You're listening to shortwave from NPR.

Viviana Ruiz Gutierrez says that lately, a lot of people have been sliding into her DMs

looking for bird advice.

You know, what is this bird?

I took this picture out of my window or the description sometimes sound like there's

crazy raptors and dinosaurs inside their windows, you know.

There's this big, bright yellow orange bird.

It's a very interesting thing right on our door.

Viviana is a research scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and she says that there's

something about staying close to home that has a lot more people paying attention to what's

happening in their own backyards.

We're kind of stuck in this routine, even myself included, where kind of the days are

melding into one and we're trying to find things that mark the time.

Because I think when you start bird watching, it kind of really takes us from ourselves.

If you listen to the show, you know that we aren't new to birding here.

We covered hashtag blackbirdersweek, way back when we even had a show about a birding board

game and it turns out even you, our nerdy shortwave listeners, have jumped on the birding bandwagon.

I'll tell you what, we are surrounded by birds right now.

I'm just sitting on my front door.

Looking over a field, we see a little blue bird.

Do you see that little blue bird?

The one I hear the most is the dark eye junko that's sitting right on top.

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