Ep. 360: The World Coming to You on a Wing

the water, all right? Yeah, Plus you weren't there. We weren't there, Jay dicking around on the beat, Steve and I were standing out doing the cooking yesterday or just like came to the conclusion that the sun over there is just an evil evil yea, yeah, like they're something about it that just like simultaneously cakes salt onto you, sucks the moisture out of you, and the sun that makes you want to shower right away. Yeah. Yeah, so you got like a dorsal tan you'd come up? Is

that right? Except for I had I don't have a lot of coverage on my head anymore, so full full hood just for the sun. Yeah, I can tell you sufficient stories to curl your hair, Brody, let's hear him. Come on, wait, we are recording. We should start with that, start with this, let's star with this. Okay, joined today? Uh, Drew Landum, who man, We've been trying to get you on for a long time, but we got kind of like, I don't know if you're aware of this, we got

waylaid by COVID. What what was that? Oh? So you know he's over now, not not quite over it, but yeah, you know it's it's been a while, but glad to finally be out year. Yeah, we're talking about it a long time ago and originally came from we were reading your your book, which now it's like a two thousand and sixteen memoir. So I was reading a little bit late. But Julianna A. Burder In ornithologist, professional professor of Wildlife Ecology at Clemson University, author and poet, and uh, is

this your this is your most recent book, the Home Place. No, there's a book of poetry, got it called Sparrow windvy Field Guide The Birds and Lesser Beasts. So that came out two thousand twenty one. And I also got a little book of poetry on a place called Edisto Island that you might be familiar with down on the coast of South Carolina, with two fellow poets. We call ourselves the pluf Mud Poets, so like a school of poetry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, the three of us. And then working on

about three other books, so excellent. I got some stuff going on his two thousand six team memoir Um, which we read and we're gonna try to have Drew on and then one thing let do. Another is uh the Home Place Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature. So we're gonna dig it on that. We had to. I had to cut Cal and Drew off because they started talking about what's up with quail in the South um, and I got really interested. So we're gonna return to

that in a minute. And it also I want to point out explain to people your necklace, which is the coolest necklace I've seen a long time. Yeah, it's uh, it's a raven skull. It's a miniature raven skull that's carved out of white tailed deer antler. So ravens are kind of, I don't know, totem sort of for me, you know, large black beings that like to play, all right, So that's that's what I did. A couple of a couple of things to watch out for if you're in

a in a viewing mood. Uh. Dark Cam Dinners with Jean Paul Bourgeois is back for season two. Follow him and his crew as they dive deep into their duck season in Louisiana, getting after great duck hunting and cooking up some badass meals at the camp along the way. And then we have I'm working on an episode. We're in the editing process on an episode we do with John Paul Don Louisiana, which is a hell of a good time and a lot of fun. I went crayfishing too,

So stay tuned for all that. Cal Cal's got something to plug. Oh, we've been talking a lot about our block management access appreciation program that is tied into i would say, our overall access pillar here at on the conservation side of Meat Eater. Uh so it falls in

there with our land access initiative. But we purchased a forty six steel chainsaws, forty six visa check cards, randomly drew forty six participating landowners in Montana's private land public access program which is called block management, and we showed up on a bunch of folks doore steps and just said thank you on behalf of hunters for being part

of the program. There's about seven million acres enrolled, seven million private acres enrolled, some of which gives or provides access to a lot of landlocked public land as well. And it's it is a great program. Every state has one like it. And you can hear one of the most fun projects I think Phil and I have got to do, which was listened to a bunch of landowners candidly talking about the program and and having a little conversation with me while on the road dropping off these

thank you packages. Um. And that's on Col's Weeken review if you want to listen to that just to get an idea of you know, what we've been doing over here. Episode one. I need to figure out if you dropped off any gifts that the b m A. I want to antelope on that exactly on to throw out of that. And there's a big coffee big covied in there that said if you volunteer to drop things off, do not ask for hunting access. This is the last time these landowners are gonna see a hunter. Well, I got you

and not be asked for something. This was a thank you mission only and it was It was great. Lots of good interactions, lots of good feedback on the program and and uh just gave a good perspective that you don't get every day. On the other side of the fence. Cal's we Can Review you can you can find anywhere. Well, if you're listening to this right now, use the same platform and switch over to Cal's Weeken review and here uh Cal's weekly show also Sabretooth um on YouTube on

a YouTube channel Sabretooth with Kevin Gillespie. Go check out there um where he cooks up a scimitar horned orcs. And that is an animal we covered on an episode of our own show called Cuddled the Scimitar. Is that what we called that show? Yeah, we did, And uh, Steve, there's it's a cute photo floating out there of me cuddling a simitar hornworks. Then they killed an eight No, no, not yet, not yet. I mean maybe it'll be a ship back to uh Chad. Maybe it's got strong genes,

but anyway, it's a very cute photo. H Our Campfire Stories is out right now, the second installing the Campfire Stories. And so we're already beating people's doors down, and I'm talking to you, you folks, you listeners. We're starting to collect stufford for three, volume three, so we had most recently we released It's Kicking Ass. Who's Burnet Brown? We're beating Burnet Brown. I don't know who it is. I'm not sure how many listeners of this podcast who Burnet Brown?

But are a lot of Americans know who Bernie Brown? Yeah, I didn't know when you send out that it's a it's a woman. I'm gonna venture to say that if you're the in a relationship not listening to Burnee Brown, you've been told to listen to ye. So our audio book was whooping her audio book? Is that you're telling me? Yeah? It's good, like to hear that. Um. When it came out, it was like it was, you know, like in the trending. It hit all the top top super tops and we're

out looking for new ones. Now I'm onto a hot lead from I don't want to spoil it. I'm on a hot lead from someone who's been in this room who was I don't want to tell too much of the story, because then we're going to start guessing it's a little teaser. OK, let's say had front row seats too. He had as he was worked for a helicopter logging operation.

Oh I can't possibly imagine was present for the rotors coming off of the helicopter above him, present but not responsible for saying he felt a bunch of lug nuts in his pocket and he's like, don't laugh matter, Wait these thing is the lug nuts thing? We don't have

lug nuts, isn't Christy? No? Do we have a guest on who was saying like, no one ever, no one knows what lug nuts are, And like if you know, if you know what lug nuts are, you're like a real You're like an independent, self sufficient human, and if you don't, you're like a millennial. I've had a close call with some lug nuts when I was a fishing guide. People who didn't like fishing guides loosen the lug nuts on the boat boat trailer's way. That's like, that's like

really happened to me twice. Yeah, I've seen that one where they pull the pin on the book and leave the hitch in the pickup and then when you go pull away, punch inside to this exact point over trout Man, you're on a gangster. Yeah, a buddy of mine who's the He loves to spearfish striper down in California and the rivers, and people who love to you know, target those things with the giant, super expensive swim baits don't like that. And he's had people pull the pin on

on his boat trailer. So when he goes back and in there, and as you like to point out, kids love playing on boat ramps and stuff, so it's like super dangerous and this guy's a big family guy. But uh, last week he was diving and found fully set up boat on the trailer totally submerged in the river. Really yeah, oh, she said. He said he swam down there and got a picture of the VIN number and started posting. The person not know that it's down there. Maybe they just

couldn't get yeah yeah. Uh. In our hunt for stories, we got a guy submitted one that Karan and I decided um is best just read. Here goes fast Bear. What Bear was just heard about the close calls campfire stories audiobooks. He goes on, I'm reading, I'm reading them.

I want to share a close call that happened in our deer hunting party that I often share as it is important for others to hear of the dangers involved and shooting that running game, not knowing your background, shooting above your abilities, target fixation, and sometimes a total disregard for safety. Once the buck shows up, blow is the brief version. That's the best intro ever right there. Yeah,

that's a good one. Maybe See's maybe sixty or seventeen years old, says he can give us more details if we need them. Our hunting party had come to the end of a deer drive, and as you're just stepping out of the woods, a buck that had held tight to the last few feet of the drive decided it was time to vacate the woods at a dead run. He did this in full view of the entire party, which consisted of two posters in a box and approximately six drivers, so aid Ish shooters. We'd called those pushers

and sitters. What does Seth call him watchers and staying? We called him drivers and posters. Ours would be drivers and blockers in South Dakota. You know what, pushers and blockers. I think that's what we call them pushers. Rand us some pushers out in the wooden So eight shooters back to quoting. Everyone fired, myself included, until we were empty. The deer was untouched. However, three quarters a mile down

range was a farm. As we left the hunting area, we passed the farm and there was a man in his bathrobe standing outside with a pistol. Two of our party stopped and asked if he was okay. He said someone shot him and revealed a bruise on his arm. Upon investigation, it was determined that a bullet from the hunting party had passed through a thicket of trees, reached his house, passed through two walls of the house, and struck him in the arm while he was in bed sleeping.

He worked nights because because right away I wanted to I wanted uh. I looked down on him because he was sleeping in the the middle of the day. He worked nights. Yeah, totally excusable. Upon searching the man's bed, the bullet was discovered where it had torn the blankets when it struck him. The man calmed down and later said he thought his ex wife was trying to kill him. We all knew the man and his family and they have never spoken a bad word or exhibited any bad blood towards our

hunting party. Why I don't know. Why didn't we pick that one for the next books? To you, that's an exercise of paint that. There's a lot of morals in that story. One take it easy. That comes to shooting your guns and to wow the forgiveness. Yeah, you know how we have the blood. It's all, it's all good. Shot me in my bed. You know. We have the longest one setting story ever on a T shirt. Lemight be a good T shirt thank me in a series of T shirts that are various stories. I mean, did

anybody offer to patch the dry wall? Or was a guy like well? One more details you gotta call them. So there you have it. Yeah, that might be our next our next story. It would be a whole line of T shirts called story t shirts. Because we have one about the sexual depravity of turkeys. I had to check in and see how well that's selling. Uh. Speaking of which, go to the Mediator store and check out that. You don't you don't know. You don't have any updates

on whether people wanted the turkey story short. I gotta get those updates, we can instart. I'm gonna put that.

I'm gonna put a picture it on Instagram. Um. We covered Alaska's fire season and we're pointing out like how it will only get worse right as fire season kicks up, and a firefighter who's been working up there, UM pointed out that it's a different fuel model up there, and the time frames are different, so their fire season starts early and ends early, so their fire season is made to August Um and he says partly due to the sun being out twenty seven although the length of the

season is lengthening and record acreage is burning more and more. Thanks for the outdoor advocacy, uh Man, so much feedback, I can't even get into it. All on whether you say this is a good question for Drew. If I said to you, I saw two deer's or two bucks where I saw a two buck or I saw two dough tonight, what do you think about? All? That depends on where you're from. You know, let's say where you're from. I'm gonna say two deer, and then you see two bucks.

See two bucks? Bucks not too? Buck does too. If I'm saying two buck, that's like you know, too buck, that's like some sort of dance or something. To buck. Two bucks is two male deer. They I'll say, like like they do in Pennsylvania. Two buck, No, no, no, nope, and uh one dough two does got it? One of the guys that wrote in and thought that it sounded like a doctor's seuss book. He thinks we should clear it up in order to make a doctor's seusee book called uh one. It's all set to one fish to

one dear too, dear, dear there, dear here. Steve shoots it's a miss. Brodie's next makes a hip and he goes on, say just spit balling. Uh a guy from Pennsylvania where we were kind of based on road in like saying like he says someone for someone to say seeing a few buck doesn't strike me as an odd thing to say, and in most cases Mr Webster agrees. So Webster Dictionary well accept deer and also DearS will except bucks or buck. Okay, but he points out some exceptions.

I mean, the ones goes on shrimp, beaver, doc turkey. The exceptions that Webster does not include is you cannot apparently say mooses and you cannot say gooses where you can you can can you can say gooses. That's multiple species of geese. That's a thing you do to somebody else, Like he always gooses what you say geese, you don't say me. I mean, it's like two different It's a

weird comparison. That is, is there a term for when a writer chooses to use a word improperly like that, like to like in a turn of phrase or a regional colloquialism, just be like they're a colloquial writer. Yes, Steve just gotten an argument with Pat Dirk. Pat Dirk and wrote in arguing about the hell's he arguing about white tailed the versus white tail that you're supposed like

in his land, you're supposed to in his mind. And he gets frustrated with our editors that like in the old days it was white dash tailed deer, and he's pained by the fact that white tails one word, is now a thing. He prefers the old hyphen aated like white tailed deer, which makes it seem like you're like, you know, reading what's his name? Isaac Walton credit Heffelfinger agreed with him. Yeah, helf Flinger has got a lot of stupid things. I mean, but his whole thing about

not a lot. He's got a couple of stupid things. The cows thing and the white tailed thing are stupid things that helfl Finger believes him right, God bless him. I love him, the smartest guy I know. But he's wrong on cows, and he's wrong one. I would bet they're the same way about like green winged teal blue winged teal versus you know, green wings and blue wings. Which is I told him, I've been fighting with editors my entire career about this thing, and there's nothing to me.

