Good evening.
I have a confession to make:
I am a birder.
Over my 30 years of birding,
I’ve actually learned not to lead with that
when you meet someone.
(Laughter)
They think you’re retired,
that you probably go around Kroger on a hover rider,
and you go to Denny’s at about 4:30 for that early-bird special.
(Laughter)
Not a good idea.
But I’m here to dispel myths about birding
and to show you how you, too, can join in what is a world-wide phenomenon.
Birds are amazing;
I’ve been very interested in them; they’ve got wonderful stories to tell.
There are birds that live down in Antarctica, as you know,
the emperor penguin.
Humans have only been in Antarctica for fewer than 200 years.
This is not an angry bird – it may be an angry bird –
but it is a peregrine falcon.
242 miles an hour –
animal speed record.
Speaking of records:
Griffon vulture – flies up to 37,000 feet.
It can do that because of the hemoglobin in its bloodstream.
How do we know it’s 37,000 feet up?
Well, as it turns out,
an airline jet sucked one of these into its engine.
Birds are incredible architects and, actually, romantics.
The bowerbird spends months and months building a bower, trying to find a mate,
collects all sorts of different colored feathers,
flowers and little trinkets for its mate,
hoping to find that mate.
Unbelievably fun bird that is right here on our campus:
the cedar waxwing.
Flocks of these get together,
they line branches, they’ll be up on telephone lines.
They grab a berry and they’ll pass it down the line.
And everybody takes a little bit.
Interestingly enough, the bird is also a drunk.
(Laughter)
They will eat fermented berries, and for about 6-8 minutes –
they’ve got a very fast metabolism –
but there’s about 6-8 minutes when they can’t fly.
(Laughter)
Now, once you get into birding,
the interesting thing is it sets off lots of ripples,
and you start understanding.
There’s a bird that comes to Ohio, all over Ohio,
the ruby-throated hummingbird.
Three-and-a-half ounce bird – sorry – three-and-a-half gram bird.
A nickel weighs five grams.
And this bird comes here in the summer.
You probably remember learning at one point or another about migration.
You asked your parents or your teacher,
and they said, “Birds fly south for the winter.”
That all sounds great.
The interesting thing is if we analyze what that really means,
it’s – I think it is a fascinating process.
The ruby-throated hummingbird,
while it summers in Ohio,
it winters in the green area in Central America.
At some point in February,
the sun is nice down in Nicaragua,
but the bird has a voice in it, and it says, “Start eating!”
Why is that? We’re not sure.
We call it instinct, whatever that means; it’s preprogrammed intelligence.
The bird starts gorging itself.
It starts eating everything it can lay its beak on.
It goes ahead and doubles its body weight.
A couple weeks later, another voice says, “Fly north.”
The bird goes ahead and flies north for unknown reason.
It does this even if it’s never made the trip before.
It makes it alone.
It doesn’t go over land.
It flies 500 miles over the Gulf of Mexico
and ends up landing in the yellow area:
Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, the panhandle of Florida.
The trip takes 20 hours;
it flies 25 miles an hour.
If it’s lucky and doesn’t meet headwinds, it can make the journey.
By the time it lands, it has used up all its fat resources
and started to actually consume its muscle mass.
This is instinct somehow –
I don’t know what that means, but it’s fascinating.
So, as you delve into a passion,
as you delve into something that you’re interested in,
stories start emerging.
Birding is a great one.
You can bird alone.
You can bird together.
You can even bird with the Amish.
Interestingly enough, the Amish love birding.
This picture was actually taken up in northern Ohio, up on Lake Erie.
Ohio is ground zero when it comes to the spring migration,
and a hundred thousand people, during the first week of May,
will journey up to northern Ohio and watch for birds.
It’s a migration unlike anything.
I know you’re thinking, “How can I get involved?”
(Laughter)
And the good news is, you already have.
You already have the capacity to start birding.
There are ten species up here.
Quickly going through them:
American robin, crow, bluejay, Canada goose, great blue heron, mallard
cardinal, rock dove –
it’s not a pigeon; it is a pigeon –
and ruby-throated hummingbird and the turkey vulture.
I bet most of you out there know at least eight of those species.
You may not know the ruby-throated hummingbird
except it’s the one that’s here.
In any case, you already have the tools.
If you know these, what you can do is add just a few more.
I just grouped 20 new species here that are very, very common.
You see them all the time.
These are some of the 70 species that I’ve seen here on campus.
