The Extraordinary Ordinary — with Birdchick

What if birding isn’t really about birds at all? In this zany yet deeply insightful episode, Sharon Stiteler—aka Birdchick—talks about attention, wonder, backyard drama, and why noticing the world around you might be one of the sanest things you can do right now. 

Funny, sharp, and gloriously unpretentious, Sharon brings birds down from the lofty branches and into real life: city balconies, neighborhood walks, pandemic survival, mental health, hawks, house sparrows, herons, native plants, and even the smell of birds. Yes, really. 

This one is playful, surprising, and sneakily profound—a conversation about what we gain when we slow down, look up, and listen.

Birdchick

Merlin, Cornell Lab

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Transcript

Fill To Capacity where heart grit and irreverent humor collide. A podcast for people too stubborn to quit and too creative not to make a difference.

Pat:

Hi, I am Pat Benincasa, and welcome back to Fill To Capacity, Episode #132, "The Extraordinary Ordinary-With Birdchick." Okay, listener. When was the last time you really noticed a bird? Not just saw one, but stopped, listened, watched, and paid attention? My guest today has built an entire life around that kind of noticing. Sharon Stigler, better known as Birdchick has been getting paid to do birding since 1997. She's traveled the world as a field trip leader, bird bander writer, speaker, and she is brought a sharp wit and a disarmingly honest voice to birding. Now, during the pandemic, she headed to Denali National Park in Alaska to be a park ranger, a landscape of vast distances, big sky, and a silence you can actually feel. Now she's back in Minnesota. She's the author of 1001 Secrets Every Birder should know, city Birds, country Birds. And if you've seen her on the TV show Almanac or heard her on Outdoor News Radio, you already know she is not here to whisper quietly in the woods. She makes birding funny, accessible, and a little rebellious. And underneath it all, she's really talking about something bigger, how we pay attention, how we share space, and what we might be missing right in front of us. Okay. Sharon Stiteler, Birdchick, welcome to Fill To Capacity.

Sharon:

That was an amazing intro. Thank you.

Pat:

Well, you're quite welcome. Well, you have quite the background. I mean, I had to really hone it down. Okay.

Sharon:

I had a very weird life and I'm incredibly grateful for it.

Pat:

Oh, I love it too. From a podcasting point of view, you are gold. Okay. Now, most birders, well, we get the sense that they're quiet, serious whispering in the woods. And then there's you standing on chairs at events, hosting birds and beers, calling yourself Birdchick. Okay. How did that come about?

Sharon:

So, years ago when I first started doing TV appearances on Kare 11 (TV) , I was known as the Kare 11 Bird Lady. And at the time there were several bird ladies. There's Laura Erickson and Duluth who has a radio show. And so I was getting confused with them. And so I was getting a tattoo one day. The tattoo artist said, oh, you're that bird chick on tv that's telling me to feed Safflowers and Orioles and stuff. And I was like, oh, Birdchick. And so the what the domain was open, and at the time I was married and uh, my husband was like, you might enjoy this thing called blogging where you can write. And I was trying to get published. And so it just kind of grew from there. And that's how Birdchick was born. I wanted to separate myself from Bird ladies. 'cause people will still say, oh, you're that bird lady on Almanac. And I'm like, I'm no lady.

Pat:

Okay, then. Now you've been doing this for almost 30 years. What is it about birds and you?

Sharon:

Birds are my first love, and they're my true love. I mean, I remember the exact moment when I got just taken away by them and I, I didn't realize it was going to be a career. As a matter of fact, I'm a theater major. A lot of people think I'm an ornithologist, but I do not have a biology degree emphasis on birds. But I've always found comfort in them when I'm having a bad day, anytime outside noticing a bird, even a common bird brings me joy. And I learn something new every single time.

Pat:

It's interesting you say birding isn't really about birds, it's about noticing what changed in your life once you started paying attention that closely

Sharon:

You understand your surroundings in, in a completely different way, especially when you start to understand bird behavior and bird communication. I can be at a backyard barbecue and hear a certain sound and say, Cooper's Hawk's about to fly through. And 90% of the time, one does. And it's just because I can hear the sound that Robins make that is like, oh, I see an aerial predator. And that's usually when the Cooper's Hawk flies through. So you understand sometimes that sometimes birds are angry with each other or maybe at you. There's a whole lot of drama going on around you.

Pat:

Boy, what a world you live in to be able to eavesdrop on bird talking. And I appreciate that. Our backyard, we're in the city of St. Paul. And our backyard is wild kingdom. We feed squirrels, chipmunks, we have a possum that lives under the porch. We've got and bunnies, but we also have the birds coming through. And I've really started to listen how they engage. There's an interesting pattern. Now, we also have hawks that sometimes, 'cause it's so many critters back here. The second they're on the fence, it gets really quiet. Yeah. Everybody disappears.