At a glance looks goofier than white dash tailed deer. It's like they're white tails. And I told Pat he's probably still lamenting the loss of thee and thou in popular in popular vernacular. And I told him this, there's to school thoughts. There's there's two, Like dictionaries take two forms. I feel like I've I've discussed this. You have like a descriptive approach to language, and you have a prescriptive approach to language. Prescriptive would be like you're saying how

it should be done, you're prescribing its use. A descriptive approaches, you're capturing its use. M hmm. Right. There's also a matter of efficiency, right, like white tails. But it's like at a point, like like usage proper, you should should serve the users. I feel hence that we've moved away from the in doubt, it's like it should serve the user. So I just like like stuff like that. I don't have any I don't have any like sympathy for that.

Sure is a writer DF thoughts on. Yeah, you know, it's a matter of It's kind of like accent to me. So I always want to feel the accent. I want to know where someone's from. So you know, to move, for example, diction or a conversation into some unrealistic lea stilted place takes away from the action, It takes away from the environment. So you know, I'm all about keeping colloquialisms and so to understand, I mean, I like old

duck names. For example, right, as an old duck name, I mean spooney okay, right, you know, um so and you think or summer duck for wood duck, Yes, summer duck, I mean because in South Carolina historically, I mean that was about the only duck we were gonna have in the summertime. I mean, now we got you know, fulvius tree ducks and and black bellied whistling ducks that are around, but summer duck. So that was gonna I mean that said enough that you knew that that's gonna be a

duck that hangs around in the summer. You're not saying a sponsor, you know the Latin name for that bird. Um. But so you have to keep the action real for a nonfiction um writer, yeah, you want to you want to keep that there and for and for a fiction writer. Really, I stop believing. I stopped reading when someone is sort

of out of context for a place. So if if if they haven't done their work, and you know, you've got someone from Pennsylvania saying something that's something something that someone from South Carolina would say, then you know I kind of pushed that. Yeah, so that's where I come down. I'll take this opportunity to once again plug the works of Karmick McCarthy, who more than anyone learns like the

language he's talking about. There you go, I mean, do your homework, like you went to the Southwest to start writing about the Southwest, and holy sh it, or like when Andy Prude started writing out of Wyoming, I mean she got where she knew it better than you. Buddy man Um tells that talking about oh yeah, the lead episode, let me do an abbreviated version. There's a guy that hunts muzzloader only areas and in some states that actually spells out like you have to use a lead projectile

with a muzzleloader. And he's like, what's a fellow to do? And you'd be like, well, like I've I've hunted with my muzzleloader, um with Federals all copper muzzleloader animal but it's sabboted and there's no true to bore. I believe that's correct. So the it's wrapped, the projectile is wrapped in a plastic sheath. So what actually, So let's say

you let's say you're shooting a fifty caliber muzzleloader. The projectile is actually, what do you guys know, not fifty, it's like thirty six or some ship like that, and it's wrapped in it's wrapped in a it's basically wrapped in a wadding. Okay, like you know in the old days, you take like a little bit of take some bear grease and put it on some linen and wrap your

ball in it. What that does is that bites the that that that helps bite the lands and grooves inside the barrel holds, helps bite the rifling and gives it a snug fit so gases don't escape around the edge. So if you wanted, if you were, if you were like desirous to shoot all copper things for your muzzleoader is going to be savoted in a plastic sheet, and that plastic bites the lands and the grooves and throws a spin on it, and then when it comes out

the muzzle, it sheds that plastic. And so some states require true to bore, like when they spell it like what exactly is a muzzleloader? It requires a true to borer projectile. And so there's no copper true to Maybe I'm wrong. I don't think so there's no copper true to bore muzzleloader projectile because it's not gonna. I think it's like, it's not it's too hard, it doesn't bite. My wrong, I don't think I'm wrong. I wouldn't know.

That's what he wrote in about uh speaking of healf of finger, and that's just that's not because l hef a sounds like helfle finger because helf of fingers is uh helfle fingers always nippled deep in the whole jaguar conversation. Tell Us, tell us the jaguar news bro. Yeah, how does Spencer say it? Jaguar? I say jaguar. There's some jaguars. There's a famous jaguar down in uh down southern Arizona known as l hef a uh who was believed for several years to be the only jaguar that was in

the United States and just a bad looking Yeah. So the two thousand fifteen is the last time they saw him. I think they may have believed he was dead. Um. But in any case, like he just disappeared in two thousand and fifteen, So that was seven years ago. Um, L half a just popped up across the border in Mexico. Um still alive at twelve years old. Um. Pretty, it's

a pretty cool story. It's like it I'm gonna bring up something that always gets people riled up as ship um if when debating when debating the border wall, Okay, I brought us up a hundred times. I'm gonna bring it up again when debating the border wall, like a normal I can't think of how to approach this subject. I'm gonna I'm not I'm not scared approach. I's gonna approach it. When debating the border wall, you would think that people would be like, I want to hear all

the sides to it. Right aside to the debate around the border wall is what it means for the freedom of movement of large land mammals. Okay, birds, no problem, Well, a lot of a lot of birds, no problem. Yeah, googled turkeys. Probably not great. But it's it's a thing to factor, right. But people get mad that you bring it up because they're like, well, your job hasn't been

taken by it, right. It's like, well, no, no, I'm just entering in a thing to consider, the same way if you're sitting there with your like my wife and I right now are kicking around what we might do for Christmas. It just so happens that airline tickets are very expensive right now, and we have a family of five. So if we're saying we want to go to ax for Christmas, and then someone says, however, let's bear in

mind plane tickets are very expensive, is it? Then do you then say like, well, you just hate vacations or is it No, I'm just making sure I factor everything in and making my decision about how I feel about us going on the vacation and the same spirit. Building an impenetrable wall across a couple of thousand miles of while they've have will have implications. But this is interesting

because this thing is moving back and forth. That's right, Um, were the people to be fair, he may have I mean, that wall hasn't been he might have found his spot right and and people move back and forth. But it's interesting that that he right, that he that he has his way of doing it, and not even being captured by in like and not even just getting picked up

by electronic intercepts. Yeah, they they ideed him, I think with I don't know if it was trail camp pictures or whatever, but someone got some images of him and they ideed him by you know, they basically like fingerprint jaguars with their markings, and that's how they idd him and found out he's still alive out there, and so twelve years old. Um, I'm imagining that's an ancient my understandings, you're at the end of the round, you're at the end of the line. Um, just from just from like

working at work in South America ten eleven twelve. Their teeth, their teeth are cooked, and then they usually wind up chewing on someone's dog in their backyard. They can't get any you know, they can't get any to eat. Uh, you know what you're talking about. The fingerprinting on jaguars is remember a few years ago one turned up in a on the Mexico side of the border. One pictures

turned up on Facebook. Um, the person with the jaguars not identifiable, but it was like a jaguar, a dead jaguar shot and the floral I think they call it was rosettes they call him on there. Yeah, they're the rosettes are diagnostic and they actually in that jaguar had spent time in Arizona. So there. You know, I think the question of whether they're moving back and forth has clearly been settled. But you know, I wonder if l

haf A left any offspring in in the US. If you're interested in the jaguar debate in this country, I'm gonna try to like talk about as quickly as possibles, like as they look at jaguar recovery and jaguar protection. There's a spirited debate about what function historically did West Texas, southern New Mexico, in southern Arizona, Like what function did they actually play in the in the well being of jaguars?

And some people are like, there's enough evidence that's just jazz that it was like there was a thinly dispersed, viable, reproducing population of jaguars in those states, and recovery would mean that you had a thinly dispersed, reproducing, viable population of jaguars, or it would be that now and then one showed up. Yeah, and it was never core habit. But either way, it was like the northern edge of their territory right like they weren't there wasn't ever a

lot of them. That was as far as they went. You know, sure, I think to brodyes earlier comment, it would provide some context people too, to um think about the dynamics of these cat populations, because like, did l f A leave any kids behind? I would have Heffelfinger's book read l haf A how many kids he left behind? And how many eight along the way? That's right? Uh, Sean hit us with um you had an assignment. Yep. We listed out a ton of Duck reports to do,

like eight eight different subject matters to cover. Well. Quackitty quick, don't talk back, that's funny, go out, sorry, go on. Um. One of one of those subjects being what led to the explosion of snow goose populations. And we've kind of discussed in the Duck Report before. Tell people what we mean. Yeah, like if your dad was a goose hunter, right, there was no like you know, insane like no plugs needed, electric electronic callers allowed bag limits of fifty snow geese

a day hunting them during turkey season. Yeah, none of that was happening. And all a lot of it comes back to human influence and human impact on the environment and agriculture. Right. Uh, when you came and hunted with me in South Dakota the first time we did podcast that was Hunting the Anthroposyne and titles. Man, he's a good title. That was a good one. The next the next title it'll already be out, I think, but it's

um throw had little use for you. Mm hmm. That's a title later so so we but we're hunting flooded beans right and flooded corn and like how that benefits ducks and how ducks thrive in that environment. Snow Geese are another example of winners in the spread of agriculture and the explosion of grain agriculture across the Midwest and

the West. Um. You know, you go back to like early nineteen hundreds and snow geese were this and there's there's a lot of you know, old historical records that the Fish and Wildlife Service collected and compiled in their argument for what we now call the Light Goose Spring Conservation Order. But a hundred years ago, snow geese were this small population of birds that nested on the tundra and then end up winnering in a sliver of habitat

in coastal Texas and Louisiana. Fast forward to the nineties, thirties and forties, as we see small grain kind of explode across the plains and places like Kansas and Iowa, draining wetlands and creating you know, pretty much a food source for those snow geese define small grain wheat, barley, and then now of course corn. But in the you know, in that twenties to forties, and in addition to that,

in Texas and Louisiana. You see a lot of those coastal brackish marshes get drained and turned into rice fields. And what happens is snow geese respond positively to that. Uh, their population starts exploding because now as they make this crazy trek, right, which we discussed in the A Dometer Duck Report where we talked about how much, you know, the average snow goose flies twenty and a half miles per day its whole life, which is just wild to me.

That's incredible, man, that's so much so so now that they fly all this time and spend so much time traveling, now they actually have a food source that helps them be healthy along the whole way. And um, you know, in in the sixties and seventies, guy named Dr Rockwell who helped me with this and helped me with an

article I wrote. He started researching snow geese on La Pruce Bay in in on the edge of the Hudson Bay in Canada, and he pretty much what what he found and what he argued for starting actually all the way back in seventies was these snow geese every year are more and more healthy as they come back north on their spring migration, and it coincides beautifully with more and more food across the Midwest as they as they

come back north. So you get these new spots that they kind of stop and hit along the way uh Squaw Creek which is now called Los Bluffs uh in Missouri, Sand Lake National Wildlife Refuge in South Dakota, etcetera. Where you have this perfect collision of habitat where you have a good water source, you know, a consistent water source every year that they can stop at, surrounded by food

and freeze out lake here in Montana, Yep, exactly. And you know, I remember you could call when we used to go up there and hunt that you could call a hotline and the hot line would tell you that there's twenty thousand snow geese an estimated twenty you're here. Then you call a few days later to be like an estimated twenty six thousand or here, and just like decide if you're gonna go based off the number. Yeah, they used to have that on sand Lake National Wildlife

Refuge in South Dakota too. I remember one time that they estimated there was two point two million snow gees sitting on that You're kidding which just so many in one place, so so long story short. Um. You know, for example, with Dr Rockwell's research, he watched during his time living up there on the tundra researching snows, he watched that Hudson Bay population go from fifteen hundred nesting pairs two over five hundred thousand nesting pairs during his

time of research there. And that's just not in his life, that's during his career, right and now, So so what we had then in the nineties is guys like him making an argument for these snow gees are extremely productive, egg culture is benefiting them. We got to do something. And when they took the gloves off and said, all right, hunters, um have at it. Shoot as many snow geese as

you can. Adding you know, no plugs, use electronic calls, all things that are like unheard of in waterfall management, and you know, give credit where credit to do on that, like Duck's Unlimited was huge in hunters getting that opportunity because frankly, there was a lot of discussion around poisoning them and which is hard to think about as we you know, we look back on like poisoning of bears and wolves across their whole native range and decimation of that.

