographic processes like birth and death and and how that population is either growing or or losing individuals in some areas versus others. So it kind of all fits together in one big one big research picture there for us. Would you agree with that, Jeff?

SPEAKER_04 21:20

Oh yeah. Yeah, right. And what you said about you know, we're not really investigating the causes of decline uh or coming up with the solutions. That that's for other scientists or managers. Uh we're we're really focused on documenting how each population is doing. Okay.

SPEAKER_08 21:41

Um so we've we've been talking about the bird survey. Uh can one of y'all like explain the history of it and and the basics of of how these surveys are performed?

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Oh, yeah, sure. I'd be happy to. Um Jeff, I'll take a swing at it too.

SPEAKER_08 21:56

Uh so you know

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Surveys of large scale, and really any surveys are really a great marriage between folks who are thinking very quantitatively and statistically because you want any of the information that you collect to be used in a really robust framework that you can make sense out of and that you can trust, right? Because as we're talking about here, if you want to restore Bob White quail, you're gonna have to put a little money into the game to kind of get them back because habitat costs money and there's an opportunity cost to using the land for Bob White versus something else. So, you know, folks who are doing that kind of work and making that investment, they really want to know they've got the best science possible to back up that decision. So that's where, like, for example, uh Jeff and folks in his shop really provide a lot of that advice on how to how to collect that information as best as possible. And then that gets married together with folks like myself who are in operations and work more on the species side to try to bring in a component, the human element, how is this going to practically work in the field? And then you try to design some kind of a survey that that you can actually implement on a practical level at very large scales that produce the best science possible. And you know, that's what we've we've done with the North American Breeding Bird Survey. And it's uh it's been around for quite a while. It's been around since uh 1966, and basically it came to be because uh someone, a concerned citizen in the Midwest, had uh written to one of the biologists that was here at the time, his name was Chandler Robbins, and and she had asked uh in the wake of World War II as new chemicals were coming onto the landscape and as farming practices were changing. I mean, probably you all remember farms when when we were kids and younger people back in the 70s and 60s, that um, you know, farms didn't look like they do now. Now we're in very high yield agriculture. And so those kinds of changes had effects on bird populations. And this person was asking um how are bird populations on large scales really faring uh in the face of all that stuff. And sadly, this this fellow Chan Robbins, whom we adored, uh, he he decided he just had to tell her we don't have that kind of information right now, but we're gonna do something about it. We're gonna set up a survey to start collecting this information. And he started uh working out several designs, and he came up with this design called the North American Breeding Bird Survey, which has been running, it's now the 60th year of data collection. It provides uh essentially the foundation of information that we use to make harvest management decisions, to um uh forecast and mitigate bird aircraft collision risk, talk about human wildlife conflict around agriculture, all kinds of things like that that he didn't envision at the time. The data are now used for. And the way the survey works is it basically just does, you know, kind of like your introduction did there. You wake up every morning, you hear these sounds outside, and you think to yourself, what birds are those? And that's what the Breeding Bird Survey does, is it essentially just finds a very standardized way of asking those questions and counting how many birds you're hearing at the time. And it uses a network of routes that get run every year during the nesting season, and and observers drive these back roads and in a very systematic way they count the birds they hear and they see, and it's the same routes year after year, and that allows us to track changing populations over time with really great confidence. Happy to talk more about exactly how we do it, but that's pretty much it in a nutshell. And uh, Jeff, you want to talk about maybe your thoughts on BBS and what it's contributed?

SPEAKER_04 25:51

Okay, yeah. Um I'm somewhat new in this position. Uh I would say for the analysis side of things, uh really the the leaders were John Sauer and Phil Link. And uh they're both retired now. And uh so that's why I'm here doing this work, but uh in part. And yeah, I think uh you know what everything Jay said makes sense. You know, that uh I think that's what uh that's really important is the standardized survey that's done the same every year by people who really know their birds well. Um that's key.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

I'll just add to that, uh you know, to Jeff's horn there. I mean, essentially these bird populations, you know, as we all know, they fluctuate naturally from year to year. I mean, they fluctuate in response to short-term weather and migration success and all these different kinds of things. And we're dealing with real-world data here and different observers and different habitats and conditions across the the continent. And it's the statistical methods that John and um and Bill Link and now Jeff develop that really help us to make sense out of out of that and to see what the long-term trends are through all the variability. So that's such a critical part of these surveys.

SPEAKER_08 27:15

So it sounds like you've got to have a lot of folks that are just incredibly knowledgeable um about it. You know, like uh a few months ago, Bobby was working, you know, he uh qualified for a program uh and they have to do like bird call counts and things and the species. And you guys know there's an app out there now where just any average Joe can stick their phone in the air. Um and it identifies I I think it does a pretty good job of identifying a bird, uh, but he wasn't allowed to use that. You know, they had to get a human expert in there. Yeah, that's right. Which I think is kind of a lot cooler anyway. But uh so there's I mean, that's 600 routes. How many uh like roughly how many people, I mean, how many routes do each person run usually?

SPEAKER_01 28:07

Oh yeah, that's a great question. I mean, you know, the human element is so important to this stuff uh for a number of reasons. We could talk about a little bit here, but um, you know, we the so the BBS program has about 4,000 routes across the United States and Canada. Now, not all of them get run every year. In fact, we sample about 3,000 of them annually, and that's for a variety of reasons. Either weather wasn't great or or the person who was going to run one of the routes broke his leg or something and we couldn't get a replacement in. So there's lots of reasons why the routes don't always get run, but but by and large, uh about 3,000 of them get sampled annually, and they're sampled by about 2,000 observers. So um some of these observers are are running multiple routes, and then those observers have about another thousand assistants that help them with the driving, recording data, doing those kinds of things. But it's only the observer who collects data for BBS, and that observer must be highly skilled and highly experienced. We're talking about people who can identify every bird in their area, breeding bird in their area by by sound alone and by sight too. But these are folks who can walk outside their door and just like that identify uh species by a call note or a song. And uh it's about 250 species that they most people can identify in their area in order to run a BBS route. And then these folks are really dedicated. You know, they're they're sampling about, oh, it's about 225,000 miles a year, 22,000 uh hours or or a little bit over there that folks put into this. So they're very dedicated at what they do, and they're um they're the cream of the crap. They're they're the best of the best. And how do they stack up against automated recording? Well, automated uh approaches are really great. And you know, Jeff and I have been watching that along with our colleagues with great interest for the last decade or so to see how that will evolve and how that'll be um married together with with the kinds of surveys that we do right now. There are some challenges to using it. The Merlin Bird ID app is the one I think you were referring to there, which um was created by some of our colleagues at Cornell who are just great people, great team, very smart thinkers, and really revolutionized our ability to identify birds. But it does have some challenges to it because it has to work with uh equipment in your phone. And there are limitations to those microphones, and also the recordings are flat, so we can't three-dimensionally pick out and enumerate how many birds it's hearing like a human can. So a human can identify uh red-eyed vireo and then articulate how many individual red-eyed vireos are singing or calling at any given time, and that's still beyond the ability of these sort of very simple um recording apparatuses we have in our phones. But we're we're moving in that direction uh with automated recording units and and using those to augment other human surveys. So, you know, unclear where we'll be another another five years or 10 years from here. I mean, what do you think, Jeff? Pretty exciting stuff, right?