Sharon:

Sometimes you have birds that will mob them and make noise, but yeah, when, when birds get quiet or if you've ever had a downy woodpecker or chickadee just suddenly sit at your feeder and not move that there's a hawk around. You may not be able to see it, but they do. And they know if like, if I move that hawk's gonna come for me. So I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna pretend to be a statue.

Pat:

Whoa. You know, I have to say, we have observed two times now where crows went after a hawk. They were so badass, they didn't care that the hawk was, I mean, that was a big span. I just kept following them from tree to tree. So I appreciate you saying that that birds will, will go after hawks.

Sharon:

Yeah. And, and I mean, birds are how I find a lot of owls too. They'll do what's called mobbing and what that behavior you described the crows doing, that's called mobbing. But chickadees will do that with smaller owls. So if you ever hear angry chickadees always kinda look around where they're being angry and their angriness is usually expressed where they'll go, DDD, DDDD. Like over and over and over. Not just actual chick d, DD, but I mean it's just like D-D-D-D-D-D-D. And, and sometimes a nut hatch might join in that too. And then, yeah, you usually find a bird.

Pat:

People think of birding as like a solitary thing, but when birding becomes social instead of solitary, what do you notice that happens in people?

Sharon:

Ooh, that's a really great question. I think just camaraderie. Just the chance to be out with like-minded folks and birding can be solitary. There are times that I like to be alone in birding, and then there are times I like to share it with other people. But you know, it's like when you're LGBTQ plus, you know, it's nice to be around other people in that sexuality spectrum that you can just be your full self around. And so to be able to be around other birders and completely nerd out about the behavior of a Ruby Crown Kinglit or something like that, or finally getting to see a rail, which is really, really hard to see. I remember years ago I was hosting an event called the Big Watch at Great Cloud Dunes. And it was a spot where you can still get Whippoorwills in Minnesota.

Sharon:

They're not super common here. And so, yeah, everybody came and we stayed for the whipper wheels and then we, we followed them around and we even got to see a display that none of us had ever seen before. 'cause it was just light enough to see this behavior. And it was just fun to share that with people and feed on the excitement. I love showing somebody a new bird for the first time, especially if it's a bird. They've been trying really, really hard to see. And they keep missing it. It's fun to share in that joy.

Pat:

Oh yeah. And it must feel awfully magical.

Sharon:

It does. Oh, it does. I mean, it is, you feel like the same kind of high that you would feel from other things. That can be a lot of fun. You know, it's all the endorphins that are released. I mean, I remember when I finally got a spruce grouse and I was riding that high for a few days and I could feel it in my chest. You know, it was just, just that joy.

Pat:

Yeah. Now, I'm sure people come to you wanting the right feeder or the trick to attract birds. What do people misunderstand about bringing birds into their space?

Sharon:

Oh, it's, that's a, that's a really good question. It's never going to be perfect. You're going to get species, whether it's mammals or birds that annoy you. And that native plants play a critical role in attracting birds to your yard or even to your deck or porch if you live in an apartment like I do. But plants really do make a difference. And you may think, you know, well, I don't see the berries on this plant. It's not even just the berries or nuts or something like that. It can be the type of insects that are attracted to that plant. And the timing for that is critical for when birds are migrating through like warblers when they pass through, especially in the spring, the way trees are budding, certain species of trees are budding that attracts certain caterpillars and insects. And they need to load up on all those insects as they head further north.

Pat:

Okay. I wanna shift gears a little bit. During COVID people were 24/7 home mm-hmm <affirmative>. Same walls, same yards, same few blocks, and a lot of them started noticing birds for the first time. What do you think they were actually finding or discovering?

Sharon:

There are two things that have made birding mainstream in the last six years. And one is COVID. And then the other is right about that time, Cornell Lab of Ornithology updated the free app Merlin, and it can identify photos for you. But during the pandemic, they added a feature where it will identify bird sounds for you. And so not only are people at home and, and having a chance to like actually notice what's happening in their backyards, they're suddenly like, well, how do I identify this? And they get this free app and they're listening. I had my former accountant tell me, he's like, I thought maybe we had 10 birds tops on our property. But thanks to Merlin, I now know that we have over 60 species throughout the year that show up. It's like going to a foreign country and you're sitting in a cafe and you don't speak the language and you can hear all this chatter around you. That's what bird sound is. And so I can be out with someone and notice all these different birds, and they're not noticing it either. But now there's this tool where someone's like, oh, I can actually actually hear this bird. And I've never heard anything like that. What is it? And it's a really great translation tool to get people to understand that they have really cool things in their backyard.

Pat:

Yeah. Now, going fast forward, birding has exploded. There are 47 million birders in the us Okay. Birdchick. What's going on here?