We see it as like, oh, we would never do that again. But only thirty years ago it was like on the table two poison snow geese. Did I say that I ever bragged? You belt the vial which is probably still let my mom's house that we had a glass vial of what my dad swore up and down was it was like a white powder and he said, if you put that and mix it with corn and put it out, it'll kill the geese right off. No, I haven't heard that, But what is it? Do you

know what the chemicals? Just said? I sat on the window sill in the garage and no, like, we never touched it, but my dad's like, that's what it is, and he'd got that, yeah, and he was gonna someday mix up with some bread and put it on the beach just to see what happened. But like, like I said, I guarantee that thing is still sitting there. I need to go grab. So anyway, what has it been effective? No, No, it hasn't. Many they're just too productive and they fly

around in such large flocks. You know. The hunter impact on snow geese has been single jet percentile. And you know the thing is, I mean, we've got an episode of duck Lore that's out snow goose hunting with Kevin Gillespie, and you know you'll have snows fly over you that and you kill two, you kill four. Like there's so many eyes. They live to be so old. They see

so many decoy spreads. You know, we're putting out a thousand decoys with dozens of speakers mimicking snow goose sounds a great hide and like they just they just know they are the hardest bird to hunt, and um, you know, it's it's interesting to see that they nature does a lot better job of canning snow goose populations with spring storms on the tundra than hunters could ever, you know,

dream of doing. Is there any speculation that their population could like crash because there's like they there is no usable nesting you know that that was originally the speculation. It was degrading Arctic habitat, right, That was the argument behind the spring like goose conservation order. Was there so negatively impacting their tundra habitat that we got to preserve the tundra. What we've seen instead is that as they

degrade certain areas. They tend to just disperse and find new areas right that they they hop around to premium habitat, and they've actually moved away from a lot of the coastal habitat and they've moved to more interior nesting in some places. Another wrinkle I've heard of in this which could change the dialogue a little bit is as there is a reduction in sea ice in an escalation in snow geese populations, that polar bears are becoming increasingly reliant

on snow geese nesting colonies. Yeah, there's well, there's and there's so many to buy it. Do you know about that?

I do, doctor, I do. Dr Rockwell was actually talking to me about how they're having a hard time knowing exactly what's going on on the tundra with snow goose populations because there is so many bears moving with these snow goose colonies, and that it's like dangerous to have researchers on the ground because there's now spots where there is a there are spots where there is all three bears colliding around snow goose habitat. Yes, that'd be cool

to see. You have one stop shopping right there? No ship with a wild to see a black bear, but grizzly and a polar bear like wandering around a snow goose colony. Grizzly bear and a polar bear walk into a bar. Well they man, yeah, that's a fun one. Uh oh. If you want to learn more about duck Lawer, go back and check out our episode called Test My Meat. They tell a little backstory on that, and also we're

speaking to Test my Meat. We solicited it where people were sold to send us the toughest meat they've ever encountered. We got in our freezer and we're not well, need to follow my instruction. Karin's very disappointed people's listening abilities. She's like become like a critic of the American education system. However, very explicit details that were not followed in many cases.

But we have a lot of samples in the freezer and we're gonna get Instead of doing it on the podcast, we're gonna we're gonna fire up our tender our meat testing tenderness testing machine to do a video about everybody can see how one guys need to do that. Geriatric cow I shot last year's rules Brodie are you ready, Drew Ready while we do this, Callahan is gonna bartend for us. We covered on the show that they're making a yeah, green crab whiskey. They're they're taking green crabs

and making whiskey out of them, sort of. Who's the outfit Tamworth Distilling in New Hampshire and they make a beaver caster product. We're gonna have to ask them about that, but yeahs not true. Maybe they do, I don't know, but damn it's like it's beaver It's a whiskey with infused with beaver cast? Is that? Is that what we're trying right now? That's what we're trying. That's what we're drinking.

The green crab was cast story um flavored whiskey. I didn't think we'd be on a meat eater podcast and not get around to the beaver cast. So we're doing the beaver caster first and then we're gonna have But thank you to the listeners who wrote in because I said that we probably couldn't get this. You know how early we're talking about euphemisms. I'll tell you when I stole from Charles Portis who uh Charles Porters who wrote True Grit and someone says of Rooster Cogburn that he

likes to pull a cork. I I and I stole that from that book, and that's what I used when I'm talking about someone who drinks a tad too much, like this Friday. Here's a sound here's a sound effect that I might sell that sound effect. Someone, you want to put a drop of that on your tongue and see if you can detect any if you come to the right place. Because I got a nose for being so yeah that I smell that. I mean, you know, M zero zero. It smells like whiskey, to taste like whiskey.

Taste like whiskey. I could be hundreds of yards away from a beaver lodge and I'll smell the cab beaver castor is a powerful smell. Man. Don't you have a whiff of that in your little shot? I just got it. Yeah, you know how I got it. Drink your drink, suck it dry, and then and then get your nose about two three inches away from the mouth and take a whiff. And I just hit the caster. It's very subtlest story,

whiskey man, that's pretty tasty. It's not bad. Steve is doing some motion where he puts his nose up in the area. Really really bougie. What's the other one? The crab flavor? Okay, so crab Trapper, right, this is the one. I was kind of giving a hard time having never tasted it based off the fact that it's a They're They're descriptor was a better tasting fireball boy? What the world needs? And it comes packed and what I thought was a suet cage, but then realized, I think it

might be it comes in a little crab trap. Yeah, but I think it's a suet cage. Do they got an origin story? I'm trying my my trick. Yeah, I'll take a little bit. It was the last time anyone was drinking on here hot buttered drum. It was a really good plan for this upcoming Christmas. This is the what's this? This is crab Trapper right here? Trapper? That one's different. That's different. I just never hear all the

slow beers were all made in the same factory. Brody just made a face like he busted into his dad's liquor cab, not when he was supposed to be sick at school. From school. I give him credit for going after those. Actually that's some Yeah, that's some marine going on in there. Yeah, yeah, it's there. Yeah, it's there. Yeah, it's it's it's Briannie. It's sort of like crabbing left out in the sun. Brianie isn't quite what Brianie's giving it some credit. Yes, passed, Brianie. It smells good. Shot

it on the caster for sure. Now I thought that you don't want many Let's try something that. Boy, are we going to try the Tara was wonder if they made one Tara gland off box. This that is the Tarsa gandingas with Old Bay or something right right right, Yeah, yes, that's what it is. Yes, there's Old Bay seasonings in there. See I'm like part Chinese. Something about this is dipping into that fermented funky like we have a thing called,

you know, stinky tofu. It doesn't sound appetizing, but it is. Anybody, what's your face telling us right now? And I'm not gonna catch a buzz from this, That's what he's telling you. You're not gonna you're not gonna drink enough, right, Yeah, this is a deterrent from pulling a court so that sound effect reverse it? What does it sound like when you reverse it, we'll find out. Wait, now he's that's good. Here's whoa Is that the tar one or they crab one? Okay?

And that neither? Is that back? What you think about that? I'm ready to start the interview now. If anybody would like to try the dear one, just pass your glass. I need to end with that. I'm more of a beat. What's it called beaver trapper? The beaver that was good? That's really good. So that's something I've been americanizing for far too lo, probably out of old cartoons. It was always old day. But here it is spelled out in front of me, and it's e au space d E space.

So they went with crab trapper for green crab flavored whiskey, and they didn't go with beaver trapper. We have a seasoning called beaver trapper though, but they did over to musque adproof castoreum flavored whiskey, which I thought was quite nice. Crab on have to go with a boil or something. What's there was from being a burder in the ornithologist, and like, how do you define a burder? And in that answer me this, how do you become a burder?

Of mammals. Why is there no equivalent? Well, you know, it's a matter of dedication. It's a matter of obsession between the ornithologist is the professional right that can Maybe you're studying taxonomy, maybe you're thinking about behavior, Maybe you think about conservation and culture like I do so ornithologists. Typically you're pushing towards that realm of scientific study of

the of the creature. The birder is the you know, the hobbyist, the officionado, somebody's out there following and and birder bird watcher, you know, sort of interchangeable, even though I'd like to think about them kind of in different ways.

You know, the bird watcher maybe as someone who um is a little less um avid in terms of following birds and going after the rarity and traveling all over the world for it may be satisfied to be like a lot of us had to be during the pandemic, to sit in the backyard and let the world come to you on wings. So lots of ornithologists are birders, but some of them aren't, right um. But it's just a matter if it's sort of uh, you know, degrees of separation in terms of those people who are thinking

about birds from a hobby perspective. They want to see those birds as many of them as they can, uh, as many different species. So lots of birders have life lists. Do you keep a lifeless not anymore? You know you've walked away from it. Yeah, I mean I know every bird that I've seen, but um to me. For me, now, it's really about sort of the connection with the place

as well as the bird, right. So you know, I was just up in Denali National Park up at Camptonally and you know, lots of the birds that I see in the wintertime, for example, a white crowned sparrow. It's a it's a bird in South Carolina that is relatively local, and you hear them sing sort of one plaintive mournful song, and you sort of see them in this way in

this landscape in the southern landscape. Well, you go up there and those birds are singing you know, seven or eight different variations of songs, right and um and and so you get to see the bird at the other half of its life. So that's that's that's watching to me.

It I wasn't so interested, Yeah, I wanted to see lots of different birds up there there are things that I hadn't seen that I wanted to see, or that I wanted to see in the context of not being outside of the range as a rarity, but being in their place and seeing them comfortable in their place. So that was watching to me. That was absorbing the birds in a way. What's what is the what is the number? I mean if if you can make a list, I wouldn't be able to tell you. I wouldn't. This would

be a great trivia question for Spencer. How high does the list go? They are roughly ten thousand birds species in the world roughly, Yeah, roughly ten thousands. Why is it not? Why is it not specific? Because of like taxonomic lumping and splitting I mean ornithology and and the ability to to to split hairs with feathers in this case um birds that every year. You know, there are species that sort of morph in and out of one another. So the splitting, you know, sometimes gives birders a larger

lifeless Yeah, I've got a question for you there. So you said ten thousand, So in that ten thousand, are there like from your perspective, are there five different wild turkeys there as there one? Well, you know, if I'm going by the biological species concept, and those birds can interbreed and produce viable young. That's one species. But as a birder, as a as a well now as a birder. Yeah,

you know you're gonna list. I mean, and those birds have different behaviors, right, So understanding that behavior and you think about how the different habitats have created or attributed some different character to those birds. So you know you can't argue that in Eastern is like a ghoul's right, Yeah, I mean, and you're gonna if you're a hunter, you're gonna hunt those birds differently. I was. I was impressed the first, you know, in my first sort of observations

of of of Miriam's in in Nebraska. I mean, they were everywhere right, they just didn't seem wary like Eastern's. And and people would tell me, they'd say, they'd say, well, because I was interested in hunting Miriams, they said, well, that's easy. You know, they're sort of like they treated him like you were gonna go out and hunt pigeons. There. There wasn't a whole lot of to me, seemingly value

placed upon what that bird was from um hunting standpoint. Now, as a birder, you know, to see those birds and to see those white tipped fittail feathers and all of that stuff in the way the bird was behaving in that habitat and those sandhills, you know, that made a

difference to me. But from a conservation and and and you have to think from really an organizational standpoint, and those people concerned with the conservation of wild turkeys, then you know, if you split, then there's the opportunity to think about turkeys in a different way. You know. It's sort of like the you know, any species that we go after as birders, and we think about you're thinking about diversity. You're thinking about seeing all of these birds

and all their permutations. And well sometimes you know, as the AOS gets together and their taxonomic committee is thinking about these birds that the the bird gods. The American Ornithological Society, and you're a member board member, you have some role there. Not Now you don't know, no, I've I've I've deboarded myself for the most part. But you know,

it's it's their arguments every year about um discussions. I guess I should say about who these birds are, what they are and see you keep hearing me say who birds are, because I'm thinking about them maybe in a different way than a lot of folks think about them. So when it comes down to a species that someone has noticed some differences or um in behavior perhaps or in occurrence of that bird in a given place or a given range, then they begin to think about splitting them.