And the advantage, if you know these 30 –
the great thing now is if you know those 30,
you know 85% of the birds that you’re ever going to see.
And what makes it fun is that when you see something that you don’t recognize,
when you see something on the margin,
on the fringe of your knowledge,
that’s when it gets exciting, and you get to find out,
“Hey, wait a minute. What the heck is that?”
Might be anything.
It might be what we call the butcher bird,
loggerhead shrike, which actually takes it prey –
grasshoppers, whatever –
and puts it on a thorn or a barbed-wire fence
for eating later.
I haven’t seen one on campus, but you can help me watch.
So, how do you find birds?
How do you get out there and look for them?
Well, it’s a lot like real estate:
It’s location, location, location.
If you want to see a bird in the –
if you want to see an eastern bluebird, if you want to see a swallow,
you go to a field.
If you want to see a woodpecker, a pileated woodpecker or downy woodpecker,
you head off into the woods.
So, it’s all about location.
If you want to see a snowy owl –
my favorite bird when growing up –
if you want to see a snowy owl, head up to Cleveland Municipal Airport.
And when you get more interested,
you start figuring out that you can’t just walk around to find these birds,
because what you need to be doing is seeing everything,
and if there are a lot of leaves up on the trees and such,
you can’t find the bird.
And so, there’s a bird in this forest, and I’m going to help you find it.
But we’re not sure what we’re looking for.
(Video) Voice-over: Hey John, you gotta tuck that shirt in.
Hey John, you gotta tuck that shirt in.
John Wuorinen: Oh, that’s the …
upper deaned dillon bird.
(Laughter)
And the key actually is that if you know what you’re looking for,
then you can go out and find it.
How did I get into birding?
Well, my wife and I, when we were just newlyweds,
we lived in a little house,
and it was this wonderful little spot that looked out on a nice ravine –
had wonderful picture windows.
We were playing house, so we thought,
“Oh, let’s go ahead and get a couple bird feeders.”
And so we put up bird feeders –
this actually is not the house, but it’s a representative slice –
and we were amazed.
We knew nothing about birds,
but we were amazed at the variation of what was there,
and so we got, just like I said,
we got to know a few, and it keeps building.
And what’s great about it is, as I mentioned,
when you have a passion, when you get an interest,
it starts building,
and it starts spinning off and connecting to other locations and other spots
and other parts of your life.
So,
we have three sons, and they started playing soccer at Columbus Academy.
And as we’re out on late-summer or early-fall afternoons
watching soccer games,
up in the air, there’s the common nighthawk.
It only is really around for three weeks of the year.
And so we see one.
Conrad was in 7th grade; I remember looking up, saying,
“Hey, a common nighthawk, how cool is that?”
And it makes this nice little (common nighthawk bird call),
and I’m sure nobody else noticed, but I did.
And if you start noticing what’s going on –
On your drive up through Columbus Academy’s driveway,
you can roll down your windows and listen for the red-winged blackbird;
you can listen for the chickadees,
and life becomes much richer through birds.
And what ends up happening is –
I remember hearing this bird, the nighthawk,
and what ends up happening is
the next year, hear it again;
the following year, hear it again.
And so what ends up happening is
this bird ends up being a harbinger of fall.
It’s like the leaves on the trees changing.
And you end picking up the subtleties of nature.
It’s a wonderful, wonderful connection with the natural world.
I thought I’d end: Lots of people ask me what’s my favorite bird,
and I do have one.
But I actually thought I’d end instead with my least favorite bird.
It’s the European starling; it’s a dirty bird – it’s not much fun.
You may know it because you’ve seen videos about the murmurations, online –
it’s this wonderful flocking behavior –
there’s lots of videos of starling murmurations.
And you may know it because of that,
but here’s the interesting thing about those starlings.
One of the most common birds.
It’s spread coast to coast all the way from Gulf of Mexico up through Canada,
Atlantic to Pacific.
This bird, every single one of those European starlings,
is a descendent of 60 pairs
that were released in Central Park in the 1860s.
Odd little fact:
A group of Shakespeare play lovers decided they wanted to go ahead
and release the birds of every single Shakespeare play.
If they were mentioned in a Shakespeare play,
they wanted them around.
So every single bird you see is a descendent.
So, my job tonight is not really to get you into birding,
but I hope I did hook you.
Instead, I want you to pursue a passion
because with passions, your life is richer.
It becomes much more valuable,
connections happen,
you meet people,
you might get a chance to see a European starling.
Thanks very much.
(Applause)
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