Sharon:

Well, I guess said it's the Pandemic and it's Merlin. But I've been thinking about this a lot lately because I had a podcast for a long time, a birding podcast. And my joke was, this isn't the best podcast, but I'm hoping other people will make better birding podcasts so that I can listen to them. And now we have all these people not only making nature related podcasts, but doing tremendous birding content. And it's people from all backgrounds, young people birding, used to skew much older, it now skews much younger. Uh, there's a young woman named Bonner Black that I follow on social media, and she's a musician and she, she combines her passion for birding and her music, which is lovely. And she has, she's got a naughtier sense of humor than I do, and I absolutely love it. I'm here for it. So, you know, we have her, we have another guy named the Birding Beardsman. So it's just, it's a delight for me that my social media now isn't just a bunch of science fiction and fantasy. It's like, oh, look, look, look at all these great people out here making really new, hilarious, fun birding content. And they're getting other people excited about it too. So I just, I'm living in the birding world I always wanted to live in.

Pat:

Oh, that's wonderful. And you mentioned a good point. There are so many podcasts about so many topics. I mean, I'm a medieval, and renaissance history nerd, so you bet. I'm listening to the Medieval podcast, the Renaissance podcast. It's like you can't get enough. Basically there's a podcast for everything. Competitive cheese, aging, medieval sock knitting, the history of the stapler so people can find a podcast for just about any topic and no topic is too obscure.

Sharon:

Yeah. And podcasts come and go. But there's been Hannah and Eric Go Birding about their birding travels. And then for a while Hannah did an offshoot of Women Birder Happy Hour, where she would interview women birders, and then they'd create a cocktail based on a bird. I mean, it was, I I was just like the, the sheer amount and the American Birding Association has its own podcast. It's, but I mean, I just, I love these little offshoots of people that I hadn't really heard of before. And it's also fun with a lot of these as they're discovering birds and they're back in their birding, I don't wanna say career, but like their birding. But it's like, oh, I remember being at that point, I remember figuring out how to tell the sparrow from that sparrow and, oh, fun. And, and what, what, what was it that, you know, for some people like it's sound that separates birds. For some people they suddenly start noticing certain feathers. And it's just, it's fun to see people reach those milestones.

Pat:

I was reading that we could lose birds. There are birds that we take for granted. Robins, Chickadees, Blue Jays Cardinals. Okay, what are we losing that we don't even know we're losing if those birds disappear?

Sharon:

You know, there are quite a few blackbird in general. Those numbers are going down. And I mean, there's always a lot of them, but I'm, one bird I'm thinking of in particular is the Rusty Blackbird, which used to be a much more common bird. And they kind of blend in with redwing blackbirds during spring and fall migration. They nest up in Canada. Their numbers are plummeting. I mean, I hate to say this, but we may not have rusty blackbird before I die. And with those sorts of species that people kind of throw into the catchall blackbird, they don't get the attention that say a bald eagle would get or a scarlet Tanger would get. So, and it takes time to study bird populations. Like the wetland that I live at now. I actually lived here pre pandemic and I lived in a different spot.

Sharon:

And I just always loved this little wetland that's in this border of St. Louis Park in Minneapolis. And I birded it so much and e birded it so much that it eventually became a birding hotspot. And so when I was moving back from Alaska, I was like, oh, you know, there were some apartments on that wetland. I should check those out and see if I could live right on it. And when I googled this place I live in now, they named all their floor plans after birds. And I was like, oh, that's a sign. That's it. This is where I'm moving. I live in the morning dove now. But the changes that have happened to this wetland, and some of it is because of the emerald ash borer. So a lot of those ash trees are gone. And that's habitat shifting. That will happen over time.

Sharon:

But something that I've noticed was this wetland used to be chockfull of this little warbler called, uh, an American Red Start. They kinda look like a shrunken Baltimore Oriole. They're orange and black, super common. They're not nesting here anymore. And, and for the last two summers, I haven't had any, I've had one kind of passing through, but absolutely none nesting here. And I'm like, what has changed in this wetland? Is it the loss of the ash trees or is there some insect that's missing? And, and that's the tough thing too, with birds that migrate. You know, is it the breeding habit habitat? That's the problem. Is it the wintering grounds that's the problem? Is there something else more sinister that's happening? I mean, I have grave concern about the lack of insects because I love not getting bit by mosquitoes. A lot of birds eat them. Yeah. I am very concerned about our insect divorce.

Pat:

No, I, I'm curious, in 1997, there wasn't a roadmap for what you were building and doing no template for being Birdchick

Pat:

What did you have to do or push through or learn to do to become Birdchick at that time? How'd you put it together?