So I think about birds a bird that you know, winter wrens that are now Pacific rins, and then in Europe they wren so um and a Lucian wren, So that bird was once one species. But then it's sort of like the roll of the taxonomic dice, you know, and you come up and you got you know, and you roll double sixes. There you go, you got more

birds on your list. You know. One that one of the an occurrence I'm sure you're familiar with it that I've followed because it kind of happened with a bird I was in rested in and in my lifetime was when the blue grouse, right, Yeah, when the blue grouse ceased to exist and was broken into the dusky and sody, right,

and it was like there was like genuine things. I mean, one of them likes to have a different pattern of how it does its call in the spring, one generally wants to do it on the ground, One generally wants to do it in a tree. Differences in uh, what do you call that? On a bird? When you got that eyebrow? All right, bro, that puffs up and ship you know what I'm talking about? Like differences there and

all these behavioral differences. And then you see it and now you you see it like reflected in the hunting regulations, and it was it was the outfit you're talking about. The American Ornithological Society said, hey, we got it wrong.

There's one that lives in the coastal ranges, there's one of the interior ranges, and ain't the same thing, you know, And and those opportunities to split out and to to recognize those birds for who they are are, and in some ways, you know, the science allows you to kind of de objectify the birds. So it's a you know, it's an exercise that frustrates some people, especially when they

lose species. If you are interested in maximizing the number of things on your list, and all of a sudden they get lumped down into one or two, then you're like, oh, you know, um, some people don't like that. It's a thing. Sure is there a number against all birders are measured? Right? So are there benchmark type of numbers out there that it's like you're not gonna be taken seriously until you

hit just here's here's the thing. I you know, and people bird watchers, birders keep lists down to I mean to the patch. You know when I say the patch, that place maybe that they go constantly. I've got a place in uh in South Carolina, Townville, for example. It's mostly itszagg fields ponds, farm ponds, a budding forests, and so a lot of diversity out there, and we see quite a few species that you would expect to only

see in the West or the Midwest. So you can go out there and you can, um, certain times you have a fair chance and in a big flock of winning Eastern metal larks if the birds are singing or if you've got a spoting so if you can figure them out, you might pick out a couple of Western metal arks, you know. Um, And so you know the list out there and that expense, you know, if you can get two hundred, two hundred and fifty birds out in that patch, in that localized area that might be

sort of a benchmark. But birding has become extraordinarily competitive. I mean, so you have these big years, these big days. Oh yeah, it's yeah, like they there's like a very popular book about and then they did a movie right year. So if I'm understanding this correctly, it's not necessarily just one long list, it's a here's the list that I acquired during one day in this region. He's being invasive because he doesn't want to tell you you can do that.

He doesn't want you know you can do that. Might know what is my number? My number, like I said, I don't have it. You know, I don't have I don't have a number. As much as some days, I'll go out right now say this is gonna be a sparrow day, and I want to see as many of the sparrows that one might expect to see in this place in that day, and so it might just be a sparrow day for me. Let me, let me put it to you this way. I'm not gonna ask you anymore. Yeah, okay,

it's one last final question. There's nothing to do with you. Let's say you met a competitive, like the worst type of competitive burder okay, and they're just gonna they gotta tell you, and they hit you with a number like my lifeless number one that the top end is around ten thousand. They heat with the number like I have in my life. With all the money I've spent, I've seen x birds. What would the number need to be for you to say, holy ship? Three four thousand birds?

I mean in North America, So think about round up you say North America thousand or a thousand birds and our birds species. But but really, you know, you've got these kids, You've got really young people who have seen two or three thousand birds. You know, they're out there that aggressively searching for the species. So they're chasing um. They are are really thinking about the ways to maximize the number of birds they see. They're traveling to foreign countries.

Here's the one. Maybe you'll answer this one. How many countries have you been to? Uh? Roughly? I mean yeah, about ten, you know, and mostly though taking students to those to to to those places. So you know, I have a I have a bucket list of places I want to go. But you've been have you been to like all kind of eco regions in the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um. I haven't been to ant Antarctica. I haven't been there yet.

I would not have thought that. I don't know why that it would be young people getting overly ambitious about it. Oh yeah, that's picture. It's well, you know, you go, for example, if you go to a bird festival, like the biggest week in American birding up in northwest Ohio and the Black Swamp up there in Toledo near Toledo. You go there in the springtime and you've got birds, migratory birds, warblers, thrushes, tanagers that are piling up on

the edge of erie. And those birds are just piling up in There are boardwalks through that and so um kim cough in the in the black Swamp bird of observatory. They are doing science there to sort of keep track of some of those birds. But you have hundreds of thousands of people coming into you ever been in Oregon, Ohio? Well, now it's you know, the interesting thing you drive into You drive out of Toledo, I don't know, maybe uh forty minutes something like that, and all of a sudden

you're in all this sagg land in northwest Ohio. You've got the lake right there, You've got the forest, and those birds pile up and people, all of those people come up there, and a lot of those people, you've got kids who are carrying around camera lenses that are almost as long as they are tall. Kids. Kids, I'm talking about twelve year olds mhm. Right and there, and they're they're identifying birds in ways I mean, their their sense of hearing and seeing and the way they notice.

I mean, I can remember being down at Laguna Um actually not Laguna Atascosa, but it was a park in South Texas, and um, this bird called uh paraki. You know, it's like a night jar um, like a whipper will. There's this one spot where you go to see them. But you know, if you've ever seen like out here'd be a poor will. You know you almost step on those birds. You can't see them. They're that well camouflaged. So here these parakeys are in the daytime, they're in

a thicket. They're really super hard to see. And you're lucky, you know, you look long enough, long enough. It's like looking for a rattlesnake in a in a brush pile and suddenly you see this bird and you see this one bird, and I'm standing there and I see the one, then I see two. Then eventually I see maybe three or four of these birds. And I'm really thinking, yeah, yeah, I got this, I got the I got the visual

down this. This kid steps up next to me, maybe nine or ten years old, see's twelve, seriously, and so this is this is like this is like a roost, and so you know, they're seeing things and and and and birding is such a great opportunity to give people at cess, you know, to nature in that way. I mean, part of the reason that I don't kill more deer is because I'm out there bird watching. I mean, it's it's you know, and and so I'm looking to see I'm at this different level with these birds and able

to to see them. So, you know, I have a deer stand. I try to keep a list on the deer stand. I'm not a great turkey hunter. Why because warblers are coming back through the woods during the spring season. So I'm being anything but still watching these other birds instead of watching for the bird. So um that opportunity in all sorts of places to see them. And I think the numbers bear out that during the pandemic even

more of them got into into birding. It's almost you know, if you think about that old our son used to have a you know, he had a Pokadex, right, and yeah, yeah, Pokadex is so pokemon. You know that, you know, people going out looking for these these fictional creatures in these habitats, and I mean you've got a lot of adults still doing that. But you know, I think it would take us. It takes a slight tweak if you start sort of characterizing these birds with the superpowers that the Pokemon have.

So the migratory ability of a yellow warbler, um, the singing ability of a wood thrush. I mean, this bird is singing, try harmonics. So I think that's not a big leap that brings people into birding in a way to say, wow, you know, these are pretty fantastic creatures and I can see them. They're real. You know, I don't have to, um, I don't have to contrive them. You mentioned kids, Did you like we're birds something you

were super interested in as a kid. Oh geez, yeah, yeah got early, yeah, because you know they were flying and I tried, but you know, too much jelly cake and gravity kind of um kept that from happening, but probably I would maybe when I was six or seven years old. You know, I was interested in birds because they were they were sort of a vehicle for me to to visit the rest of the world. And I always I would climb my grandmother's pecan tree, um and uh and you'd get this this this bird's yeah, yeah

she can. I know, I know, tomato, tomato or whatever, but you know it was it gave me a chance to to see from a bird's eye view. But I wasn't just satisfied with that. I wanted to fly, So then I began to, you know, do things like build wings out of cardboard boxes and make parachutes out of trash bags and trying to be Merry Poppins all that kind of stuff. And none of that stuff worked. But birds didn't fail at that, right, You'd see them doing

this thing that you wanted to do. And then my grandmother, she's the first person I ever saw in my mouth. She I saw her feedbirds. And no, she didn't have sunflower seed, she didn't have millet, she didn't have all this stuff. What she did have were bags of grits and she would take a handful of grits and throw them out in the yard. In her backyard when what she calls snowbirds junkos would come down in the wintertime, so there'd be this flock of junkos and other sparrows.

And now I think, you know, my, my, my birder brain sort of reverts and I'm like, man, I wish I had just looked more carefully. If I had known about the sparrows back then, maybe there was something that was showing up in her backyard that wasn't supposed to show up. But seeing her appreciation for those birds, I think was was part of the of of of my origin in that way. But flight, you know, you watch a you watch a redtail hawk sore and you're like,

how does that happen? It looks like it's hung up there by a string. You know, you watch a peregrine falcon dive and uh, I mean, and that's that's super, that's super. That's that's beyond our ability. Even if you put on one of those squirrel suits, you know you're not going to be able to do that. So all of that to me was fascinating enough that, um, you know,

I wanted to be a bird. I wanted to be a bird, so that it's been a lifelong, lifelong thing for me and the fascination, so to go from watching birds too, you know, having it sort of is my official hobby, but then being able to be a professional, to be an ornithologist man, you know, it's living a dream. Is there a group of birds that you found yourself being partial to and falling in love with more than the rest for some reason? Yeah, that, you know, and

that's that that changes. But sparrows in part um because they're they're they're brown, they're nondescript, and a lot of times people sort of overlook them, right, So there's some allegories to human behavior and social what what goes on socially with us, But they are when you take the time to look at a sparrow, you begin to see these colors on its back. You see these vermiculations, You

see differences that really bring out this subtle beauty. Yeah, the duck hunter version for me would be it's easy to right away fall in love with wood duck, but then you eventually get to falling in love with how beautiful a god wall is Seeing those fine reds. During the time you were doing research uh, you just work with bluebirds. Yeah, remember how I mean everybody knows this is where there um uh you know they're like a symbol of monogamy right allegedly. Yeah. I don't know, like

I don't know what specifically you worked up. I know you you looked at like reproductive behavior. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The study was was looking at the Dr Patty Gwatty, Patricia A. Derek Gowatty, um, one of the one of the first eco feminists and and and someone who had interests and in sort of trying to figure out if that whole idea of monogamy in passerines was, um, whether she could verify that, um, if you will, by the science.

And so what we do is, um, she'd send out a crew of us, all male, um, to watch bluebirds at the box. Now that there was and I say all male in terms of the crew that was working. Um, there may have been a woman or two, but you know in my crew was all male. She'd send us up, but not by design, I think. So you think it was by design? Yeah, because um, here Patty is challenging at least at that time the known science, or at

least challenging assumption. And so to be out these true to each other, that these birds mate for life, and here's a here's a female scientist doing this work, challenging this convention. So I think it's pretty smart to have your observers sort of on the other side of the table. And you know, we see some of this with current research that is shown. You know, the assumption was that for the most part, male birds were doing most of the singing. Well, guess who the researchers were that were

coming up with that most primarily male. When you put female researchers out in the field, they're beginning to find that you have non males singing. So you know, to sort of shuffle stuff around, you know, it's yeah, it's it's it's important. So we'd watch these boxes and you know, you'd see, uh, male at a box, and we would band these birds. Most of these birds were uniquely banded and been captured and banded, and you'd see a female

at the box. And because most birds aren't banded, people are seeing those birds and they're assuming, oh, there's the father, there's the mother, there's a happy family brewing inside that box. Well, when you begin to look at the behavior of the birds, you would see interactions between different birds that would come

into the territory. So you would see a male, for example, that might do a wing wave and warrible, or that would um in some sort of agonistic behavior go at another bird, another male, and you say, oh, he's defending home. He's defending that female. You know, that's sort of the easy assumption. You'd see that one female and most you know, in terms of the way we thought about birds for most of of of ornithology is that that demure female

is being defended by that male. Well, you begin to really do these and by the way, you see some of the most violent fights, some of the most aggression between females and on On a occasion, you find a dead bluebird and you you know, and inspect it and right in the back of the head, you know it would would yeah, I mean it would have been another female pecked in. Yeah. Oh yeah, So you know that

would happen on occasion. But then to look at the nestlings and do the genetic study on those birds in the nest, you begin to find out that those birds, those young are coming from different birds than the birds that are tending the nest sometimes or that there so you know, I started in hindsight. You know, years later I started calling it the the Mari Povich Bluebird Project because it was like the who's your daddy kind of

but you know, the question is also who's your mama? Right, because you begin to make assumptions about seeing single birds in a nest box, and those assumptions were erroneous. So we have a hummingbird eater and a hummingbird shows up. My kids like name them like hummingbird or whatever, humming Then one day there's two, so they're like, oh, that

must be a male and the female. It didn't matter what went on at that hummingbird nest to fit into like a very strict paradigm of that being a couple, right, Yeah, And they were somewhere rearing young and just they made this whole working for them that very much resembled what they see you going on inside their house. There you know, there, there you go, and then you know the next step. You know, people are thinking, well, the male chooses a mate, and you know then they go on to to have