SPEAKER_04 31:14

Oh, yeah, uh completely. Yeah. And um there are there are challenges certainly with uh using uh automated uh tools to identify birds and count birds, like like Dave was saying. And um, but yes, it's very exciting. I don't think it'll ever probably be part of the pretty bird survey, at least in its current form, because you know that really depends on me there being a single observer for each route. And uh, you know, uh an automatic uh someone like Merlin is another observer.

SPEAKER_07 31:48

So are are these observers all volunteers?

SPEAKER_01 31:52

Yeah, primarily. There's a little bit of chicken and egg there, though, because you know, like all of us, I mean, uh, what a dream job to be able to do what you love for a living. And so a lot of folks who are really into birds and sportsmen, you know, they want to get jobs that allow them to do that. And I would say um it's it's about half get at least some remuneration from uh their job. Maybe they work for state agencies that permit them to come out and do the breeding bird survey, but they are volunteers. They are um they are not asked by their job to do it, they essentially volunteered to cover the route and then they may get some remuneration for the work.

SPEAKER_07 32:31

So that makes sense. So, like the guys you work with on your CSP that was helping you identify birds, might yeah, cue in on that.

SPEAKER_09 32:38

Well, uh golly, I I mean, who knew there were that many folks doing this? I know. It goes back so many years. So can y'all just kind of start? I you know, Taki says I love drama, but I was hoping that y'all might read off a list and say, Okay, guys, the black capped chickadees, we're losing them at an alarming rate, or you know, something like that. Could you kind of tell us once that maybe the biggest losers and the biggest winners y'all are worried about? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

I mean, I can throw you a big winner there just to start out. So, um, and I know Jeff uh he knows these numbers like the back of his hand. Are you okay with me starting out with a winner there, Jeff? That I think folks would be interested in. How about bald eagle?

SPEAKER_06 33:22

Bald Eagle is um Yeah, yeah, we've seen that. I can testify to that. They are blowing up everywhere now. It's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 33:31

Uh that bird uh has increased by about uh 4.18% per year. So that's uh it's about 980 percent overall since 1966. And you know, there's interesting stuff about that. Uh one thing is that even during historical times, bald eagles were not as abundant as they are now. They're feeding on invasive spish like uh carp. You know, there's a lot of um resource available for them that maybe historically was not here, and they they only need very large trees to put a nest in, and their density on the landscape is certainly much higher than than is known in recorded time for for most places, maybe not every place, but most places. And you know, their population really declined in the 60s there because of the byproduct of DDT, which reduces the amount of calcium that's sequestered and put into the eggshells there. So that bird has made a remarkable recovery, and uh now, given the change in in landscapes, is is really sort of doing well. So that's a winner.

SPEAKER_06 34:39

Yeah. What about uh is there a parallel with other eagles? I know I've heard some numbers about some of the hawk um numbers that have like I remember, I think I read about the Cooper's hawk was up like a thousand percent or some crazy number, whatever it was. Yeah, I mean Cooper's hawk. Yeah, what about other eagles? I mean, is it just the bald eagle or is it just kind of would like even golden eagles? I don't know what other parallels you could draw. Raptors. Let's just say raptors. Yeah, or is it species specific, or is it kind of the whole category?

SPEAKER_01 35:12

I think it's very species uh specific. So um uh, you know, Cooper's hawk is a great example. So of the hawks, right? They're each of these hawks has a different style of hunting, and so uh Cooper's hawk is in a group of birds. Well, it used to be in the genus Exhibitors, now been changed, but but they're all the bird hunting hawks. That includes the goshawk and sharp chin hawks, and but the primary portion of their diet is is birds, and they've done extremely well in fragmented habitats. Another one is red-showered hawks. We've we've done very well at protecting habitats along along rivers and streams, and that kind of protection has really favored red-shouldered hawks which nest in those areas. And likewise, although the BBS doesn't collect data on it because it's nocturnal species. Well, we do collect data, but we just don't get a lot of it. Bard owl has done very well. That's kind of the nocturnal equivalent of a red-shoulder hawk and uses the same same sort of habitat.

unknown 36:15

Interesting.

SPEAKER_06 36:17

One of our favorite non-game animals is that owl. Oh yeah, every one of us kind of lives to m mimic that ourselves. Landy and I walk around all the time like a broken record.

SPEAKER_07 36:30

Who cooks for you all for real? That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

It's a great way to get your turkey, right?

SPEAKER_07 36:34

That's right. Interesting what you said about the river systems, too, because we're all so protective and been working, you know, for the to get more bigger SMZs and all those other things, how it can add. Because I mean, the the the bald eagles around here, there was a um a program, wasn't it, in on the Tom Bigby Waterway in the 70s for for uh restocked them, I think. I think there was. I think there was. And man, they have just boomed everywhere everywhere. But it does seem like the raptors are doing really well.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Yeah, different causes in different places for how populations are doing. Uh, of course, there's like a mosaic across the continent here in uh winners and losers, but by and large, uh speaking overall, you know, uh while wild turkey is a big winner and bald eagle there, another really big winner.

SPEAKER_07 37:23

All right.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

And Jeff, you know, some of the declines that come to mind. Any any strike you off the top of your head?

SPEAKER_04 37:31

Uh well, one you were mentioning yesterday, we were discussing it today, was uh Ringneck Pheasant. And those, I mean, there's a lot of spatial variation there. Uh uh range wide, it looks like they declined about 27% since the mid-60s. Uh so that's that's a big decline. You know, there's a lot less of them than they used to be. What about birds like whipperwheels? That's another one that's hard to monitor on the BBS, I think. But uh Yeah. Um what do you what do you think, Dave?

SPEAKER_01 38:06

Yeah, I think that bird's declined by about like a negative 1.88. Um, so uh to think about what that would be, compounding that over time there. But um, and maybe you could do it in your head there, Jeff. But it's a it's a pretty substantial loss of population. That's a bird that, as you guys know, it's um it's uh it's classified as uh capramulged, and capri means uh goat, and mulged means uh milk. So some people would uh call them night jars, and other people call them goat suckers, because in the old world, those night jars would course low over the fields in the evening, and and if you ever catch one, their mouth is so big and they have these big modified feathers on the sides of their bill to help funnel moths into their mouth. And so people thought they were milking the goats, and so they called them goat suckers. Well, that group as a whole has not done well. Um, they are generally area-sensitive birds, so they don't do well when when habitats are fragmented, but there's even some of them that are not doing well that are not super sensitive to, say, forests, like uh like a whippoorwill might. Another one is uh common nighthawk, which is also a capramulgid, but it comes out, uh it's detected a little bit more by BBS because it's crepuscular, so it's not quite nocturnal. But that bird uh nests on rooftops and other places and also has not done well. So, you know, Jeff and I can't really speak to the causes of these things, but you know, from what we've heard of the literature in the literature and what we've sort of anecdotally seen, that seems those two species are very tightly tied to insect populations, and insect populations have been on on a pretty massive decline, which you you probably see no matter where you are, even in Mississippi there driving down the road, the number of bugs that are hitting your windshield is not quite the same as it was a couple decades ago, and that affects those those nighthawks and night jarms.

SPEAKER_08 40:07

Yeah, yeah, we we hear them. Um I live in a college town and there's you know stadium lights and things like that everywhere. Uh and uh I was noticing one the other night. Um Lanny caught grew up calling them bull bats.

