Hello and welcome to the American Birding Podcast from the American Burning Association.

I am Nate Swick.

In the years since we started this show at the ABA, we've seen a very real change in the

way that traditional media outlets cover birding. We've gone from a birders are

either very weird and kind of creepy with their obsession or, oh, look, they're so cute looking at

their precious birds, to something that resembles an assessment of bird watching through the lens

of mental and physical health or as a celebration of this growing community.

I think this roughly translates to a pre and post-pandemic phenomenon, as people who were

skeptical of burning gave it a try when there was nothing else to do for the better part

of a year and a half. And generally, I'm very encouraged by this more open-minded assessment

of the hobby. But I will say that it does mean that

we see fewer news articles in the birders-are-weird genre. And that is relevant to me because I used to

rely on those as a cheap laugh on this podcast and their relative decline has been significant to me, personally.

I need people to start gently ribbing birding from a place of ignorance again.

That's just good content.

So imagine my delight, maybe, when I came across an article in Salon by writer Lucy Levinson

called Birding is Punk with the tagline,

Birdwatching is now a widespread pastime for young people who appreciate the hobbies quasi

pagan roots.

Quasi pagan, now we're talking.

So I settle in for some fun to find that Lucy has actually written a really enjoyable commentary

about younger New Yorkers who have come to birding for lots of reasons, as we do,

...