So I've really... learned a lot about these birds that again it's so easy to overlook and appreciate them put them on any bird list even now knowing so much more about them um will you comment on a couple of those things particular birds in your book and things that you loved about them and loved writing about them some of the their traits or attributes or neat facts

Sure.

Maybe I'll start with the house sparrow because nobody likes house sparrows, but the really fabulous work was done in Norman, Oklahoma, just down the road from you.

And that work looked really carefully at how males and females invest in the young.

And they even did some experiments where they put teeny tiny weights on one of the partners so that getting food would be more expensive for them and saw how they adjusted.

So house sparrows, people don't like them, but they're not a huge problem for our native birds because they are tied to us.

They were brought to the US by people as everyone probably has heard.

Oh, okay.

Hmm

... and how much change just in my lifetime has happened without having them give up hope or feel like there's nothing they can do.

And so I also feel by keeping things more local or smaller or even if you're going on a trip, figuring something out, it just can help.

And so I'll tell you a story.

Uh, I'm on Facebook, and there were a couple of Colombian birders who put on Facebook on one of those pages that they were gonna take this trip through the Eastern United States, and here was their route.

And if you lived on that route, would you put them up and take them birding?

Tell us, tell us quickly what eBird is.

So eBird is a free resource where you can count your birds.