But tell us more about Project Phoenix and what the data collection looks like, what you're looking for from your participants, how they get involved in the project.

Project Phoenix is a community science program that engages folks from the West Coast in monitoring birds during the fire and smoke season.

And you can be an expert birder or brand new to birding.

Whether you have picked up binoculars before or this is the very first time you've ever thought about birding, you're welcome to participate.

We're actively encouraging beginner birders to get involved.

Our ask is a 10-minute point count once per week at a place of your choosing.

So you can pick the location.

Mm-hmm.

What is the attraction? Why is everybody birding right now?

Well, first of all, birding is just super fun.

Uh, if your listeners haven't had a chance to give it a try, I highly encourage them to just jump right in.

You can start with just watching a single bird outside your window or on your morning walk this morning.

Um, it's just a great way to connect with nature and be part of the outdoors.

I think one of the things that's really appealing to young folks these days is just the advancement of so many amazing, uh, technology and resources that are helping folks to learn more about birds and identify species by sight and sound.

We have this amazing app here called Merlin Bird ID that helps folks to identify birds that they're hearing, birds that they're seeing, and it's a great way to learn species ID on the go.

Okay, what got you started? Like, w- what is your favorite bird? What do you love?

And

I think if we thought about our avian friends as visitors who are over to share a meal with us, we would think differently about that and we would consider best practices.

So why is it that... we have to clean our feeders.

So birds are crowding together at feeders.

So if any one of them is carrying a disease like house finch eye disease or avian pox, it's very easy for that bird to transmit that disease, to pass it along to one of the other individual birds sharing that feeder.

They're just all together in close proximity.

I have a toddler, he's in daycare, They share so many germs.

Can you tell us a little bit more about that?