06-22: Unraveling the Mysteries of Bird Vagrancy with Alex Lees
The American Birding Podcast
naswick
4.7 • 677 Ratings
🗓️ 2 June 2022
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Finding birds in places where you shouldn't expect to find them if certainly one of the more exciting aspects of birding. In fact, it might well be the reason for the American Birding Association's very existence. The unpredictability, the excitement, the community that builds around these sorts of birds are certainly appealing even the mechanisms that bring them to these places are not always known. Alex Lees is a senior researcher at Manchester Metropolitan University and, along with James Gilroy, the author of Vagrancy in Birds, which attempts to answer some of those questions of how and why vagrancy is so prevalent in birds. He joins me to talk about this ever-fascinating topic
Also, a sad end to Monty and Rose, and a happy beginning for their offspring.
Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts, and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Nikki Belmonte, the new executive director of the American Birding Association, and I'm so excited to be this organization's new leader. |
| 0:08.3 | I look forward to growing our community and inviting people from all walks of life to enjoy and protect wild birds. |
| 0:14.6 | Today I'm asking you to support our nesting season appeal and help us inspire our youth to discover the joy of birding and the beauty of nature. |
| 0:22.8 | You can donate online at aBA.org slash appeal or call us at 800 850-2473. |
| 0:30.7 | Thank you for your support. |
| 0:37.3 | Hello and welcome to the American Birding Podcast from the American Birding Association. |
| 0:40.8 | I am Nate Swick. |
| 0:42.1 | I am the host of this show, and I am sorry to say, I have a little bit of bad news to share |
| 0:48.0 | about friends of the show, bird celebrities, and urban piping plovers, Monty and Rose, the famous plovers of Chicago's Montrose Beach. |
| 0:58.6 | And just as an aside, I do want to note that it took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to |
| 1:04.5 | realize that they were called Monty and Rose because they were on Montrose Beach. |
| 1:09.5 | Go figure. |
| 1:10.6 | Anyway, it had been a bit of a roller coaster |
| 1:12.4 | year with Monty and Rose. Their arrival in 2019 on the beach of Montrose caused a stir. |
| 1:18.6 | The successful nesting attempt that summer was the first in Chicago since 1948. |
| 1:25.0 | The Great Lakes nesting population of piping plovers is one of the more endangered bird populations in North America. |
| 1:30.3 | But it has been increasing in recent years due to the diligent efforts of many conservationists from a number of agencies and organizations. |
| 1:39.3 | And, you know, though birders certainly recognize the significance of all that, it was news to many |
| 1:45.9 | Chicago residents who maybe never heard of piping plovers, but who quickly took to the story, |
| 1:52.8 | Monty and Rose became local celebrities. |
| 1:54.5 | It became movie stars of a sort, thanks to a local documentary, and it even helped to stop |
| 2:00.5 | an EDM music festival |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from naswick, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of naswick and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.