SPEAKER_06 40:22

Bull bats. That's right. Yep, exactly what we call them.

SPEAKER_08 40:25

And they make that really weird noise. Bull bats.

SPEAKER_06 40:28

Yeah, yeah. They do.

SPEAKER_01 40:31

Overall, some of these mega charismatic species, you know, we we sort of pay attention to those. But boy, a lot of birds that use grasslands and farmlands, you know, farmland has changed so much, and grassland has changed so much that those populations have have really declined. And that's where, you know, kind of Jeff was suggesting there with um with pheasant and quail and a bunch of other grassland birds there too, Jeff, in that group. Do you any come to mind? Metal arcs and that's that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_04 41:02

Certainly have been declining. Um about the state of the birds report that contribute to the most recent one. And in that we look at groups of birds, not individual species, and how those groups are doing. And um that's the one with the steepest declines is the grass numbers. Errorly and the birds aren't doing great either, though.

SPEAKER_09 41:26

You know, we uh we watch, uh, there's uh plenty, I think you do as well. There's a an uh an Instagram page that posts about birds that are the the status of the migration. And it's kind of like a heat map. You can see and like last night there were like 20 million birds that were in a in route. Yeah, and and and we also read about how some cities are learning how to turn lights out at night, and that seems to be helping some birds. We hear about feral cats taking you know millions of birds. What are are are those things uh those seem so simple, but are those contributing to the downfall of the wild birds as well?

SPEAKER_04 42:05

It's hard. It's hard for us to say because that's not what we studied, but uh yeah, and there's people who definitely would argue that, definitely. Um and uh they're likely right as far as I know, but I I'm not uh I can't say as far as my own studies are yeah.

SPEAKER_09 42:22

I read about companies that have figured out some like coatings to put on windows that make them aware that the birds steer around them. And that I mean you just kind of gotta cheer those here. Yeah, you gotta cheer for people that are inventing things like that.

SPEAKER_04 42:38

Yeah, that that is really great. I think it makes a big difference.

SPEAKER_01 42:43

Yeah, uh research is pretty clear on where the uh sources of mortality are for birds, and you know, habitat is is a big part of the conversation, of course. But then uh of the places that are left for birds, you know, what is the likelihood that they encounter windows or uh cats or other subsidized predators is pretty high, you know. Nowadays the world has really changed. So those are things folks, other research teams have really focused on as and identified as pretty big drivers of mortality for birds.

SPEAKER_06 43:16

How many how many species did you you somebody mentioned how many you follow? 700. I thought it was 700. Yeah, could you don't tell me we'll start, we'll write them down as you alphabetical order. Yeah, you want them alphabetical?

SPEAKER_01 43:34

No, but I mean Ebert's toe heat. That's the first one.

SPEAKER_06 43:39

It's kind of overwhelming to think about, but I know that and we're talking about every little factor, including cats and other things. I mean windows. BB gunned. Yeah, for for individual species and all, but and I mean you would think that the first priority is like all species expanding or whatever. But quite honestly, the really big responsibility we have is seeking balance there. Not like every single one should just go up as much as possible either. You know, that's the really hard part, complicated part for us as stewards of the earth is like what what actions can we take to help provide the the kind of balance for long-term, you know, health and longevity and you know whatever's preservation of the different species. That's that's the big to me, that's the big complex question. When you and you know you said 700 some, but that's probably a drop in the bucket of while w worldwide, you know, species, I would think.

SPEAKER_01 44:41

It certainly is. I I, you know, and I don't want to speak for my colleagues, but I think having worked with lots of folks like Jeff over the years, I mean, we all sort of agree with that, that, you know, um, the best thing you can do is be real about what the world is and what's happening in the world. Everything we do have has consequences. And um, you know, you try to strike the best balances that you can. And for Jeff and I, you know, the we made decisions in our careers early off about what part of that process we want to play in. And, you know, for this stage of our careers, we we feel uh it's not ours necessarily to make those decisions and to strike those balances, but really to provide the very best data that we can so that folks in each situation across the continent can make the best decisions they need to to balance the values and the resources as they want to see them moving forward. And it's tricky work, you know, because um it's there's a lot of play there. And I'll give you a great example. There's this thing in our our line of work called the shifting baseline, which says that you get used to what your conditions are now, and then you sort of start monitoring the change from that point moving forward. And that's not necessarily the best way to do it. There's a classic example I can think of. It's called the chestnut-sided warbler, a pretty little warbler that comes up here in the spring, uh, sings a song that says uh like uh please, please, please to meet you. Sounds a little bit like that, coming through your neck of the woods right now. In fact, as it's moving northward. Well, that that bird uh was John James Audubon saw two of them alive in his lifetime, both on the same day in 1808, on the same at the same place in Potts Grove, Pennsylvania. That was it. Now, when I started birding, oh, back in the late 70s, uh, early 80s, um, that bird was very common. And uh it was one of the most common migrants I remember seeing as a child. Now that bird has declined quite a bit over time. And so depending on what your baseline is, you can make a different conclusion about what needs to happen with that species or how you value putting habitat into the kind of land cover that that bird uses. That bird uses early successional forests. And back when Audubon was on the landscape in the 1800s, the very early 1800s, there there was very little early successional forest relative to what came following the industrial revolution in the later 1800s and through the early 1900s. So what I experienced was post-industrial world there. And so if you're a decision maker, you have some very difficult decisions to make about what you see with data like the BBS data, because you really have to have a sort of broad sense for what your values are. There's opportunity cost to putting your land into early successional forest. You're not going to have your pileated woodpeckers and other birds that rely on really old growth forest if that's the case.

SPEAKER_09 47:48

So are the uh the invasive birds that have come here, the starlings and the English sparrows, are cormorant cormorants. Yeah, is the same thing happening with them? Are they are they surviving better at the expense of some of our native birds?

SPEAKER_04 48:03

The BBS, I would say they've been declining. Uh that's what um there was a paper that came out in 2019 looking at the total number of birds in North America and how that's changed. And uh what they found was a large, a substantial proportion of the decline was in non-native species, uh, such as the uh European starling and the house barrel. Uh because they also probably because they also rely on the same habitats that a lot of our native species that are declining on rely on that uh you know, and and just in recent years those habitats have not been doing so well.

SPEAKER_08 48:44

That's rough. Yeah. So what uh like what are some things you guys do? Uh I mean, there's so many folks out there collecting data. How do you try to like keep it consistent from year to year?