this family. Well, one of the most important things I think from her work and then this other work, other subsequent work has been female choice, that these females are choosing, that females are storing sperm, that they're making decisions. Right, there's a female choice and these birds they're making decisions

about who is you know, who's parenting a brood. So all of that was I mean it was for me at the time, you know, being a field technician, being out there watching it and seeing watching it unfold was was this huge revelation and it it flew in the face of assumption, which you know for a scientist, you know, that's like finding gold, right when you're able to find

something outside of of the norm. So the blue bird of happiness, well, maybe happiness doesn't just mean um being with that one what that one bird, so to speak, Maybe it means making the best decisions. You know, you're not just making it based upon the blueness of the male. You know, that was one of the you know, the bluer males are more successful than less blue males or

those kinds of things. Man, you'd find sometimes in a couple of boxes, you would find two adult females tending a nest, and you would find nest stumping like you find in wood ducks for example. Okay, so beginning to think about why things like that happen and to move past the convention that we have set off as human Two female bluebirds at the same box contending do they each have eggs? Yeah, and it's and it's not like

there's not like a resident male. Then uh, there's a male that might be there, right, but but but that paternity is uncertain, So that whole idea of uncertain paternity. Are you the daddy? The question might not be yes or no, but the best answer is maybe, because the assumption was yeah, you are. You've got to be to be investing time here in this nest. So the two females that had the two females that had a single nest, and they each contributed eggs to the nest for probably

contributing eggs from many males. Yeah, from you that I mean, that happens. You know, you don't know for sure unless you're doing those analyzes. So but again you're flying in the face of convention with that. And and that's cool

stuff and it's and it's not just the ornithology. So then you can begin to think about what, you know, what are the assumptions that we're making about mating patterns, not just in passerines, but it then opens this whole world up to think about female choice, you know, because the you know, what we're thinking when we're in the white tail woods is what this buck is making it and not that buck. That that buck is is tending

that buck might not be making the ultimate decision. So you know those so you begin to think about beyond birds two mammals. You know, you were asking, well, who are these you know, who's what's the mammalian equivalent of a birder? Well, you know, in some instances it's a it's a it's a hunter who's out watching behavior, who's seeing all of these animals and being able to say, well, yeah, what's going what's going on with this? How are our females?

How are does making decisions? Or how are bucks making decisions? Who's the choosier sex? So that was the sort of the box that opened with that research. And that's when you know, I'd be out there and I'd see all kinds of birds. I mean, i'd see Bible links, I'd see metal larks, I'd see a scissor tail flycatcher or two on occasion, which at that time was pretty rare in South Carolina. So between these box checks there were these opportunities to bird, but then being an ornithologist and

shifting from ornithologists to birdwatcher, from ornithologists to birdwatcher. After a while, these things began to sort of blur. The lines began to blur, and for me, that's where the excitement occurs when you can blur those lines between the two. In ornithology, probably more than any other um kind of

taxonomic sort of following, has the most volunteers. It depends on all of these people who are out there gathering all this data um in, putting a lot of it into E bird doing Christmas bird counts, doing all these things. That data is what we ultimately have the best data that we have to say anything about global or or

or continental trends and birds. So it depends a lot on those people getting out there who nobody's paying as a professional ornithologist to do ornithology, and they are probably not calling themselves ornithologists, but ornithologists ultimately depend on birders, bird watchers, bird lovers, bird of doors, bird ists. They ultimately depend on those people to pull the data back. They're not gurd or Twitter right like you go connecting a bunch of different ways, and then it's the Citizens

Science Rise, which is super cool. You get people, uh some ownership by getting their data collected. Yeah, I mean that you know that that that that crowdsourced science that's out there to to put ten thousand people on the ground. I'm try to pay those people, right, that's not that's not going to happen. But the satisfaction from from a lot of them derived to know that a little bit of what they do that gets in goes a long

way to help bird conservation. So you know, you you're asking about favorite birds, the most intensively studied birds, the most intensively studied birds that we know the most about a waterfowl, you know, and because we need to, they need to. The scientists are feeding that data to managers who are then setting limits adaptive harvest, adaptive adaptive harvest management.

And so one of the things when I blur the lines with as I'm teaching ornithology, I tell birders, if you really want to know your waterfowl, if you want to begin to know and understand gestalt and how to identify these birds on the wing from what gestalt it's a feeling sort of so a feelings not being able to see all the field marks, but an impression of the bird, an impression that gives you, um uh, the the identification ultimately, so how the bird is flying it.

I'm glad it's a word for that, because it's like the people that are good at it's like they shout it out there, like, oh, give me a couple of minutes, like what are you even looking at in in bad weather? You know, in duck weather, which is typically bad weather at distances right, and you're not not like now binoculars, not being able to stand up out of that blind and look, and they're telling you to know how a

wedgeon moved to know that. We had this conversation where when when I was hunting in the Mississippi Delta, we had this conversation where like, in a lot of the places I grew up hunting and hunting now would be like, you know, there's mallards and couple of pintails, or it's like there's some teal and woodies right, but down there I was eleven twelve things and I just get where I lose it all. But then people that grow up with that are shouting stuff out like there's no possible

way you can know. Then it gets closer, like how did that guy do that? And what happens? What happens if you call that waterfowl or a burder? Does anybody ever do that? It doesn't happen. But right, that is an interesting thing though, right because if if you're hunter making some of these claims, all of a sudden, it's biased information versus um you know, a random observation taken from somebody as credible as a burder, which is something I've run into in the past, and it's really interesting.

Like in like we we talked about, Um, I was at a fishing game meeting lots of people talking about how there were no more wolves and there's this this idea of putting some money into a general fund to do more wolf control work in Idaho, and half the room there was like, well, there's no wolves to begin if all the wolves are gone, before you can hunt wolves. We used see wolves all the time, and now that

you can hunt wolves, we've never seen them. Um. And that was like, uh, generally, well taken observation from the general recreation crowd. But when I stood up and identified myself as a hunter, said well, I run into wolf sign all the time. I've seen a few wolves, but I've seen plenty of sign. That is a biased opinion because I'm there wanting to take elk out of the woods. Uh, And it's not taken into consideration that I'm also where

the wolves are. Yeah. Um. And so when you have a quote consumptive user making a report, oftentimes I've seen it where those reports are discounted. I just had this conversation with I'll just talk about him, you know, he's not here. I had this conversation with Lauren where one

of our camera guys is telling Happy Birthday. He was snowbeling in a mountain range that I didn't know head links, and he's sang I saw links in that mountain range, And then I spent ten minutes trying to convince him that he was looking at a bobcat, to which he got a little frustrated. Right. Yeah, it's just like you like, there's a lot of you know, when it comes to the observational, you know, there's absolutely yeah, everybody's not taking everybody at faith value. But if cal had said that,

you'd have been like, no, ship. Yeah, because he's a camera guy who doesn't hunt. Yeah, yeah, I did to him what I don't like people doing to me. In some in some states, I don't know about Montana, but in some states, water flowers have to pass proficiency tests. Yeah, especially states where you have like, uh, for example, Oregon, right where you have the dusky goose. That's like there's very few of them. They're in a very specific place. You got to know exactly how to identify them on

the wing. Yeah, it looks mostly like a snow goose. Yeah, it's like very different until it's not. And then the thing is, if that bird is in your bag, you know you're gonna as a as a water fowler, you're gonna pay a penalty, a severe penalty for that. Birders don't pay severe penalties for misidentifying a bird with binoculars.

I mean other other other than losing credits, other other than that, you know, and and in the community, that can be a strong thing, and it can also be a to turn it to bring in other people forward

in birding. You know, if somebody is so fanatical that they're going to criticize somebody because they misidentified a house finch is a purple finch, and then they're suddenly persona on gratta because they misidentified that one bird that yeah, that's not cool, you know, so that that's and those are some of the blurred lines that you get in in this thing that we do. And of course people

run across the gamut. Most most birders are perfectly fine, really nice, you know, people who want to involve others. But then you run into those folks that that's the pressure, right that they want to positively and everybody wants to

positively identify these things. Yeah, but I run into, you know, situations where um, I've got to out counsel people on an identification that that probably was not an ivy bill woodpecker at your feeder, and and you know, and and and the way that we do that is not me discounting who they are as a person because they misidentified that bird, but really to you know, to have a

conversation about it, So what what did you see? And and and I'll tell you nine times out of ten people come around and they you can hear that, you can hear the change, and they're calling the you marks and they're saying, oh, well, yeah, you know that that probably was affiliated. Boom, there you go. I'm glad you say affiliated, you know, instead appiliated. You kind of screwed up on pecans. Yeah, well so I made up for it, right, I wanna I want to do a bunch of quick

hit things. Yeah, so I'm gonna hit you with something. I'm gonna hit you with some things, and then because I want to get I want to burn through some stuff. Cool. One of our guys who's not here, um, had this one for you. How are you for the camp robber? Like whiskey? How do they find when you kill an elk in the mountains? How do they know within thirty seconds?

They're always watching. It's visual. It's not smell, probably not, even though we you know, we know that some birds have more in a more acute sense of smell than we thought. But you know, think about how those birds just appear out of nowhere, and there's a network. They're also watching other things, right, so they're they're also watching.

But they're usually the first ones, from my understanding, get to I think about, you know, up in Denali again, here I get into camp and suddenly here are you know, here for whiskey jacks. There they are. I didn't see whiskey jacks. Again, Those two weeks I was up there, I didn't see them. And so they're always watching. But like in the case of coming to a hunter's kill, like are they watching the person? They like, I see them come and check on you, whether you've killed something

or not. That there's like a learning process there, like that guy, something good might happen. It's you know, and and this is again sort of the fluid, the beautifully fluid nature of the science is that we're learning. So we can't keep up with what birds know, how they learned. So you know, Jay's or crow cousins m hm, you know,

as we know and sort of how we measure. We say, oh, well, they're extremely intelligent, but we don't know the stat you know, how they learn, how fast they learn, you know, being able to track a hunter, to say, or to think about you as a predator. Right, so we know that some birds follow predators, you know, with that whole idea of benefiting from the kill. What's to keep a whiskey jack from seeing you that way? So you know, again, to to loosen the bounds of convention and sort of

think about um. Part of it is is ego on our part, hubris to to think, well, yeah, we're the only ones who can do that. Yeah, and um, and to to not project our measures of intelligence on other creatures. I I do make sure that they know I'm providing. Oh, I'm fully talking to them on throwing send you high up in trees i'd were. I want to let them know that if they were to come across a bunch of elk kind of day when they're not talking, they

can let me know. And it's gonna one win. We all went those things, those things and magpies, like magpies

can really choke down a lot of fat man. Well, well think I mean if and and I don't have specific examples, but if you think about indigenous culture and you think about, um, what people have known for a very long time how to watch birds to perhaps put them on game, but also in terms of what you're doing saying showing appreciation to that bird, and what that bird learns or what what any of these things are?

You know. It's again why I get to this point of talking about birds oftentimes more as who's than what you know, to try to give some sort of credit for, um, what we don't know about them. You know, Uh, I make assumptions like everybody else on on certain birds that maybe this shrike, this loggerhead shrike that I'm seeing, this butcher bird that you know, I've kind of fallen in

love with because they're they're such cool birds. They code switch right there, passerins um but they're also raptorial and what they in terms of what they do, their feet aren't strong enough to to carry prey and hold it, so they impale their prey on thorns and barbed wire fences and that kind of thing. That's that's that's super cool. Yeah, why but you know, to watch that bird I'm seeing,

I've seen what I think. I haven't marked the bird, I haven't banded it, but for like three four years, this bird that hangs out in the same corner of one of my patches, and so I make certain assumptions, poetic assumptions maybe about this bird and who it is. And man, I've written this bird letters right because it's

for me. It's uh, you know, it's a it's it's like a kind of worsh to be able to have a relationship with a creature in that way, across those boundaries, and so I can respect it for what it does, who it is, what it is, and I don't know what that bird's thinking of me at all, but it gives me this sort of deeper move into this place of of of of being a bird watcher, of being

a bird adorer. So you know, that's the way that I try to I mean, it's it's it's the same way, and sitting in a deer stand and watching and sometimes getting so caught up that I'm not taking a shot where I'm thinking about those animals in sort of these different ways, so all of it is kind of line blurring for me. And ornithology is a birding is a perfect way to sort of get into that, into that space. So you know, I talked to to it to my my, My,

my mentor. She's still my mentor Petty Gawaddy from time to time, you know, and I thank her all the time for that. She taught me how to be a scientist, you know, that whole idea of getting out there and objectively gathering the data and being rigorous. I mean it

was hard work. But then also for her helping me understand how you begin to make the linkages between you know, science and perhaps even policy, because every every policy begins with with one person's agenda, and so it's blurry and and birds are the way that I go through life, blurry, a dig who they are, and I sometimes still wish I was a bird. So there's that. Uh, here's the next one. In fifty years, you handle us however you want. In fifty years, are people hunting bob white quail in

the American South? Yeah, because they've raised them in pins and they're putting them out. Oh that's what that's what, that's what it's gonna take. I don't think that's I think it would take. Let me put it this way. Uh, we aren't approaching it the right way. I don't think. Um, you know, to have a put and take fishery as it were, sort of put and take huntery here is is basically what it is. And um, you gotta look at the ethic of the hunter. If we're talking about

hunter conservationists, then we got a chance. If we're talking about people who just want to go in, put a kernel, a corn on a hook and get a trout, then probably not. What is what like what in your view is driving or drove the decline? Or is it the same like death by a thousand cuts kind of thing? I think it's death by a thousand cuts, Steve, But I think a lot of it is UM is cultural.