Sharon:

Oh, <laugh>. I just was willing to try anything. You know, when you're young and it's like, well, this hasn't been done before. You know, it was like blogging. I really, really wanted to get published and I kept submitting things to birding magazines and it was getting rejected. So when I started blogging, I could write as myself. And I had people saying, it's like, oh wow, this is really refreshing. I like the way you talk about this. This isn't kind of dry. And then I really benefited from, um, we had this crazy owl eruption that happened in 2004, 2005, the winter. And we always get some great gray owls that come into the state of Minnesota. We even have a handful that breed here. That winter we had over 10,000 great gray owls come into the state. Wow. And it's the only time in my life I've been able to guarantee owl sightings to people.

Sharon:

There was a day I took people out to this area known as Sax-Zim Bog, and we saw 50 individual great gray owls. I mean, that's, that's unheard of. So, you know, talking about that. And I, I learned to have more confidence in my voice. And then I also learned that I'm gonna make people mad. 'cause I'm gonna do things in a different way. And it's not that it's good or bad or better, it's just my way. And so I had to have a lot of confidence in myself. And it's like, okay, this random, or mythologist who doesn't know me personally is gonna get mad that I'm calling it an owl invasion and not the scientific term eruption. Okay. <laugh>. And I know I've dealt with sexism over the years, but I never took it personally. I just always thought, okay, I won't work with you. There are plenty of other people that I can work with, and I've really been fortunate to work with a lot of really great people in my life and supportive people.

Pat:

So did you have to pay a high personality tax?

Sharon:

What do you mean by personality tax?

Pat:

That because of our behaviors, like how you go about it and you have this way of just like, like using the word invasion, you know? Oh, that's a quirk of personality, that you have this quirky personality. So that's what I mean, did you have to pay a personality tax? Oh, because of the way you are,

Sharon:

Anytime you're a woman on the internet, especially with an opinion, there's an automatic personality tax. And I've had the internet rage machine pointed at me before, and I've, I've disagreed with it. There was one time where someone took me aside and we had a discussion, and I've learned from it, yeah, you're, you're gonna make people mad if you're gonna be a woman on the internet. And I've learned over the years how to not take it personally, not engage, and just keep doing what I'm doing. And yeah. It's really fascinating to having dealt with the internet rage machine <laugh>.

Pat:

Yeah.

Sharon:

Yeah. And I mean, it's not just that people come at you and say terrible things, as I feel like especially with women, some people will feel entitled to be able to make threats in a way that, that men don't understand. I've had personal threats, this is early, early internet days. There was someone in Northern Minnesota who really didn't like me and would sometimes write things on their website that was terrible. And after one day, they very clearly were having conversations with me and my writing in their head that I wasn't a part of. And so they started sending threatening comments and emails anonymously at the time. I was able to find the IP address or for their email, and I found out exactly who it was, and it was who I suspected and their address. So I went to the Minneapolis Police and said, Hey, I'm getting these threats. Like, hey, one day you're gonna be alone in the bog, and I'm gonna be there and I'm gonna do something about it. You know? And the police were at the time, did not take it seriously. And, and they said, well, you know, Minnesota's a big state. Can't you just go birding somewhere else?

Pat:

Whoa. Okay.

Sharon:

And, you know, that was early two thousands. I'd like to think it's, it's different now, but it's, it just really dawned on me like, this, this, this person is threatening violence. And you're just telling me, oh, just don't go birding there.

Pat:

Yeah. But you know, Sharon, you're bringing up a really, a bigger point that when you put yourself out there, and yes, it is gender specific. When you're a woman putting yourself out there, you are wide open on the internet. Because right now there's so many people on the internet looking to be angry. They're looking to be off. Yeah. And, I really appreciate the wisdom that you have. Like, it's not about me. I need to detach. So if I were to get those comments, I delete, I don't engage. Delete. Yeah. Just delete. And it's crazy. People are really quite at wit's end for the obvious reasons of what's going on in the world. There's a lot of stress out there.

Sharon:

There is, and it is perpetuated in comments sections. And I, I'll have a friend the other day like, oh, why did I engage in this comment? And then I was like, don't read the comments. Don't engage <laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. And now we're dealing with this new era of, a lot of the commenters are fake and they're purposely out there trying to rage bait you. And it's just an AI bot somewhere that knows enough words to, to make you angry. And it's, it's not, yeah. The internet isn't as much fun as it used to be.

Pat:

And you know, now the flip side of this discussion is, and one of the reasons why I really, really wanted you on so badly was because right now we're all feeling this horrific burden of stress and following events in the world. And I wanted to talk about birding. I wanted to talk about ways that you could go out into nature or your backyard and just have the joy of connecting with what's going on, watching them, learning about them.

Sharon:

Wow. And you really hit the nail on the head because a birder friend and I were doing plate patrol in January and February. And I, I just looked over 'em and I was like, remember when you and I used to do like crazy things like just go out and watch birds instead of cars? And we did not go birding those two months and how that affected my mental health. And when March came and things started to settle down and I had capacity to actually go outside daily and engage with my wetland and just feeling that it, it was, you don't have to go on a huge gigantic hike to enjoy birds. And the things that I love about the Twin Cities is we have really cool bird stuff. Like the North Minneapolis Heron Rookery. You can go check that out at Marshall Terrace Park. And right now it's especially exciting because, you know, normally it's great blue herons and double crested cormorants and great egrets, and you can see them really well with binoculars or a scope, but you can also really enjoy the activity that's there without having binoculars.