SPEAKER_01 49:00

Yeah, that's kind of baked into the BBS uh model there, the way that the protocol for the BBS works. Uh, we try to, well, you know, let me back up a little bit there and tell you that as you guys know from fisheries, you've had some guests on who work with fish populations. It's really tough to know how many fish are out there because we don't live underwater. And even when we're underwater, they're moving around. So it's hard to count them. And we take for granted that birds are kind of the same way. There's always birds out there that you don't see. And as the day goes on, they're doing things that make them less detectable to you. So so your ability to detect birds or any wildlife for that matter, when you do surveys, is really important. And for the BBS, the way it was constructed was with a lot of foresight. And it said, look, let's try to create a survey that controls for as many of these components of detectability as possible. So it uses highly skilled observers and it tries to hold on to those observers on a route for as long as possible. So you have the same person collecting the information over time, and then they sample once per year at the height of the breeding season. And the reason for that is because, you know, at the breeding season, birds establish territories and they're generally not moving around very much. They kind of have a closed population there. And we're really lucky in the temperate region here because birds tend to start breeding at roughly the same time. Most species breed in May and June here in the temperate region. Not all, but most, and most individuals show up and start breeding within about a week of one another. And so, you know, you have a really great time to conduct these surveys, and then you control for weather. You say don't sample when the weather is not good or the wind is too high, and uh counts last just three minutes a pop. And so observers are moving very quickly and doing these counts, and then we're aggregating a lot of data together. So it's sort of baked into the BBS model. There's another count program that's out there now called eBird that uses a different counting process and but account you know, accumulates massive amounts of data. And so Jeff has done a lot of work with our colleagues up there to try to integrate those together and also work with the Christmas bird count, which is another kind of survey that happens at another time of the year. And Jeff, what's been your experience in pulling that stuff together?

SPEAKER_04 51:29

Uh yeah, I mean we were just at the beginning, uh, I'd say, of uh putting those together. Uh but we did do a study recently, uh when I say we use mostly the Cornell folks, uh looking just comparing the trends that you get from PDS and from eBay. And it's very different data, very different types of analysis. Uh when you look at the especially at the ones that each type of analysis has the most confidence in those features, regions, um there's pretty good agreement between them. So yeah, uh that's the first step, right? Because if if you have data sets that are looking at different things, uh or analyses that are looking at different things, and then you put them together, you just get something in the middle that doesn't mean anything, maybe.

SPEAKER_09 52:23

So, guys, I've I'd like to throw out that one of my favorite birds that I was seeing, and I didn't know what it was, but I'm seeing them in places that I like to be, is a little yellow bird. And I it's a hard word to pronounce, but the protonitary warbler? Have you guys been paying attention? Landon, you ever see them on the road?

SPEAKER_07 52:46

I think I know exactly what you're talking about. It's a really beautiful little yellow bird.

SPEAKER_08 52:51

Yeah, they like swampy stuff. You know, warblers.

SPEAKER_09 52:56

Protonotary. Here, pass that to Atlanta.

SPEAKER_08 52:58

Warblers are like, you know, most bird nerds, I would say uh it's like the the whole all of the warblers is like, you know, a lot of people's favorites, and there's so many of them, and a lot of them look, I mean, almost indistinguishable. Uh how's that fella doing?

SPEAKER_01 53:19

Yeah, that's a great question. Um, that's a fantastic bird. You know, that's a that's a cool bird. It's named after uh a high-ranking official in the Catholic Church, basically. It's a pathanitary. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 53:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 53:32

And uh, you know, I I grew up knowing it. Maybe you know it this way is the golden swamp warbler because it's always associated with these uh lowland swamps and riverine areas. And uh, as warblers go, it's actually on the chunky side, and it's a beautiful, uh, just amazingly gold warbler. Uh, the way it stands out, you know, in a forested condition is really striking, as I'm sure you've seen. It has kind of a bluish back and a long bill, and it's one of the few of the warblers that nests in cavities. And so that bird is tied to the availability of old snags for nesting in, and those snags have to be a certain diameter in order for it to find suitable nesting locations. But I don't have that the trend for that species on the top of my mind here.

SPEAKER_04 54:22

I just pulled it up. Uh yeah, they're um, I mean, since the mid-60s, they've declined, but it looks like it's leveled off in recent years, since around 2000 or so.

SPEAKER_09 54:35

Yeah, it's a beautiful news. So let me ask you this. When in in preparation for this, I was kind of geared more toward the you know, the the the birds that you know, the non-consumptive species that uh I was hearing about was declining. It was surprising me. But I read about, I didn't know this, that the bluebirds almost they they were on a terrible track to go extinct, Lanny, because there were no cavities for bluebirds. And Americans pulled up uh the bluebird boxes, start building bluebird boxes and putting them up and building these trails and brought the bluebird back. Is it is that a true story?

SPEAKER_01 55:13

Indeed.

SPEAKER_04 55:14

Uh so I I hope it's so because uh I uh I when I was in the Boy Scouts, that's where my Eagle Scout project was building these bluebird boxes.

SPEAKER_06 55:22

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_04 55:24

Uh but yeah, no, they are doing a lot better uh than they were. They they were declining. Looks like the Eastern Bluebird uh its major down like uh 77 or so has been increasing since uh for the most part.

SPEAKER_09 55:37

That's people carrying and people doing something.

SPEAKER_06 55:40

That's a lot of boxes though, to make a difference.

SPEAKER_07 55:42

That is a lot of boxes. I I like them. I remember making them in Boy Scouts early on, really did.

SPEAKER_08 55:47

So it's good to be playing. We do a project at the Knoxaby National Wildlife Refuge where kids come. It's like one day out of the year in the spring, and we all help them make bird boxes. They're already kind of pre-cut, but they they screw them all together. And uh I actually made one and and took it out to my farm and set it up, and I um a pair of bluebirds used it and they fledged uh just a few days ago. And I've I've had fun watching the whole process. I want to put more of them in.

SPEAKER_09 56:18

It happens fast too.

SPEAKER_01 56:19

Yeah, yeah, isn't that isn't that amazing? It's it's uh it's great to be able to interact with stuff like that, and there's something about us as people that we want we want that kind of interaction, right?

SPEAKER_06 56:30

Like every day, hundred percent. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 56:33

I mean wood ducks, right?

SPEAKER_06 56:35

Great example. Yes, they're beautiful, they're so beautiful. They are the nothing. But it is there's something that I'm I'm sure it's been studied, you know, whatever, medically, psychologically, there's something so um medicinal and so uh whatever, enriching, however you want to say it to us to touch the face of nature, which we're a part of, which we are, you know. So I mean, as simple as every year, either from one of our camps or my house, I bet there's half a dozen to ten house friends that build a nest in the most crazy place, and it's a big deal. The granddaughters are, you know, dying will let them look at it from a distance, don't touch them, we'll you know, follow the stages. But they're so I mean, they're so in and around, you know, humans are used to it that we just witness them all the time. I've even had one follow out of a nest mama neglected, and I found a uh uh whatever a rescue lady that specialized in it and took it to her, and she, I mean, in a week later it was flying and gone, you know. Which is it's so um I don't know what the word is, it just does something for you that you know it's in to me, it's in the baseline of a great like outdoors and one hunter. They love that species so much. And so, you know, they understand that to participate in what you like love to do harvesting, your first responsibility is to help create excess in a a population that's prospering first. Sustainable, yeah, before you ever talk about going out there and harvesting anything. It's just I think part of how we're built, and I I I do think that when people aren't allowed to connect with it, that's one thing about birds, they can transcend the like a habitat and be around for people to kind of see in big cities and things. Maybe a squirrel does, but I mean if there's not a tree or something around, maybe it's just probably birds and rats. I don't know. But it's one of the few things that the birds, you know, get around and let people experience wildlife in a world where you know habitat declining everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 58:36