You know, when you look at the loss of the small family farm UM, when you look at clean farming ditch to ditch, when you think about UM, what we lost in that in terms of of this edge habitat, of these patches, this patchwork quilt across landscapes that UM as you know, agriculture became more UM efficient than you know people are are farming road to row. You can't lose a single lynch of that of that field. And so those ditches that used to grow up in weedy

tangles and briars and ragweed, all that stuff, you lose that. Well, then you compound that with something like red imported fire ants UM that and to see that that's a that's horrific. To see fire ants on a nest of hatching bi white quail eggs, that's and and to see those you know, those those those chicks can't even some of they can't even get out of the shell before they're being eaten alive.

So you've got that, You've got in some of these landscapes, proliferation of of of edge predators but what we discount in terms of edge predators, of proliferation of of outdoor cats um that are killing billions and billions of birds, so you know, keep fluffy inside. So all of those things do compound it. But then again, you know, I say, where effort is spread out, where all your eggs aren't

in one basket. You know, this isn't again any theory that I can prove, But I think that network, those patches of small farms were an opportunity to mitigate damage large scale UM. And so culturally, you just don't see those small family farms. You don't, you don't, you don't see them. And I think that's a part of the issue.

And I also think, you know, it's been burned into our minds now over the last few decades of quail declined that the only place that quail are going to get saved is in those large ten thousand acre landholdings where they're doing fantastic management. But they're doing management at a scale of both ecology and economy that a ford or a forty acre landholder landholder is not gonna be able to accomplished. So that's a to me, that's a cultural issue. UM of of how we think about and

how our mindset has changed about what quail are. So it used to be, you know, Bob white partridges. Now as a gentleman, Bob, you know, and you might be out there with a fifty dollar um shotgun after these birds with dogs that have got bloodlines that have gone on forever, um eaten lunch in the middle of these piney woods on you know, fine linen and um and boneware. And then you get back out there to the next group of quail. Well, people who are doing that, you know,

they want to push covees. And so we have to ask ourselves a question, Um, do we want quail just for hunting, for killing or do we want the experience of having those birds on landscapes and ways that is good for the bird and good for the And I think we can I think we can do that. I think we can do that. I mean I, you know, on on my piece of land and um in ninety

six in Greenwood County, South Carolina. Man, I remember I was actually coming out of the field one day and something all of a sudden, I'd stopped at the gate and all these things start running around my feet and their button quail you know, they're these little, these little bumblebee quail rather and to have quail reproducing on that property, to me was like having some endangered species on it um that they in that setting, within that within that setting,

and to know that, you know, that's land that's been in my family for generations and now I have the responsibility of steward ing it. That bob white quail have become for me one of the things that I want to manage for. So how do I do that on that acreage? I mean, I'm not rich. How do I how do I get it burned? How do I keep the timber thin? You know? How do I keep chickasaw plumb um uh as as part of that landscape? All

of that is something that I think about. And it's not just thinking about hearing that bird whistle, just thinking about what the rest of that land can be because of that bird. Uh You just mentioned your family's parcel and I'm a little I'm a little hazy on some of the details from your book, but explain how, Like I remember your family came as slaves to the area

where you still reside in the seventeen nineties. Yeah, maybe, yeah, Like what was the what was the pathway from that from being there on the landscape as a slave to you guys having family farms? Did you go did your did your ancestors go through like share cropping and into into landownership down the road and far an aggregate culture because you like you grew up on a family farm. Yeah, yeah,

that's you know, that's one of the mysteries. And and um, one of the things that that frequently happens, especially with descendants of enslaved in black families, is those records sort

of get muddled. From all I can tell, I have never heard any of my family talk about sharecropping, and so when we came into this land, they may have, right, Um, but my recollection and thinking about um, the land and the research that I've been able to do, is that it came into our possession, at least the land that we were on, probably when my grandfather got back from

World War One. So and he came back from World War One in um in nineteen eight late nineteen eighteen, early nineteen nineteen, so who was in and he became a farmer, Yes, yeah, yeah, he you know, he was farming the land. And you know, amazingly when I look at what Edgefield was politically and and and how black folks were being treated that My grandfather became a successful farmer, had a successful during the Depression egg and milk business, and was receiving farm made I found some of his

old maps. It was receiving Farm Service Agency assistance in nineteen thirty two, so you know, it speaks to this stewardship. Um, but when that land came actually if it came into possession before that. Now there are stories, um that sort of circulated around the family about well he that somehow he came back from World War One and had gold or these other things. I don't know, they're interesting stories to consider. But what I want to know is I

really had a gold, mean, like found it earlier. They came back somehow came back from from World War One, you know, bearing gold. You know who knows. I remember my you know, my brother used to wander around the woods. I mean he sort of became obsessed, seriously, he became obsessed with it, you know, and and he'd go yeah, yeah that he that he yeah that he was going out looking for looking for this goal. But um, that's one of the things that sort of eats at me

is wanting to know that history more completely. And it's and it's not like waiting in some library somewhere. It's gone, no, no, And and that's what's happened in the South with a lot of um, with a lot of history, especially a lot of Black history. A lot of it's been burned, got burned up in in courthouses burning down. And it's and it's always interesting to me how courthouses were the first things to burn down. Um, But yeah, it's and so you have to sort of stitch together this history

from this one. So I go from you know, this this paternal ancestor of of coming in about seventeen ninety, right, and then picking up when I do you know, and I belonged to some of these ancestry groups and that kind of thing, picking up ancestors in the eighteen thirties, right, So what was happening between seventeen ninety and eighteen thirty and then an ancestor that was brought in on an illegal importation slavery importation became illegal I think eighteen o five,

eighteen o seven, something like that. So then breeding plantations wrapped up because the production of of enslaved depended upon domestic production. That sounds sick to even talk about, but it was sixty years before the abolition of slavery that they made that you couldn't import slaves. Yeah yeah. So so then there's an ancestor that comes into jack Al Island,

Georgia in eighteen fifty seven on a converted yacht. And you've you've heard about the the the the ship that was found in the slave ship that was found down and um in Alabama. Those were bets. People were playing games with this stuff. So because the bet was, well, we can beat the embargo. So this ancestor that comes in in eighteen fifty seven from the Congo, her name was Lucy. She came into Jekyl Island, Georgia, and she was three years old. So how does she fit into

my mento my family's history? You know, how did did Harry have children? This enslave man who was brought south in seventeen ninety by the Lannam brothers. And then the interesting part of that, those Lannam brothers, they were good friends with that guy over in Augusta who is you know, was going to prolong enslaved meant Eli Whitney. So that those stories, so you know, when you have those kind of stories wrapped up in your history, you're trying to

you lost me Eli Whitney. Yeah, that's the guy that invented the cotton jay exactly. But how does that? How did that? I'm not argument where that I don't really understand. But that was the way it Wasn't then that make because that increased production? Yeah, because he found a way to pull the seeds out of cost, so then you could get you could you can handle more of it? Yeah, I got y. Yeah, some some historians say that that

prolonged it right about fifty years. Got it. It just made it, made like more, made more profitable and drove more exactly. So so those are bits and pieces of this quilt, you know that that you try to stitch together, um and and the land for me, is that is really that template that I'm trying to I guess that that back batting on the quilt. If we're gonna stay with that analogy that you put these pieces on and trying to find how these all these pieces fit together,

and some of it can never be known. When you said the Landham brothers, yeah, like the Landams JOSIAHS. Landham and his brother who came south from the mid Atlantic,

most likely around Prince George's County, Maryland. Um they came south, there was a great sell off of enslaved around the mid Atlantic because they had been farming primarily what tobacco, and tobacco burns up soil, and some of these founding fathers were going broke and so they began There was this huge sell off of enslaved around seventeen nineties south, especially to the Deep South of cotton production, sugarcane production down in places like Louisiana, but also to breeding plantations

and so Harry, uh, you know, I have to check myself sometimes when I say it. Harry was in in some ways fortunate in that he didn't end up deep deeper south, right, that he ended up um in South Carolina in the Piedmont that's productive for cotton, but it's not nearly as productive as the Black Belt of Alabama because of those soils. So in in thinking about sort, you know where fortune you know, what what is that saying fortune favors the brave or whatever? Um? You know, fortune?

You know, I can't Yeah, fortune favors the bowl. But but here's a case where you know fortune favored um, you know poor soils, because to to be put further, to be put deeper into hell um, into the deep deep South, where you were getting maybe ten bales of cotton per acre, where is only in South Carolina maybe you're only getting two bales of cotton per acre, that was a that was a that was a difference in in life, or to be down in those sugarcane plantations

down in Louisiana, or to be somebody's breeding stock as a human being. So I think about all of that stuff,

and I'm always connecting it to land um. And then I'm always connecting that to birds because birds are sort of the conduit for me to think about history, because I think about some of the birds that I see at present, and I'm wondering what those birds ancestors are, what they flew over, and likewise that my ancestors, we're watching birds, that birds were inspirations for them because the birds were flying free, and that maybe we held that in common, that they wanted to be free as birds,

and that I wanted to be a bird and free. So you know, there's a convergence there, and all the time and watching birds. So yeah, it's um, it's uh, you know, maybe I'm listing sort of different kinds of things these days, but um, those birds are are stitching together time and landscapes for me in ways that UM, A few other things can. In your career, you made a conscious uh I hope on not on or you might put a different way, but you made a conscious

switch from like hard science. You can put it how you want to put a button, like from hard science to sort of culture people interpretive work. That is that how you describe it. Yeah, you know, I'll always be a scientist, always be a naturalist, to always be an ornithologist. But part of what I wanted to do was to be able to move that science into the masses because you think about um and and you know, I always

call the science that we do the scripture. Really, I mean it's it's critically important, um to not deny good science and that data that tells us what's going on, that gives us some idea of the patterns that are out there. But then what good is it if you've got nine hundred pages of of data and people don't bother to read any of it. So sometimes it's important to be able to take reams of data and get them down to a digestible a digestible portion. I mean,

you read different reports. But if if if our attention span is what we can see or pay attention to during a traffic light stop, then people aren't gonna people aren't gonna read those realms of data. So I wanted to move to a place of really being able to sort of um, get those to paint pictures with creative writing that moves people to think about the science, to think about what's going on out there, so then maybe

they feel something about it. My my, you know, for most science, the um the objective is not to get people to feel something about it, but to think about it, right, so to think. Then you know, the science probably doesn't care. It doesn't care whether you feel something about it or not. My whole idea is to ark the other way, you know, to get you to feel something about it, so then you think about it, and if you feel something about it,

think about it. Feel think, feel think feel think feel think. Maybe that's a spark, you know, maybe you get a spark from that reaction back and forth, and you do something about it, not just damn read about it, but

do something about it. So that's the you know, that's the transition that I've I've willingly made because you know, you stand in front of a classroom of of of nineteen and twenty year olds and as you know, an Aldo Liabel Leopold talked about, you know, the danger of being an ecologist was living in a world of wounds and and um Man that was like a quolt factory. You know, it's it's it's but very prescient, right way

ahead of his time in so many ways. But if you're in front of a classroom and you're teaching, you're doing this teaching, doing this teaching, and these students and you could see them, I could see them and they were just like their faces are like, well, what the all am I supposed to do with all this? You're just feed them this day to day after day after day of how things are going south and there's not

gonna be anything left for you to deal with. Well, you know, I think you've got to infuse some hope so that people have some motivation for doing something rather than just sticking their heads in the sand and saying, you know, fuck it, I'm not it's not for me. Let me go over in this department and do this. So that whole idea of moving the science to a place where I get you here, then I can get

you here. And I mean, you know, marketers know that, um and and it's it's it's not too in any way diminish or deny the science, but to give it an opportunity to dwell in heart as well as head. And you can do. I mean, you know, the whole idea of a picture worth a thousand words. You know, I look at this wall here and I can I mean, there's science all over that wall. Now, um, is it gonna pass peer of view? Certain peer view, It's gonna pass.