Sharon:

But there's a Peregrine Falcon Nest nearby. So sometimes you can see peregrines fly over, and now a bald eagle is trying to build a nest on the island. And the herons don't like that, but the peregrines don't like it either. So there's this big battle that's going on of like, are the eagles gonna be successful? Is it gonna drive the herons somewhere else? Are the peregrines gonna give up? But it's just a lovely spot that if you only had 15 minutes, you could just go stand there and watch that for 15 minutes and see some cool stuff. And that was one of the things that I did in March. And it's amazing to me to watch big, gigantic birds, especially like birds that I did not see when I was a kid. Like we did not have great blue herons and bald eagles population numbers when I was growing up in the seventies and early eighties like we do now. And it's just, it's a gift.

Pat:

And your point is well taken. When ICE started here in Minnesota, we would walk, in St. Paul, we walked the neighborhood three times a day. And when Ice came into Minnesota, when that started, we couldn't go outside because obviously we didn't know what was waiting for us. We stopped walking for a good almost three weeks waiting to see, and then the helicopters buzzing over St. Paul and there was just so much going on. It wasn't safe to walk around. And then finally we ventured out and Oh, seeing the birds. And watching the crows. We love crows. I mean, they're so, I mean, they're, they're just very full of themselves and watching the crows mob a hawk, or they have favorite trees that between three and four, they all congregate. And boy, they let it rip. They must be talking about their day because all of them are chattering at one. And then they all get up and they go to another tree. And those kinds of things. Oh, we missed dearly, now we're back walking the neighborhood carefully. But your your point is well taken. When we don't get to go outside and engage, whether it's a park, our neighborhood, it, it's very difficult on mental health. It really is.

Sharon:

It was something that I struggled with in Alaska. Alaska was an amazing adventure. I'm so glad I did it. But my first September up there, I was walking a trail called the Rock Creek Trail. And I connected to it from where I lived. And I was like, I'm living in a national park. I'm gonna walk this trail until the snow won't let me anymore. And after a few days I was like, I'm bored on this trail. I am in one of the most beautiful parks in the United States. Why am I bored? And I suddenly realized it's dead silent. It's September and it's dead silent. Most of the birds have migrated out. There aren't even any crickets singing. As a matter of fact, you know, like here in Minnesota, depending on the weather, it's possible to hear crickets and Katydids through early November. And I just suddenly thought to myself, I not only clock the sounds of birds, I clock the sounds of everything when I'm walking outside.

Sharon:

It's, it's running on background in my head. And I find a lot of comfort in those sounds. And so to suddenly realize I was living in a place where it was going to be dead silent for six months, I knew I was in trouble. And I would go a few days and not see birds because there were only a few species that would hang out there in the winter. My first Christmas bird count, we had three species, Raven, Canada J, and Magpie . And on Saturdays, if I hadn't seen birds for a few days, I would drive 16 miles to three bears, the hardware store slash grocery store slash gun store slash liquor store and watch the parking lot ravens. And, 'cause I was just so desperate to see birds, and I miss them so much. So when I first moved back to Minnesota, my first two days, a lot of people hate house sparrows. And I get it. House sparrows, they're an introduced species. They have caused problems for cavity nesting birds, like eastern blue birds.

Pat:

What kind of species?

Sharon:

House sparrow.

Pat:

Okay. And you said they're an invasive species.

Sharon:

They were introduced here in the 1750s. They were introduced, uh, as a means of like, oh, we can use these out in our farm fields. They'll eat the insects. And then also we miss these birds from our homeland in Europe. We miss the little sputseed. Well, the house sparrows, were like, we don't wanna live on farms. We wanna live in the city and we wanna nest in all the cavities of these buildings. And we wanna eat the undigested grains in horse manure, <laugh>. And it's a highly adaptable species, and they've spread all over North America, but they will kill other bird species to take over a nest box.

Pat:

So like the little sparrow.

Sharon:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those little

Pat:

Cute tiny little birds. They're bullies?

Sharon:

They're lethal bullies. Yeah. And some people will go to extremes to get rid of them. But when I first moved down here, I had a bunch of house sparrows, uh, on my deck hopping around doing their cute little chirping sound. And I started crying because I was like, I've missed you so much, even though you're not great for the environment. I can hear you. And you know, the other thing about house sparrows I'm gonna say too, is that where they are native, they are in steep decline. And so it could be here in the United States, we may have to become the stewards of the House sparrow one day because their numbers are plummeting where they're native to in Europe. And I think it's the Middle East too. Yeah. House sparrows. I don't take them for granted anymore. I'm not thrilled if they kill a bluebird. I watched one drive a nut hatch out of a cavity.