Yeah, I think you know, this topic about bird declines, it's such a concern for for folks like us. Uh Jeff and I, we see it every day when we're looking at the data and we see these huge suites of birds are declining. And as you sort of, you know, suggested early off, we know there are some very big drivers and some very big factors going on there, and habitat loss being one of them. And what can we do for this? And bluebirds is a great bluebirds are a great example of where uh a certain kind of inf intervention really helps, and wood ducks are another one. You know, you can you can work with a civic organization or your grandkids or your children, and you can build boxes and you can put them out there and pathonitary warblers that way too. It'll take it'll take boxes. But you know, I'll offer something else to think about here because you know, we expanded as humans in this landscape quite a bit, and we did it very quickly, and we had this idea of what it means to maintain a yard and what it means to maintain a healthy landscape, and we put these bluebird boxes out there, and sometimes we forget those birds need to eat. And uh give you an example here is uh chickadees, for example. They'll they'll take a box as well, and you can watch those adults will forage from dawn to dusk, and they will collect caterpillars every waking moment of the day to try to feed a clutch of young. And uh studies have shown that they're collecting about 400 caterpillars per day. That's what they need to feed the young. And so the nests and the young are in that nest for about 16 days. So, you know, you do the rough math there, that's about 6,500 caterpillars in just a 16-day period. Well, where do those caterpillars come from? They have to come from someplace, and where it comes from is from native plants. And so we're at a point now where, you know, birds are declining, and a big part of it is it's not just the places that the land and the substrates they live in, it's also the things that they eat. And so just like we put up boxes and we can help wildlife, you know, I think I think that's part of the change that we're gonna see here in the next coming decades is that to really get a handle on bird declines, I imagine that humans are gonna have to use our better nature to try to intervene to some extent, of which I don't know. And Jeff and I, as we said, can't speak too scientifically because our job is really to collect the trends, but it'll certainly involve making the habitats that we put these boxes into more rich and more providing for the wildlife that we enjoy.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:06

Um you hit hit on something there. Uh about three years ago, uh a gentleman named Doug Tallamy came to Mississippi State. Um, and I uh I actually left a turkey hunt a day early, a draw hunt, to come back to hear him speak. Wow, that's just pretty serious, yeah. Uh and uh it just kind of changed my world. You know, a lot of people just uh well-intended people uh just think that putting a bird feeder up is is really all you need to do. And you know, baby, baby chickadees don't eat bird seed, but uh you can plant an oak tree in your yard or get rid of a non-native tree and and replace it. Uh but uh it's it's all these little things that help. And you know, uh Doug preaches uh, you know, make your yard uh you know like your national park. Um and and anything you can do uh to add more native plants to your yard, uh make your Bermuda grass lawn smaller um and have more wildflowers, that's what's hopefully gonna help the birds come back. Um you know, if if they can't eat those caterpillars and moths and whatever, then uh, you know, what are they gonna eat?

SPEAKER_06 1:02:26

You know, our our first love, uh arguably, anyway you look at it is the wild turkey. And the more we listen to people constantly and the more we learn, I mean you realize that it's kind of silly thinking you can like feed turkeys to their prosperity or something. Maybe there's something to be said for the the you know the nutritional content of stuff they eat to the breeding season. But the point I'm saying, and you just mentioned uh a pulp that has to is delicately survive day to day in those fragile stages of the first 14 days, that's everything. Well, they don't eat seed and stuff, they can only eat bugs. The degree of the quality of insects and bugs they have available totally dictates whether they survive or not. Yeah, and that goes back to the like Doug just said, the plants that are there. Now, managing to plant species actually include you know the prescribed burning, even from times of the year you burn will dictate a better colony of plants that will provide those insects, not only to raise more turkeys, but to hold the ones you have there. So nobody's thought about that. We're learning more and more. I say you know the broader public never thought about that until recent years. And it's so complex, it's so important to keep getting data, keep getting research, keeping an eye on the trends, because it it takes everybody out there that has a little piece of land to take care of. And it could be, like you said, a backyard could be very meaningful, especially to migrating birds.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:52

Yeah, absolutely. And we we see the benefit in this, you know, as a federal government uh investing in bird programs, it makes sense, right? To maintain the monitoring programs that we've had forever, which is why we've done this for so long. Um, you know, sometimes folks ask, what what interest does uh the government or Cornell or some other organization have in keeping these birds here if not just for for our own human interest? Well, there's lots of reasons for it. And the ecological role that they provide. I mean, turkeys do a great job. They provide a a huge ecological um service in working through agricultural fields or uh on the edge of fields and through forests and reducing um pest species and other things. A lot of service that different species provide that are not really easy to enumerate, especially when you get to these little songbirds and the ecological services that they provide. And those ecological services are critically important for healthy environments, and healthy environments are what give us clean air, clean water, clean recreation. And that recreation really matters, right? I mean, people who pursue bird-related interests contribute about $100 billion annually in related purchases to the U.S. economy. So it makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_09 1:05:14

So, David, uh you mentioned the chickadee a minute ago. And I'd read that in the wintertime that a chickadee has a memory unlike anything else, that he can hide like 400, he can have a cache of 400 acres or other seeds and remember where everyone is. Is that is that true? Can you explain that a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:36

Well, I I know, you know, it's not my area of research, but I'll do my best. And Jeff, chime in. You may know this better than I, but I think it's the hippocampus is the part of the brain that helps you remember uh where you planted your seeds and and chickadees are right up there because they're these temperate region birds. And another one is the Canada Jay, I think is sort of uh the record. holder on that. And um I don't know, Jeff, do you you have any thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:07

No, I I I can't say I've studied that myself either. And um it's very interesting though, yeah, like how how birds some birds are seem like smarter in this way than we are even. So yeah, that's just squirrels.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:20

I always wondered the squirrels are digging up vacrons everywhere right now. How do they remember all the spots? I don't know.

SPEAKER_09 1:06:25

I don't think they can't well and I and nature could be helping plant trees.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:29

I love uh oh 100% because they're gonna forget some of them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:32

I was reading about the loggerhead shrike uh the other day and they're they're such a cool bird they'll like find an insect and impale it like on a piece of barbed wire or a thorn is that the ones that go in swarms around here in the summer because when I'm once the nesting season's over I'll start bush hogging especially around like a wetland or something you know where we've got duck ponds and I'm bush hogging and they're dive bombing everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:00

There's some kind of kite or shrike or whatever type bird it's unlikely to be this one.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:06

It may be a swallow that that could be no this is a bigger you know it's like a small pretty good sized hawk size real skinny but it's it's got that tail I need to look it up. But they're catching a swallow tail kite. They're catching the great big grass they're not catching like mice and rats like the hawks do they're catching these big grasshoppers when you're bush hogging and they flutter up in there they and they dive they'll come right by the cab with a tractor dive bombing. I've seen as many as a dozen or 15 just dive bombing all around. It's pretty amazing to watch and they're catching all these big grasshoppers and bugs.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:36