Others are gonna decry it is something else. So, but I think it's important for us as scientists, especially as conservation scientists. It always bothers me when I hear people say, well, I'm not an advocate, you know, I'm a scientist. Well, conservation to me means that you have to be an advocate. I don't see the separation. And I don't think being

a scientist means that you can't be an advocate. Sure, you gather your objective data gatherer, that's your job to gather data objectively, to report that data objectively, but then damn it, do something about it. You know, if their declines, what do you do about those declines? Do you just say there as declines and then report the next decline, and report the next decline, and report the next decline.

Well it's a little hypocritical, right, It's like, how many folks do you know that go out and get that grant to go study and gather data on something they don't give a shit about. Oh happens all the time, right, I mean, oh, sure it does, certainly it does. I mean, and then we're on these these two and four year grant cycles, and so I think, um that that that

where we are as scientists, as conservationists. Okay, so let me let me let me paint a picture here, so a bridge, you know, think about how so many people came into some sort of knowing about climate change. How did that happen? Well, it was all about drowning polar bears. It's all about drowning polar bears. Now, certain sets of people care about drowning polar bears. I mean, now, let me say I love polar bears. I'm not trying to take anything away from polar bears. I want them to

be fine, not trying to exactly. But also that same climate that's melting the polar ice caps is also impacting the way people breathe, especially people of color who have of these these asthmatic conditions, for example, at almost a tenfold rate of white kids. But people weren't talking or kids, or white kids from Appalachia who have a hard time breathing. But nobody was talking about that. They were talking about

climate change in polar bears, climate changing polar bears. Why not arc that, Okay, arct that science outside into sociology begin to tell the stories evocatively of how polar bears are drowning and rising seas, but people in the Lord ninth ward are also drowning in those rising seas. There's this connection between the great White bear and black black people. So and thinking about that kind of connection, you know, it's hard to get that into peer review in Journal

of Wildlife Management. I mean really, and and that's not the play spoard. So where does that work go? Where do I put that work? I'm gonna put that work somewhere where it reaches the masses. You know, one of the experiments that now I've never done it, but it's one of those things I'm gonna a I'm gonna put good money that if I published an article I don't know on painted bunning productivity in the um coastal plane of South Carolina, cal report on it. There you go.

So it would be a calciby, It would be a calibli so so so so so there it is in the journal, and I tie it back to feral cats. Okay, good, good for you. But if you're the cat. But if you do that, you tied it to feral cats, right, and you've shown in this you know, in this journal article that you know whatever the the impacts are. So there's the there's the journal. Put that on the table at the dentist office, right that same article. Put it

in the journal, put it in South Carolina Wildlife. And maybe you know you've you've been patient enough as a photographer. You've got you know, a tabby with a with a male painted Bunning in its jaws. And it's a eight hundred word essay. What gets ready, yeah, what gets read? Same data, same data, there's no statistical analysis presented. Really, well, maybe there's the results are presented in that in that South Carolina Wildlife magazine. But that's the challenge, right to

how how do we get that science done? And from a conservation standpoint, um, I think, yeah, we gotta chase, we gotta chase grant dollars. But to me, the you know, the the proof and the pudding. At the end of the day, it's not just how many articles you've published, but what you've done for conservation beyond that, beyond those words, how do those words come into impact? And so sometimes those words come into impact and that scientist continues that

work beyond the four year cycle. And that's where you see the love come out in the science when people dedicate their lives to a question, you know, and they're really working to push that into connect with the managers on the ground that they haven't separated that science in a way. So it's say, well, now I'm done with it. It's up to you. So to stay connected with it. I think it's important. It's no different than you know, some commanders staying in connection with with his her their troops.

To stay in connection with that science in some way to move it forward adaptive research and management. That's a cycle. And somewhere in that cycle of adaptive research and management. I think is loving care. I mean, that's just mean, but I don't. I can't see conservation existing without loving care. That's just part of it. Uh. That wasn't a quickie. I know that was a soapbox. But I do have

one that I gotta hit is migration. Bird migration, Like, what's the most compelling thing about how birds migrate that we know are of research? The most compelling thing is that you know, to me, is is thinking about one thinking about a orbler that weighs as much as uh, you know, a half handful of paper clips, that that bird launches off of the Yucatan, and that that bird chooses to fly across the Gulf of Mexico some six hundred miles to the to the to the Gulf coast

and nirs of Louisiana. And I have seen some of these birds when they're coming ashore, like in in Texas, I've seen a Baltimore oriole barely above the waves. In fact, you know that some of these birds get taken out by fish, right, And so to me that that's uh, this this this heroic story that's compelling, But the science of it again, is how birds do it. The the physiology to be able to flap NonStop for all those hours.

And if you want to really get it some kids, you know, if you're ever talking about it in school, you know, tell kids this and they're like, oh, that's not such a big deal. And you say, okay, I'll give I don't know, twenty dollars whatever amount of money to anybody who can keep their arms going like this for the next hour. Nobody can do that and a bird and a bird does it for a day. So you know that the capacity of birds to do what

they do in migration is amazing to me. That you know, we're our understanding of how they find their way in part, you know, it's a multiplicity of things, by star compass, by polarized light, some birds, by smell um, by orienting to um, to the Earth's compass. All of that is

extraordinarily compelling. And that it's happening for songbirds, for example, in other birds too, but songbirds, we think of this is happening at night, right, you know, you know, we've got our thumbs in our mouths and snoring, and these birds are passing overhead. And then in the morning you wake up and there they are. And then I've never seen a migrating cute, not once. And seeing that, and

and that that's the thing. That's the thing, something like you know, you think about rails and how sora just show up in the weirdest places. They'll show up in you know, downtown Greenville, South Carolina. And you see and you see a sare, it's like you gotta force it to fly. But here these birds are flying hundreds or thousands of miles. A black reel, I mean a black reel.

It looks, you know, almost like a you know, a baby chick, like a and and and here this bird is making its way through wetlands, we presume to some to some choice place. So I'm I'm always enthralled by what we know, but I'm also very inspired by what we don't know, and then what we can never know, because there's some of that stuff we can never know.

How that bird makes that decision, what goes off in its brain to say, you know, and I'm sure somebody said, well, you know, when tail wins reached a certain speed, you know, when when the daylight or or or hours daylight hours, or at a certain lumen um it's this time of year the bird has this fat condition, then the probability of it rising in migratory behavior or to exhibit zukunru

is this. Yeah, that data is out there, but then there's the part of this bird's brain we can't get into, and we can't we can't know what that feels like to be a bird. And we can know they do those things on a population level, but ultimately they're individuals, right, Yeah, And that one bird, you know, for for a couple of years, there was a scarlet tanager that would show up. And notice I'm saying a scarlet tanager. I would say

some scarlet tanagers. But this this bird that shows up and it would sing from the top of this red mulberry tree and it would sing into the sun. And I've I've watched this bird and imagine, you know, this bird is making a transition from the Peruvian Amazon to the piedmonta South Carolina. You know, Andre and sitting and you guys were talking about jaguars, you know, and it's probably looking down at jaguars. It's had to dodge forest falcons. At some point it's passed by a harpy eagle maybe

And now it's here in my yard. Yeah, that's going like, oh yeah, remember what power lines are, Like, oh yeah, there's this other cat down there. It's more likely to take me out in that jaguar. Hey, what's the what's the latest thinking on whether you're a good or evil? If you have a bird feeder, Well, I must be

evil because I have bird feeders. Yeah, I mean, you know, for me, I think you have to be well certainly when if you have like avian flu right um, or you have zoo sees that you notice around your feeder, or you get advisories diseases, you know, if if if birds are being impacted by some of these being densely packed at feeders. Yeah, and clean and clean your feeder.

You know, you shouldn't have so much gunk in your feeder that you can't tell what's in there other than sort of the mossy stuff that's growing on the outside of it that's also growing the inside. So um, if you're gonna have feeders, you have to be a responsible feeder keeper. Clean your feeders on the regular, clean the

watering sources on the regular. Um. I don't feed a whole lot in the summertime because those birds are going out and getting the protein that they need from soft bodied insects and the like for um for their nestlings. So I'll ramp it up in the fall. Um. But you know, I really love feeding birds um in transit um. Part of it is in my head. In my head, I'm thinking, you know, as part of this patchwork of this miraculous deal with migration, I want to be a I want to be a positive in that. So UM.

I certainly don't think it an evil, you know, I think it's a I think it's a positive that people can do. It brings wildlife to them, it brings them closer. But I think you have to think about how you do it. Like anything, You've got to be responsible with it. Don't just throw stuff out there and expect things to go well if you don't tend to it, because things

can go sideways. You had years ago when when krit and I were first talking about having you down, we found a thing you've done where it was like it was sort of the nine rules yeah, of being of being a black birder or nine rules for birding while black. And when I watched the video, like, you know, it was funny, right, it was. It was like it was like funny, Um, you got it, like the delivery was fun right. But I read interviews with you about when

you compiled those and it definitely wasn't always funny games. No, you know when when when that was when you were in space? Right, yeah, you know it's it's I remember getting the email from the editor who said, you know, would you write something towards this And she didn't say nine rules or anything like that. I said sure, and she said, you know, if you can get back to me in a couple of weeks, I'll be fine. I had the draft back to her in a little over

an hour. Because I mean I'd lived, right, I'd lived all this stuff. But you know, my dad used to have a saying he'd say, um, he said, that's laughable but not funny and um. And so I remember I got a question at yeah yeah, yeah, I love that.

Um he yeah. So it's at a film festival and someone and you could hear this, you know, you could hear the laughter come up, and then you hear you go down right, and you could almost hear the uncertainty and laughter, and somebody just asked, they said, you know, yeah, this was funny, but then I had I laughed, but then I wasn't sure whether I should be laughing. And you know, for satire, I think, which is what this is. The The importance is that you know you laugh, then

you think about why you laugh. Then you got to

think about why you think about why you laugh. So on those levels, you know, to get people to some point of sort of arcing head because then again, what you're doing is you're arking head to heart, you know, because you're feeling some kind of way about what you see here, and maybe something catches in your throat and maybe it's funny, but then you're like, wait, but that's not funny because then maybe in your mind with the whole thing about bearing a hoodie, that was I was

gonna have you hit a couple. That was one of the ones I remembers if you got a hood on, you you got a hoodie on. But then that was don't pull the hood That was that was connected to Trayvon Mark, right, And so for people because some people aren't gonna they're not watching that, and they might say, well,

why would you say that? Well, and then you know, I had somebody tell me and I had seen it, and I don't know whether it happens here or not, but you know, you go to certain stores and it will tell you you cannot come in the store with a hoodie on. Oh yeah, you know, um, no hoodies allowed.