Pat:

Wait, did you just say they could kill a bluebird?

Sharon:

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. bluebird

Pat:

Are big guys. They're big.

Sharon:

So what happens is the house sparrow wants to take over the nest box, and it's, so a bluebird hole has to be larger. It's I think an inch and a inch and a quarter for a eastern bluebird. And so, no, it's bigger than that since in three quarters. And so, uh, smaller house sparrowcan get in there too. So if the bluebird is trying to defend the nest and is on the inside, the smaller house sparrowcan get in and it's more nimble since it's smaller. And it'll get on the bluebird's back. And the beak is actually quite thick and hard on a house sparrow Oh. And they will then peck at the back of the bluebird's head until they pierced the skull.

Pat:

Whoa. I had no idea. But I gotta tell you, uh, we have squirrels and I, I built a squirrel house in the trees and we, I noticed one day that I had just put it up and I noticed that sparrows kept going in and out of there. And that shocked me. 'cause after we headed up, uh, there were squirrels living in there and I thought, how can the sparrows go into the squirrel box? But boy, they were there. And then the squirrels, I think chased them out eventually. Yeah.

Sharon:

I think the squirrel would win against the house sparrow. 'cause squirrels will also eat birds

Pat:

No, eventually they did chase 'em out. Yeah. But I was so surprised that little tiny bird with the big attitude going, you know, wanting to squat in the squirrel house. Like, what is that?

Sharon:

It's amazing some of the, the squatting that will happen in Yeah, just, just flying squirrels. I mean, cavities are at a premium. A lot of birds use them. Wood ducks, chickadees, house wrens, flying, squirrels, regular squirrels, owls. I mean, there's, there's a lot of critters that wanna live in a cavity.

Pat:

Okay. I'm gonna ask you a really hard question here. Okay. This is a tough one. When you go outside, what is your favorite bird? When you see this one bird all is right in the universe. Can you, it's like asking a mom to pick their favorite kid. I know.

Sharon:

Yeah, It is. Because my standard answer to this question is usually whatever bird is in front of me. But I do have some favorites. Like wood thrush is always going to be a favorite when I hear it sing. Thrushes have incredible songs anyway, but I just have such fond memories of my parents moved into a new house when I was 13 and it had this wooded, like 10 acres of woods next to it, undeveloped land. And my mom and I heard this bird singing one night, and we're like, what is that? We've never heard anything like it. We didn't have the tools back then to identify birds. So we kept hearing it for a few days. And my mom said, okay, Saturday morning after I have my coffee, we're gonna go outside and try and figure out what that bird is. And my mom wasn't a birder.

Sharon:

She knew I was, but she was like, come on Sharon, we're gonna figure this out. And we chased and chased and chased that bird and had terrible binoculars. And in my brain it was like a bird that sings that pretty, it's gotta be an indigo bunting or a scarlet tanager. And then we finally saw it, and it was a brown bird, which I was like, no. And it has a white belly with black specks on it, but it has the most beautiful song. Whenever I hear that bird's haunting song in the woods here in Minnesota, especially in the evening, I'm just taken back to that memory with my mom of having the adventure of trying to figure out what that bird was and the struggle it was to try and see it. And it's just a lovely song.

Pat:

Now I'm really struck by your operatic approach to birding. By that I mean opera. Well, I'm a sculptor. Okay. So I build things in space to activate space, you know? Okay. So with you, as I listen to you talk, I think, oh my God, she's into this bird opera. Opera is a multiple art form in one thing they call opera. It's acting, it's sculpture, theater sets, it's musical, it has a storyline. It's like your full service experience. Okay. And for you, the way you talk about your engagement to birds, it's so tactile, so physical. So audio, I mean, it, it's like opera. Like these birds are giving you this performance every time you go out outside.

Sharon:

And we haven't even talked about how they smell.

Pat:

Do birds smell?

Sharon:

Oh, they definitely, different birds have different aromas. Uh, like, oh,

Pat:

Get birds out. Really?

Sharon:

Yeah. There's a ton of photos of people, and I'm holding a bird, I'm sniffing it, and I'm like that good bird smell.

Pat:

Well, no. Okay. You just can't drop that bomb and walk away. Okay, because I know my listeners are going, uh, what, okay, first of all, how would anybody know that a bird smells, number one? Number two, if they're flying around, they're aerating. So how could they smell? How could the odor linger?