Maybe a Mississippi kite if it's that's probably that's I think that's what it would be I've seen that. Yeah you know the loggerhead strike is a classic case and it's one that BBS has tracked really well over the years and that bird has declined by gosh I I should have that on the top of my head it's something like uh 2.5 negative 2.5 uh percent decline per year maybe maybe Jeff could look it up up for us and see it's a very steep decline that bird is pretty much gone from our landscape and in a great many places yeah you got it right Dave it's about two and a half percent per year. Yeah that's called the butcher bird it's a songbird you know birds of prey they have uh feet that allow them to capture prey and you know we think of just the talons but there's a lot more to that equipment than just the talons and songbirds have a special kind of foot arrangement that helps them to perch which is why they're also called perching birds they have a tendon that runs down the back of their leg that helps to hold their leg when they're sitting on a branch so they can roost overnight when it's windy and those kinds of things. So they're really they don't have the foot structure that you would need to really hold down an item, a prey item in order to feed on it. So what they do is they do exactly what you mentioned. They come down on small birds and and uh small mammals about their size and they pick them up and they impale them on thorns and they use the thorns very much the way the raptor would with its feet. So it's called the butcher bird because of that. And it was a common fixture especially across the South and it's decidedly less so now and boy we were talking before about the the who done it for the Bob white quail. The loggerhead strike is a real enigma to folks folks have worked on it pretty comprehensively over the last 10 or 15 years at almost every level even having captive populations to try to understand what might be driving some of these declines and it's a real anomaly.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:38

So this bird gets a thorn and holds it in his in his foot. No they hang stuff up like you're yeah take it hanging like a skin and shit I remember what stuff's going on here.

SPEAKER_08 1:09:51

They'll do a Bob bar fence in the old days I think so when you'll be walking down a fence row and you'll see a big old grasshopper stuck on the lizard.

SPEAKER_09 1:10:01

I've ever seen a lizard yeah so you guys like threw out two point five percent per you know and that initially doesn't sound like much but you're talking about over 60 years.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:11

Like interest in compounds yeah yeah I just wanted to point that out that's a big number yeah so yeah it's probably around like maybe 77% overall population decline.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:22

I mean that's a massive decline although Jeff could could tell me I don't know if you're probably quicker on math than I am I I I this it's a little complicated I'll I'll pull it up if if you like but uh I I think it's somewhere in the order of like 77% something like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:39

So massive decline.

SPEAKER_09 1:10:40

But so is this like would you guys show up and you're looking at these stats is it depressing he's honest yes yeah it really is I was alarmed to learn all this and but you like drama Bob no I I do like drama but so can you guys David we're we're kind of winding down here but is there a takeaway is there a point you guys want to make sure we make about uh what's going on and and if there are things that guys listen to this could do to help?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:17

I think the first thing is um to be aware that's the first thing right is to gain some awareness for it and the second thing is to trust the tools that we have you know um a lot of great people really collecting these data working very hard putting a lot in the in a lot of skin in the game essentially to make sure we have a good record that's unbiased that everybody around the table can sit down and to um to to have conversations around that's the first thing right there is to have some really trusted resources and understand where they are and I think the Breeding Bird survey is is definitely that and to understand that like the work that say Jeff does is really very difficult. I mean these numbers are variable and you know uh it takes a lot of work to to sort of try to produce the very best science that you can and then to to you know once once you get that down and you say okay we can recognize there's something going on there to engage with the parties who make decisions about it and and to also participate in the kinds of things you're interested in. There's lots of hunting programs that that preserve land and also try to put good habitat out there. Ducks Unlimited comes to mind but there's Pheasants Forever and a million other ones and there's great farm preservation programs out there and lots of good conservation programs out there that are trying to work on this together with with land managers and you know to strike that balance that you were talking about earlier that's right for for each state and each part of the state so I think you know Jeff and I do it each day because and I you can speak for Jeff it it is depressing to see these declines acr across the board but we believe in the people who work in these processes and and are hopeful.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:04

Well I mean it has to start with you guys sounding alarms and providing data you know as honestly you're like the the watchman for all of us. Yeah you know which is so important. I gotta jump in and ask one before I I I'll regret it later. So as a kid we had this like I lived on a small small farm until I was you know early teens and we had a small breakfast room that kind of jutted out from the house. I went out to the old house that's kind of falling in now sad. But I went other day when daddy passed I just had to go out there and relive some memories. But we had two big bird feeders and an old large red bud tree. But it was you know nevertheless it was kind of bushy and 20 feet away 15 feet away I was just glued to and I had all these bird books. And honestly I told the story before I almost you know if I when I found out you could trot line fish for a living I almost did sign me up. I probably would have done exactly what you guys are doing if I'd have known you could have made a career out of it. But I didn't know I loved it so much I had every bird book but I just remember this one species whatever mesmerized me I've never seen them the same 10, 1215 all the time in and out of the south a few things migrate and we run to the book and look at but we got this all of a sudden invasion of cedar wax wings and I thought they were the coolest looking thing I'd ever seen. What is the trend on them? It's like a long lost cousin I hadn't heard of in a long time.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:27

What's the latest I don't think it's great let me look it up.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:30

I was worried I'd never see them anymore.

SPEAKER_07 1:14:32

Yeah we've got some that have been showing up recently at our around our I've seen these yeah the cedar wax wings yeah I thought they were so cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:39

Man he does he's got like a big bandito looks like they kind of peaked in the like 80 to 2000 range and have been going down mostly since so cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:51

Yeah they're really cool birds they do love berries I'll give you I'll give you a natural history anecdote here I tell you I have to be careful about this because I could wax on this kind of stuff forever but I find this stuff fascinating maybe you do too. So these birds eat berries they're one of the few birds that actually feeds their young berries as well. Wow now birds they have to molt their feathers each year right because they're covered with uh essentially uh it's like an airfoil right and so that body feathering is insulating them and then they have feathers in their wings and their tails that they're using as airfoils and they're banging against trees and those kinds of things. So they have to molt their feathers and most birds songbirds will molt their feathers in the fall all of their feathers and they do it over a course of a week or two. It's very energetically expensive. So it's very hard for birds they're always adding at it and they're always up against some an energetic uh hurdle or another but so they have to molt these feathers and then they grow all their new feathers. So for cedar wax wings they molt them in the fall and so they get these beautiful tails with this nice yellow band at the end of it. But the young birds are eating those berries during the summer and that's when they're growing their feathers in and so years ago there was an exotic honeysuckle a bush honesule that was brought into this country and it produces berries unlike most of our species which produce berries in the fall they produce berries this plant produces berries in the summer and so there's a carotenoid a carotenoid is a kind of pigment that makes like the orange freckles on your skin and that's also what makes this yellow band on the end of the cedar wax wing's tail well those young birds that eat this berry and ingest that carotenoid that band is orange.

SPEAKER_08 1:16:48

Oh wow so if you're ever out looking at cedar wax wing flocks take a look if you see any with an orange band you know that bird grew its feathers in that year and ate some of the berries of that exotic honeysuckle yeah that that stuff has taken over some of like the upper Midwest uh Ohio Pennsylvania is that the coral honeysuckle no that one's a native one it's bush honeysuckle right and it we don't we don't have completely takes over the understory in a hardwood forest and well the Japanese honeysuckle around here will take it over yeah and that's a vine you know they're totally different but yeah they're they're both related um and then there's another non-native plant that people just think they have to plant uh Nandinas oh yeah yeah they're poisonous well they can yeah they have a lot of cyanide in them and and uh they're known to kill cedar wax wings oh you're kidding yeah so are you guys are y'all birders do you have a list and you're trying to check off have you have you seen them all or what where what do you guys do for fun?