I've I've seen that. So in thinking about that, or saying um or, or thinking about being confused as the other black birder, you know, to be called to be called somebody else because um, maybe it's only two of you there, and people haven't taken enough time to notice that you actually are, in fact different that one person's five ten, the other person six to that one person weighs a lot and the other person ways not so much. You know, notice, because you're noticing all of these variations

and birds, you can do it. You can do it, I promise. So thinking about those things wasn't hard, man. I was feeling all of them. Um, I had lived most of them. And so when I was asked about doing it, you know, that just flew out of my hands. And then this very courageous um conservation organization out of

Seattle bird Note. Those people went to the next level and and and and bird Note is great in promoting the science of um of in promoting ornithology, the science of bird conservation and all of that, but they're also great at arcing, and so they were brave enough and they said, you know, would you consider doing a film? And UM And the day that the weekend that we were supposed to do the film, I was traveling up in the mid Atlantic and the producer actually had the

date wrong originally, so we started a day late. But most of that stuff, those nine rules one take because well, I mean, that's the call for people who want to find it on YouTube. UM nine rules for the blackbird watcher. Here, let's just let's listen to one. You know, they're essential tools for birding. They're your binoculars, your spotting scope, your

field guy. And if you're black, you're gonna need probably two or three forms of I D. When I meet another black birder, it's like encountering an ivorybuild woodpecker, an endangered species extinction looms? Did you do the list? Was it before or after the very high profile case where the gentleman in the Central Park I believe it was got he had like a woman was in the had a dog in a leash area, off the leash, and he asked her to put a leash on the dog, or go to this part of the park where you

could have your dog unleashed. That she called the cops. I was just gonna say it was a dog leash issue. It wasn't a birding issue. And he had he had his binoculars, his birding. Yeah, yeah, and he recorded the whole thing. And then yeah, and then her I think her life kind of came apart after that. Yeah, she got it back and her dog, so she's all right, yeah, um, you know that was that was some of that nine rules sort of in effect, you know, and how you

approach people. You you know, the skin you're in in this country matters, and so where you are matters. And you know, I'm a Southerner and um and and and we've got a bitter history in the South of course. But then you know, um, anything can jump off anywhere. And so when that happened to Christian, I was actually, um, I put a little up at my little mountain place and and I remember coming back into cell reception and

my phone was blowing up. You know, if people wanting to know about you know, birding, wild black and what's this about? And this and that and and so nine rules was sort of revived at that point because people are like, so, what is it like to live this way? Well, but so so that's so you've already done it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that's yeah, that's really funny that that that was. But but it was, honestly and that that was my

whole thing. I'm like, wait, this has been out since two thousand thirteen, but all of a sudden, here it is again. So it was one of those things you know, I tell you know, you tell folks well, and folks would say, well, it can't be that series. Come on, you're just birding. You're not gonna well some people are

just jogging and get shot. Right. So and in thinking about what, um, how those things intersect that again, Steve, is where I come to this point of not leaving the science, but really wanting to try to make a difference in how we go about doing what we do, um, whether it's as a hobby of birding or whether it's conservation, so that people become aware that it. Unfortunately, it does make a difference who you are racially in this country.

So you know, my first search project I had to give up because well I didn't have to give it up. But then I did have to give it up. And I say it that way because people have said, well, if you're a real scientist, you'll go into you know, this valley of the shadow of Death where these white supremacists are deciding they're going to make it a homeland. So I had to make the decision, well, am I gonna press that or am I going to leave that research project behind? Because I care about my life more

than I do gathering data in this place. So I made the decision to move my research project really to take up a whole new research project in a place where I felt safer and that kind of stuff happens. So in bringing that to light, you know, it's sure they're science, their sociology that can be done, their behavioral science that can be done, assessments that can be done

on that. But to have people understand that, I got to think about that, right, um, I think is part of I see it as part of my mission to move the science that I do in a direction that has people feel about it and think about it. Do you, uh, do you find yourself telling people that something to the equivalent of like you should you're not interested in nature, You're not interested in birds. You're not a burder, but you should be one. Oh no, oh god, no, I know,

you know it. Maybe it's boulders, maybe it's butterflies, maybe it's blue crabs. I don't know. But if it's something that gets you connected to nature, well, look, first of all, I try to get people understand where their food comes from. Right, Um, that's that's the first science you ought to be concerned about. And um. I don't try to force, ever force people into loving what I love, but to to have some appreciation for a connection to nature I think is important connection.

And when I say nature is connection to air, connection to soil, connection to water. So if they understand that there's this connection that their water just doesn't magically come out of someplace that makes it clean, then then we're gonna have an issue. So to get them to that point, you know, I listened to a report, um, a few weeks back, and it was some incredibly disturbing percentage of

children who think that bacon comes from plants. Yeah, right, um, and and and to and to me, that's that's disturbing. Or to talk to you know, and to talk to really intelligent students, really intelligent high school students I was had. They were in a camp. I was doing science camp and I was teaching an ecology course. And when I teach my ecology courses, you come into Marvin Gays ecology.

Of course, they didn't know Marvin was young, but um, you know there one of the one of the students was in there was eating a candy bar and then they're not supposed to eat there, but I really didn't care, but it was an opportunity. He was eating the candy bar and he was kind of smacking it. So so I'm like, okay, you want to eat this candy bar, I want you to tell me what where the ingredients came from in that candy bar. The main ingredients came from in the candy bar, and I will buy everybody

in this class their choice of candy tomorrow. And he sort of rocks backs, really arrogant, and he's eating I don't know, like a pay day or something. I said, so where the peanuts come from? Oh? And he just man, he leans way back and he's like, Okay, everybody, get your list together because y'all all y'all getting candy bars tomorrow. And he tells me, of course that these peanuts came off a peanut tree. I'm like, really a peanut tree.

So he had no idea that these were looking. I didn't expect him that there was but that these things came out of the ground, or that people think that potatoes come off of potato trees. That's the thing growing up in New York City. Pay but but but then, but you're disconnected from it, right and you know, marketing is going to show you a laze coming out of the ground. They just they just they just care that you eat the chip. So um. But but then that

people don't know again where there. It's one of the things that I try to do when people ask why I hunt, Um, you know, that's a whole foods market and and so to to go to that level and think about you know, you don't have to hunt, but you need to know that your meat blinked before it became a burger. And if you have and if you have that idea, if you know that, then it does give you a different appreciation for life. Um. One of the things that it's always funny to me is how

you know you get challenged. Um. Sometimes one of the times that I got booted to presentation was that there was I had a picture of me with this, with this little buck that I had killed, and I had written a poem about it. It's called Elegy for a Gut Pile and well and and it's and it's about being elbow deep in an animal right and license to ever t shirt. Hell, we can talk, we can talk, um, But that that whole idea. This was happening after Michael

Ferguson's death. And so here I am in this, in this gut pile, um feel dressing this deer, and I just I was overcome with still. First of all, this was a weird thing. When I after I had shot this this animal, I went down to it um on this side slope, and I had never seen this muscle quiver just just under. But it's like every fiber of this deer's body was going away, and I you know, and you see movement, but I had never seen it this way. And I sat with this animal and then

and field dressing it. Um. I was thinking about the appreciation for life. And so I tell folks when the day comes that there's not some minute of indecision that I have about pulling the trigger or loosen the boat, then loosen the arrow. Then it's time for me to stop. You know, it might be and it it might not seem like I'm taking, but I'm taking a beat. And I don't think that we are. We are taught to

take those beats. It's sort of been marketed out of us because people don't want to understand that their meat blinks, except for fish, and then they have no problem, you know, doing whatever they want to do to fish because they don't blink. So it's a disconnect from life that I think. Um, you know, I try to get people to whether it's through birds or butterflies or whatever else that it is,

but nah, no you must for anything. But it's kind of like, well you better if you don't pay attention to what's going on, then this is, this is, this is what happens. Years ago, we had a guest down a I say, it's a novelist named Tom mcgwain and he's been a lifeline hunter and he said something about hunting or he said, um, you're trying to kill something that's trying to stay alive. He said, are you going

to ignore that? Think? And you know and and all, honestly, oftentimes I do you, you know what I mean, like you lose sight and then then something really reminds you of it. We had like a just there at night, like a very vistible reminder that it's like that the

thing doesn't want this to happen. Yeah, yeah, I mean that's the to but to recognize that, um, you know, I don't think maybe it's necessarily apparent, you know, if if if you're just playing life with your thumbs, um, but but being out there in it or at the very least, And for those of us who grew up on a farm, you know, and you and you make the mistake of name in that calf. You know, so what happens when it's sizzling on the plate, you're not

calling that. My friend Doug during he grew up near another dairy family, and he said they solved that, but because they were all named dinner there. I mean, you got you gotta think about that stuff. You gotta. And I don't think we do that enough. You know. Um, you know, drinking crab flavored whiskey, uh makes me think of the briny deep and in a great way. You know, that's probably what it tastes like to drown. I would

suppose the realment. No, I love the castor really, but I just I just think for me, I mean, birds are sort of at that place of being able to show, um, the epitome of life. So I mean flight and the song and just their activity. And they're everywhere, even if it's pigeons. Even if it's pigeons. Um, if you take a while to watch pigeons, I mean, you can't help

but be impressed. You're they're they're common. But here birds that have been symbols of piece, they've been symbols of of of of life itself, but people just ignore them. So a crazy way of flying, their pattern of flights just bizarre exactly. But that you recognize that, right that you just don't walk by and not see that happening, um is to me when when people do that, then we're sort of at a dangerous place. You know, we're

a dangerous place in a disregard for for life. So you know it's birds are I mean, birds are it for me in that way, but um, you know, being able to exercise that option of watching them and adoring them and you know, making what's in the who's uh, that's that's kind of a dream. Come true for me. So here I am well, thanks for being here. I appreciated it. Yet it took a while for us to get together. But I admire the work. I really do. UM have for half for a while because I think

it's important. Two. Um, your your arking head and heart. There's a lot of information that you're putting out in research and words and moving words in the direction for people to laugh at it, to think about it and then hopefully do something about it. So I appreciate it. Thanks love for coming on. Uh, hit hit him with, hit him with your hit him with your lineup of books and the best way to find you uh the Home Place Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature.

Um if you will find your indie booksellers somewhere. UM Sparrow n vy Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts. That's a hub City book that you can buy from hub City Books. Forthcoming books from Ferrar or book from Ferrar Strauss and Guru is Range Maps, Birds, Blackness and loving Nature between the two from Enchanted Lion will come Home Place hughes where you can find colors like Coyle shit brown in my box of Creole of sixty four and the bird I became, um uh black Boys story

of becoming a bird man. Busy dude. Yeah, and you got a course load at Clemson or no? Yeah, yeah, I got a course load. Not teaching um so much this semester, but got got lots of deadlines, including one on on Monday. So lots of essays in the works, lots of poems. That's my last question for you. Okay. We always always come down to, you know, how I know what's real? I found it on the Cornell Ornithological Lab. Is that the best birding resource out there? Yeah? I

think so? Okay, yeah, you know it's good to hear. I mean that that was my dream as a kid. I wanted to go to Cornell. I want to be a Cornell ornithologist specifically. So um, I get to work a good bit with Cornell and published stuff and um in Living Bird. But yeah, you can't do better than that. I feel that you dig them because they do a good job of putting stuff out to two Joe blows like us right there you go. I mean there's the science moving and and nobody's going to discount that science.

But more people know the science because Cornell values that aspect of it of getting out there, they get to do great job of getting people in a position to find that yes, absolutely absolutely this might not be the right way to put it, but I feel like it's like, um, they have they see, they have like a very good balance to It's like it's not like it's it's not

like politicized, you know what I mean. It's just it's very like like good information for people that want to start understanding birds from whatever route they're taking into it. It's just like helpful stuff. Man. That that Merlin app Yeah, that and it's and it's gonna get better, you know. And I and I turned people on to every you know, when I teach your on anthology in the spring, I also turn them on to UM to the du page

and Duck cast and that. Yeah, I turned the students onto it because I want to cross Foster um learning. So you know, you're going to Cornell for for some stuff, you're going to the d U site for other stuff to understand. It's really good too, really informative exactly. So you know, it's a lot of resources out there, but those are two of the best. Aw Well, you got

a standing invitation to come back. I'll be back. You got you got enough stuff going on, you'll you'll get re uh you know, you'll get a new set of ideas working up pretty quick. Well we'll try. Yeah, you know, um, you know this Montana has been in my uh in my dream basket for all my life. I wanted to be three things growing up. I wanted to be an ornithologist. I wanted to be yeah, yeah, I wanted to be I wanted to be a fighter pilot, right, and then I wanted to be a Montana cowboy, and I want

to be at. I didn't. I didn't, I didn't. Nope, Nope. I wanted to be at because Montana for me to find the West and I would look in in the old encyclopedias that we had and it just, um, it just always pulled me in. And so now that I have the opportunity work down at um with with ELK River books, um, you know it's uh yeah, it's a dream come true. So I appreciate you giving me the space. Thanks. You should come out in Turkey hunt and watch the

other birds. Okay, I was gonna say, if you ever wanna go shoot some ducks, you know, I'll be staying at a cabin. I've been on this cabin last night at at the Elk River Book Festival or I'm sorry Elk River Writers Workshop and um and one this cabin and so and uh yeah, so I'm gonna I'm gonna try to make it uh in during Elk Seas and you guys can tell me about cow tags and stuff. So I need to understand that. Um, I don't know how accessible it is here, but unfortunately there's no last

minute options. Yeah there may be there, yeah, but you know, but I also you know, this is something I mean there's no time limit on it, so you know I can put in and and get that work to definitely get some deer tags. Sounds like you're coming back to Montana. Yeah, yeah, well deer wise, I've always wanted to hunt the Milk River. Uh you know, so that again it's so white tailed or white tails, you know, for for me, that's that's still that's still the beast of of choice for me.

But I have others in line that I'm wonna get at. Stay in touch, man, we'll do, we'll do. Thank you, thank you for what you do