Sharon:

Well, I, some of it depends on what they eat. Herons, especially when you go to a, a heron rookery, that is a very distinct fishy aroma. Yeah. It, and it's one that'll never leave you. Years ago when I worked at the Raptor Center, and I mean, this was years ago, and I worked with bald eagles, this is gonna age me, they sometimes would smell like the inside of an old film canister. And I was like, where is the smell coming from? And granted, like I had that eagle on my fist, you know, but I was just like, I, I remember talking to the friends, like, have you noticed that they smell like the inside of a film canister? Yeah. Sometimes they have that aroma. Yeah. But then like when you band hawks in the fall and they've been soaring in the sky for a while, and so you put the band on it and I would sniff them and their feathers, especially on a sunny day, just had this warm, rich, i I, you could just smell the warmth from the sun having been reflecting on the back of their feathers. I'm just thinking of like specifically like red-tailed hawks. Yeah.

Pat:

See, I wasn't expecting this today. Okay. In this conversation,

Sharon:

Everybody's hearing my weird fetishes. I like to sniff birds.

Pat:

Oh, no, no, no. This, this is why I love doing podcasting. There's so many wild cards that happen. Okay. Now the other thing I wanna ask you, when you band a bird, is that for people to track, are they digitally banded? Or how does that work?

Sharon:

It works in a variety of ways. Uh, most of the bird banding I've done is where we just put little leg bands on them. And then hopefully the bird, usually it's found after it's deceased. Sometimes it's rera, but you gain a lot of information about where birds travel, about their weight and, and things like that. But I have been part of studies where, uh, we have put satellite transmitters on them. And some of my friends do that kind of work too. My friend Mark Martel has done so much banding. He's, he's put satellite trackers on golden eagles that spend the winter in on the Minnesota, Wisconsin border. And it was really interesting. He had one golden eagle and he would just send us updates in the fall when the eagles would come back down here. And he sent a map one day, and I'm looking at the map and I'm looking at Golden Eagle 42.

Sharon:

And it had been perching and hanging around there. And I was like, Hey man, that golden is hanging out in Menominee, Wisconsin. It's actually hanging about about a half mile from where I have some beehives. Do you wanna go check it out? And so we went, we found where Golden Eagle, Eagle 42 was hanging out and somebody had unloaded a bunch of deer carcasses in the woods. And so it was going down there to feed on those deer carcasses. Yeah. And then like a couple of days later, I saw Golden eagle flying near my beehives and I set up my spotting scope to try and take a picture of it. You could see the little backpack on it. You could see the little antenna. It's not a great photo, but I was like, you're totally golden Eagle 42.

Pat:

Now I wanna ask you something for people who live in apartments with balconies who love birds, is there something they could put out on the balcony to attract birds?

Sharon:

Yes. And I'm gonna preface this. It's gonna depend on what the habitat is. Like right outside of your balcony, you have trees right outside your balcony, you're gonna have a much easier time. And I have fed birds from apartments for years. So, and a variety of apartments. If you face a parking lot with no trees, you might get some house fins, you might get some house sparrows. Times when I've had trees within 20 feet of my deck, I've had great bird activity and you have to consider your neighbors. So when I put food outside, I try to put out seeds that don't have shells on them. It's more expensive, but it's less messy to my neighbors down below. And then the other thing that you need to watch for is you can get flying squirrels at night coming to your balcony in Minnesota.

Sharon:

Yeah. I used to live over by Pizza Luce on Lin Lake. And I had, uh, a couple of trees right outside my window. And one of them was a catalpa tree and there was a cottonwood too. I would get flying squirrels coming into my bedroom window where the bird feeder was. And we would put out nuts every single night for them. And I get them here at my apartment on the border of Minneapolis and St. Louis Park.

Pat:

Okay, then that's really interesting.

Sharon:

It's really hard to keep regular squirrels off, feeders off a deck. The weight sensitive feeders, like there's one that's kind of, it's like a $30 feeder and it's kind of like a brown tube with a brown cage over it, with leaves on it. And when birds perch on it, it's fine. But when a squirrel gets on there, it closes down and blocks off the feeding ports. I've had really good luck with that on a balcony to keep squirrels at bay.

Pat:

Right now there's some listener looking out their window thinking, you know, I wanna try this. Where do they start? Just Birding.

Sharon:

Download the Merlin app. Number one. It's free Merlin from Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Start with that. It'll help you learn to identify birds in three different ways. It'll identify really crappy photos of birds. I know I've put them in there. It'll identify birds by sound or it will ask you a series of like five or six questions and then come up with a list of possibilities. And I like the questions because it kind of teaches you what to pay attention to because a lot of identifying birds is down to bird behavior. Like some birds pump their tails and that's one way you can tell that's what it is. Like if I see a yellowish warbler in the distance and it's pumping its tail, it's like, oh, that's a palm warbler. You can use a bird feeder. I mean, if you really wanna get down to it, get a pair of binoculars. You don't have to have a $3,000 pair of binoculars like I do. You can get some really great ones in the one 50 to $300 range. If you can scrounge together 150 bucks, you can get some decent binoculars. Okay. Vortex is a good one. I know a lot of people like Nocs. I haven't looked through those as much, but whatever binocular you get, it should have a good warranty. Most have a lifetime warranty and it should also be waterproof. If it's not those two things, it's a scam. Binocular.