SPEAKER_04 1:17:52

Why might I go first this time because Dave will be more impressive than me. Uh I'm a mediocre birder at best but I I try to I enjoy it I really enjoy going out and looking at birds and listening to birds but uh I I've never been very good at it. I do keep a list but it's only since I uh turned 40 I call them a midlife list.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:12

Yeah um yeah you know I I am not a big lister myself but birders are kind of like hunters right like uh you know there's folks who who will hunt deer only by stalking and not by standing in a tree stand. And you know there's folks who will hunt gobblers different ways. Birders are kind of like that too. So some birders are just die hard uh listers and so I work with some really great people here it's a shame they weren't on this call because you would absolutely love them. But uh one of them he keeps a window list at his office. So every bird that passes by he keeps other people keep a yard list some people keep a day list and this is uh like a really big thing for some birders but most people generally keep a life list I'm I'm amongst them I I keep a kind of lifelist in my head not for the numbers but just just because it is interesting to get out there and see something you haven't seen before. I'm trying to see a painted bunny I haven't I was gonna ask him what have you not seen yeah David what have you not what is on your list of want to see it had in North America there's very few species the only species that I haven't seen in North America would be ones that are um off off of West up off of western Alaska and uh only rarely ever come into the continent but most of those I've gotten in in Europe and um in Asia. So it would be new for the continent for me but there's very few that would be new there. But in in South and Central America and in in Africa there's a lot of birds that I haven't seen yet just because the habitats are so local there. You could go into Colombia for example and just move a coup uh you know 100 feet to the side and go into a new mountain range and you'll find entirely new species there.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:05

I've been very fortunate in my career I have friends who are uh in the collections world and they've invited me along on collections where we've gone into some pretty remote places to find and collect new bird species or to collect specimens that had never been collected before from places and so that's kind of helped me out a little bit he got a good list so look at you're bigger than mine no doubt yeah I think I'd like I think I'd enjoy collecting so yeah yeah so let me look all five of y'all we I just mentioned the protonatory uh warbler and you mentioned that it was named after a cat somebody some a cat some part of the Catholic Church a position of the Catholic so Richie I didn't mean to exclude you out of this toxic Catholic I was thinking the same combined you're behind me and I can't see no par for the Richie you're in this can anybody name another bird that's named after a uh a Catholic cardinal there you got how hard is that you got dumb you can't stump the boss I mean give me a break I will I look I will I I'm on the I'm on the BBS website and I got good news Bobby yeah there's a route open in your area get out of here yeah I've got it nailed here for you how much do it pay uh what the you know I was thinking it's volunteer yeah it's volunteer everlasting gratitude that's right we can't beat that making a difference that's right and I got another bad but but the the collection date doesn't start till May 15th so if you were planning on you know listening for turkeys along your route it would be a yeah it would be a difficult may 15th though that's a lot of that's pretty hot to travel to like Maine or Wisconsin or something to do your routes you know like when I was taking forestry and wildlife classes the the bird people I they just seem to be a notch above because like I mean the class the class yeah the professor would like show a wing of like one of like almost 300 different birds and you identify or they would play a sound and and I don't know like Google all the different vireo sounds and they are they are so similar and there's so many of them I I don't know how anybody could ID it based on the sound.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:34

Well I tell you a good start is with the Merlin Bird app. That's a great place. Now it does make some errors when it it gets to the Vireos uh Philadelphia Vireo and red eyed Vireo in particular are pretty difficult to tell apart and some people have problems with solitary vireo which is now blueheaded Vireo from those but a little bit different there. But that's a good one to get started with is the Merlin Bird app. It's a great way to really learn some of the basic songs but I'll tell you how far this rabbit hole goes. So you mentioned nocturnal migrants so most of these birds and this is another spot where Jeff could wax on for a while because this is a lot of work that Jeff's done connectivity work between places where these birds live. So these birds that are up in our neck of the woods we think of them as our birds but that's a very temperate region mindset because most of these things are migrating down to the tropics and they're spending the majority of their year in the tropics and then sometimes passing north and south in different migratory routes. Well when they're flying at they almost songbirds anyway mostly do it at night and many other large birds too and if you go out right now in Mississippi and you listen at night on a good clear night especially one that's got some south wind behind it you will hear hundreds of thousands of call notes going over at night. And there are many birders who have specialized in identifying those call notes there's a site online that you can go to it's called Old Bird and if you just put old bird night flight calls in it has a repository of of a ton of night flight calls there was a a guy named Bill Evans who essentially came up with the Rosetta Stone for identifying these things but some of these things are like Swainson's rushes when they fly over if you've ever heard a spring peeper before which is like a kind of a high whistle note sounds just like a spring peeper flying over and a wood thrush for example you probably know the song of a wood thrush beautiful ethereal flute like well at night when it flies over it gives a a kind of harsh rear call and you can pick it out by on that by that call.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:44

Hmm really I'm glad he brought up the Merlin app and how it has its fallacies so we yes we turn it on mate yes we should revisit the Merlin app.

SPEAKER_09 1:24:54

Well I think it's good on turkeys I don't think it's good on turkeys it's definitely got some holes these birds migrate at night and then I have a different call you're also saying we may be missing this correct me if I'm wrong but a lot of these birds fly over the gulf whether you call it the Gulf of Mexico Hummingbirds I'm told how do they do that?

SPEAKER_04 1:25:13

I'm told hummingbirds trans whatever the whole Gulf of Mexico is that correct uh yeah I think uh a lot of species of hummingbirds and other small birds do cross over uh the Gulf um and um yeah it's remarkable how they do I um I think they're still studying that you know how they're able to do that but they're they're making a lot of physiological changes some of them to be able to do that. They're not the same birds in the spring migration season as they are the rest of the year. And they put a lot of fat uh to do that and then have to then put it on again for the land.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:56

What a gotta be taxing on them.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:58

That's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:59

Yeah yeah you could check out a site called Operation Ruby Throat where there are some researchers who had been working with uh Ruby throated hummingbirds and heretofore the only way to really track individual birds was to put aluminum bands on their legs and so then what you would do is you would go down to Costa Rica and other places where these birds winter and you would you would really just cross your fingers and your toes and hope that you could misnet some of these birds and and you'd get a banded bird. But now things have changed because now the technology that we're putting on some of these birds transmitters namely are getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And now there's a company who's created a transmitter that's small enough to fit on a hummingbird. And so that's going to help us further identify where these birds are moving to and then you know Jeff has done a lot of work with with looking at the annual life cycle of these birds and trying to integrate different information sources because you could imagine there could be different trends occurring in the tropics where these things overwinter and then in the temperate region where they are up here. I mean rusty blackbird's a great one on that a great example of that that is not a bird that migrates to the tropics per se but it's it's a bird that nests in the boreal forest region and then it comes down here during the wintertime and it's a very specialist blackbird. It it likes to be in the southern reaches southeast especially in low wet areas it flips over leaves and it's kind of a specialist of that area in the wintertime and that's a great example where declines in the winter are thought to have driven the overwhelming population decline of that bird.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:39

But Jeff you probably know of a lot of examples of that kind of stuff or yeah I mean certainly there are um there's debate for almost every species about what's causing their declines, but there's a lot of species where it's thought to be the loss of tropical rainforest is uh a major Or other tropical habitats where they're spending their non breeding season. That's what's uh maybe a a l a leading cause of their kind.