Pat:

Okay. Good to know. So Sharon, where can people find you?

Sharon:

If you find someone named Birdchick on the internet? That's me. I'm most active these days on Instagram. If you wanna contact me, don't use social media messaging 'cause I just don't pay attention to that. You can always go to bird chick.com and message me through there or send an email. But I am so bad at, I, I just had a, a biologist the other day say, yeah, I tried messaging you on Instagram. 'cause she's trying to find some Heron Rookery and she's like, I guess I could try email. And I was like youth. Yes, please, It's easier for me to track email than it is social media messages. Yeah. And sometimes I'm on Almanac. As a matter of fact, I'm gonna be on Almanac tonight.

Pat:

Oh, that's wonderful. That's a TV show here in Minnesota that is very, very popular.

Sharon:

I feel incredibly grateful to, to be on that show. I was shocked the first time I was asked to be on it. I was like, who's watching public television on a Friday night? Yeah.

Pat:

A lot of people, A lot of us

Sharon:

Other places. You can, you, chances are good if you're out birding somewhere, I'm out birding somewhere. Please feel free to say hi if you see me. I'm, I'm not bothered by that at all. And sometimes you can find me at storytelling shows around the Twin Cities and not all of my stories are bird related.

Pat:

Somehow I'm not gonna pursue that.

Sharon:

Different, different podcast topic.

Pat:

Yeah. Another time. Sharon. Okay. Now, so as we um, hit towards the closing here, what do birds give us beyond birds that we don't even realize we're receiving?

Sharon:

Oh, the sound, the glorious sound. Oh, two things. The sound and I, I'll argue insects give us that too. A very relaxing sound. And the other thing is pest control. They eat so many insects, so many insects. And that's why, you know, as we're losing insects, we're losing birds. So yeah, a lot of the things that maybe you don't like bugs in your garden, um, birds love to eat those.

Pat:

Okay. So I'll give them a state of grace. The insects in my garden then.

Sharon:

Yeah. I mean, the people who get the best birds are the people who, number one, have native plants. And number two, don't invest in things like chemlawn. You know, if you have a plain grass, you, you have a desert. No bird is gonna, it'll, it'll check it out and be like, huh, there's there's nothing for me here. I'm going to move on. But if you've got imperfect grass, you've got clover. I mean all of that stuff. And, and even, even, I know like there's a lot of buckhorn eradication that happens. I mean, buckhorn is a problem, but birds eat a lot of buckthorn.Why we have robins all winter long in Minnesota.

Pat:

So when you talk about native species, can you throw out a few names?

Sharon:

Some of my favorite plants to put out. Uh, number one, if you, if your soil is wet enough, I highly recommend Cardinal flour. Hummingbirds, absolutely love it. And it's a gorgeous red flower and it'll, it'll bloom for a few weeks. Um, that's one of my go-tos. Salvia is great too for hummingbirds. Manarda is another good one. Also known as bee balm. Yeah. And there are a variety of colors for those meadow blazing star. It's beautiful. It attracts so many native bees, which in turn tracks other birds. Dogwood is fantastic, but it can get outta control in your yard <laugh>. And so, but I love dogwood because it attracts insects for birds. It also has berries, but then in the wintertime it makes these beautiful tangles and birds long to hide in there. Especially when there's a Cooper's Hawk around. You know, the other thing is too, is you can get different types of dogwood, like red os your dogwood has this beautiful red trunk to it.

Sharon:

So on a cold winter's day you can kind of look out there and see that gorgeous red in there. So, and it's fun to mix it too with a little gray os your dogwood pin cherry and choke cherry is great, but they get a lot of runners that kind of irritate people. So put that in a section of your yard where you don't mind, you might get some bonus trees coming up. And those trees don't get too terribly tall either. You know, I know that's a concern too, as you're trying to arrange things in your backyard. Oh, and have a source of water. Every bird needs water. And if you can have it, the best thing to do is make it shallow and then have some, if you can have water moving, even if it's just running a hose for a minute or two, because birds hear that sound and they're like, oh, that's water. I'm coming in.

Pat:

Well, Sharon or Birdchick, this has been such an incredible conversation. Thank you for bringing,

Sharon:

I've enjoyed it.

Pat:

OMG. Bringing all this information and attitude and learning about the birds and what you do is just extraordinary. Thank you.

Sharon:

Well, I wanna thank you for being an amazing podcast host. You have asked me questions no one has ever asked me before. And so I just, this, this was a lot of fun for me to do.

Pat:

That's a compliment. I thank you very much and big respect for you. Okay, listeners. Okay, you guys, wasn't this something? Alright, thank you for listening today and take care of each other. We'll see you next time. Bye.