SPEAKER_09 1:28:11

Wow. All right, guys. Why don't we do this? Why don't we kind of let's turn it over to Richie. Richie, we've got a trivia question for uh for Jeff and David. And uh let's let's see how they do with this.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:23

All right, here we go. Um, so are you guys uh big bull peanut fans?

SPEAKER_04 1:28:29

Uh I like boy peanuts.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:31

All right, yeah. So my wife's from Mississippi, so I gotta answer yes to that. Look at him.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:36

Got a homeboy out here.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:40

A cultured lady. I love it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:42

What where in Mississippi?

SPEAKER_01 1:28:44

Well, she grew up uh north of Jackson. Okay. She's also Swiss, so she's the original Swiss miss. I was telling her.

SPEAKER_09 1:28:55

Oh, look at her there. Yeah. Dudley's from north of Jackson.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:59

That's where Dudley's from. My wife's from the woods.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:01

West of Jackson, just northwest of Jackson. How about that? New Albany is where her family originally held. Oh, well that's right on up here. North of us. North of us.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:10

That's a little but a little outside the suburb here.

SPEAKER_09 1:29:13

You know, New Union County. Union. Onion. New Albany has a hummingbird capture event every summer. Well, look at you. They do. I've I've always wondered how they did it. Southern with a rapture. Southern with a mist net somehow. They do. I wanted to go to it, but I couldn't. Maybe you can get it next year. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:36

So with all that said, yeah, so our trivia is brought to us by uh buddies at the Peanut Patch. Yeah, we love those boiled peanuts.

SPEAKER_09 1:29:41

Yeah, y'all get this right. We might send y'all some boiled peanuts up there. I never know.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:46

So we had a listener who left a review on uh Apple Podcast. Um Bucking Bass on uh so he left a review. I I became a gamekeeper a little over a year ago after buying my friend 60 acres in southwest Tennessee. I've learned more than you guys than I can say. Oh, and by the way, I ordered a bag of some of soybeans and received the shipping notification 15 minutes after I ordered it. I was blown away.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:12

Hey, give a shout out to Marie back there in the back making it happen that kicked out.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:16

Look at that. And our buddy there, uh Bucking Bass, gets uh the one and only copy of the Dummy Line. Yeah, we're running out of prizes.

SPEAKER_09 1:30:27

Bobby's dummy line. Next week we got a new prize package. We'll start getting it. Did you sign it, Bobby?

SPEAKER_06 1:30:32

You're getting desperate. Yeah. Whoever wins, I'll touch it. Budget, budget, budgets are tight this year with all these tariffs.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:41

I will I will say Logan is reading the dummy line right now. Is he really? Yeah, yeah. To keep him occupied while his brother drives him around.

SPEAKER_09 1:30:47

You know, they made it required reading for the like the eighth grade at Oak Hill. Oh, did they? Every year I get to go over there and kind of give a little propping up our local artists.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:56

This is so good. Y'all, in case you guys didn't know, Bobby's an author. He's a famous author. He just gave his own book away. That's uh dedication for the cause.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:08

All right, so here we go. What is unusual about how a whippoor whale sits on a limb?

SPEAKER_00 1:31:18

I see nothing. I got that one if you don't, Jeff. Do you have that?

SPEAKER_04 1:31:22

I do not have that. Go ahead, Dave.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:24

Yeah, capramulgids are really unique. They don't sit across the branch the way that sun, that the way that songbirds do. They sit with the branch, so they're they're parallel.

SPEAKER_09 1:31:36

Why we got it did you know that, Lenny? I did not. And the whipper wheel is the most camo of all birds.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:42

He looked like he's dipped in bottom. No, he looks good. Yeah, they're impossible to see. Yeah, love.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:47

Well, I tell you, you have a better chance seeing uh Chuck Wheel's Widow, which is a much bigger one. Yeah, you see a Chuck Wheels Widow, it looks like uh an obvious big bump on a branch, but a whippoorwheel's pretty small on that branch.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:00

I think almost all of ours in the like central Mississippi and all were Chuck Wheels.

SPEAKER_08 1:32:05

I think we only I think just maybe the top right corner of the state gets gets whipperwheels.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:11

Yeah, someone said I think they told me occasionally one in our area, and we're kind of north Mississippi here. But that's what I grew up calling them. I know. I did too. Yeah, I just didn't know any better.

SPEAKER_09 1:32:22

The way to tell the difference is that sharp cluck at the very beginning chick sound. Yeah. Oh, yeah, you can hear it. David, is that right? Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:29

Yeah, the Chuck Will's Widow has a slightly different cadence to it. I mean, it they're uh onomonopoeia basically is uh you know, Chuck Will's widow, Chuck Will's widow, and the whippoorwill is whip poor Will. But if you're real close to a whipper will, you will actually hear that it's a little cluck noise that it does right before it hits that whip note. But you got to be pretty close for that.

SPEAKER_09 1:32:53

So are they calling for a mate? Is all that call trying to find a mate? And so it makes you feel sorry for them if that's the case because they go in.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:03

Well, you know, uh they don't have to spend any money going to a bar or anything to meet. They just sit there and sing their head off on the on the branch. Yeah, they're I mean, it's fascinating. You know, nighttime birds, uh nocturnal birds are just like daytime birds in many respects. They're just doing everything at night. So that bird is is sitting on a perch and just singing the same way that a cardinal does, and usually it has song posts, so it'll move between the song posts. And it's it's um very sensitive to the color white. So many people who miss that those birds often have something that flashes a little white. In fact, back in the day, people used to say they used to take their white kerchief out of their suit when they would be walking home and wave it around a little a little bit, and a whippoorwill or a Chuck Wheels widow would come down to them. But the Chuck Wheels Widow is uh is a much bigger bird and it's it's very reddish color, it's kind of ruffescent looking. How about that?

SPEAKER_09 1:34:00

Well, Dr. Jeff Hostettler and David Zukowski. You guys have been really interesting. Very interesting. That was a fun tremendously.

SPEAKER_08 1:34:08

That was a fun discussion. And uh sorry we got out of the population stuff a little bit with some of those questions. Y'all were y'all were good troopers about that, though.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:19

No problem. It's our pleasure.

SPEAKER_09 1:34:21

Our pleasure. And thanks to the USGS for doing all the stuff that you guys are doing. Uh keeping up with that. Watch out for our our wild birds.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:29

One of my favorite sayings about research: if you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there. We gotta have a roadmap if we're gonna take care of things.

SPEAKER_08 1:34:36

Yeah, I like it. Thank you guys for for making a difference.

SPEAKER_09 1:34:41

Thank you so much for having us today. Yeah, it's it's very important stuff. Uh yes, we really appreciate it. So I'm looking around. We have tornadoes on the ground around here now. So we do got some rough weather. So we gotta go get in a culvert, fellas. That's right. I think we ought to be. It's time for us to be like a tree. And leave. That's right. So it's tornadoes out there.

SPEAKER_06 1:35:04

I actually got sleep last night.

SPEAKER_07 1:35:05

So won't you say goodbye, Dudley? Goodbye, Dudley. Get us out of here, Richie.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:10

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the Game Keeper Podcast. And be sure to tune in again. Subscribe to Gamekeeper Farming for Wildlife magazine, and don't miss the Mossy Oak Properties Fistful of Dirt podcast with my good buddy, Ronnie Cut Strickland.