From away to garden.com and Robinhood Radio.com, this is Away to Garden with Margaret Roach. You're a weekly invitation to dig in and grow. The full bird migration is underway and that means the cast of characters we're seeing and hearing in the garden is changing quickly as we say goodbye for now to some species and keep a close eye out for any southbound travelers who may stop in for a short visit. I look to watch for signs of both and can't imagine a day that doesn't involve watching birds at least a little. That's why I was happy to learn about a fun new book about bird watching basics by the editors of BWD magazine that ventures into related topics too like how to make your

garden attractive to more birds. Lessons from the new book are subject today's first these messages. Underwriting support for a way to garden provided by Colorblends wholesale flower bulbs. A third-generation bulb company offering top-sized flower bulbs directly to landscape professionals and ambitious residential gardeners on the web, Colorblens.com. And by High Mohing Seeds, Wolcott Vermont, Professional Quality Vegetable, Flower, and Urbal Seeds that are 100% organic and non-GMO project verified. On the web, HighMohingSeeds.com. And by White Flower Farm Farm offering a wide range of carefully selected and expertly grown garden plants. On the web, whiteflower farm.com. I set out decades ago to make a garden for the birds and it's hard to remember a day since that hasn't involved some degree of engagement with both parts of the picture, the plants and the birds, including lots and lots and lots of bird watching. Today's guests are Jessica Vaughn and Julie Zikapus, both of whom are editors at BWD Magazine, formerly bird watchers digest, and are now, along with their colleague Dawn Hewitt, also the authors of a new edition of the book, Bird Watching for Dummies. Welcome to both of you. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, hello. And you're out in Ohio, yes? Is it in each other? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm having a... This is a fresh air retreat for Jessica who lives in Columbus. Yes. We get her down here and just fill her up with whipper wills and cicadas for a while. Oh, well, before we get started, I'll say we'll have a book giveaway of the new book, which I've really been enjoying, with the transcript of the show, over on WayToGarden.com. So, that's one thing. So, this is the second edition of a book with almost 30 years under its belt, yes. So, this bird watching for dummies is the second edition of a book with almost 30 years under its belt, isn't it? Yes. And to say that it needed to be updated is an understatement of the year. It was it dated to 1997 Margaret. Oh my. Well, and so that's a while back. And who was the author then? Bill Thompson III, my late husband. But I had written about a third of the book for him, anything that dealt with gardening, behavior, drawing birds, feeding birds, anything like that that had to do with the backyard interaction with birds I wrote. So I had quite a hand in the book in the beginning and then it was humbling to read my words and realize how completely out of date they were in every respect. Right. So by the way, I'll say to both of you, I love that BWD, it's the acronym, I guess, well, it's the name of the magazine, which was Birdwatcher's Digest. Bird Watching for Dummies is BWD. And then in the book, Jessica, you, I think you explain that it has another another meaning of three sort of adjectives that Birds bring to mind. Do you know what I'm talking about? I do. Birds wonder and delight. Yes, we we toyed around with that as a tagline when we relaunch the magazine and and we bring it out every now and then. And it's funny you mentioned that the book has the same initials because when you said that we both looked at each other like, oh it does. It had never occurred to us. It really hadn't. Well good thing I read it and told you. Yeah, good thing. Yeah, beauty, wonder, and delight. And really, I mean, for me that's what nature is about, but especially birds. And really the companionship that they provide for me, living in a rural

place on my own, you know, both the regulars I'm on a first-name basis with, you know, that I sort of count on seeing each year in their own season and then the unexpected visitors. You know, it's really an integral part for me of the garden in my life. And so even though I felt I felt like I had some experience.

I was more like maybe an intermediate level person, but and the book is for dummies, but I just, it was wonderful because it reminded me that we need to sharpen our skills and remember certain things as we watch the birds, especially to emphasize the watching, right? Not just ticking things off on a list. Absolutely. We really don't feel that this book is for dummies. That's no, that is the brand. But there's something for every bird or at every level we think. And that's the beauty of it. The book can be, you start a chapter one you can start you know go straight to the gardening chapter

So it's it's really designed to give a little something new to everyone who wants to advance in some regard of their bird watching right so I mean it covers everything from

Binoculars and how to use them and the basics of taxonomy and I mean so many different subjects so let's

You know as I said in the introduction, the migration is underway. The full migration in some ways can be subtle in your own backyard. At least I feel like it can be in my own backyard. But I was reminded reading the book of some of the basics of bird identification. There's a lot about, you know, how to build your skills, so to speak. And maybe we can, you know, talk about that. And yes, we can turn on the Merlin app. And you have an anecdote about that, Julie, in the book too, about your resistance to using that for a long time and, and, and, and so forth. But I think it's great to also learn the old fashioned way to I.D. birds, yes? Absolutely. Yeah. We really emphasize that, you know, to learn at old school to actually chase down the bird until you see that song coming out of that beak is really the way to cement vocalizations in your head. And it's more fun, you know. It's all very well and good to have your phone tell you what's singing out there, but isn't it much more interesting to sort of pick out a song and track it down and then actually find the bird? That's birding. That's what we want people to do. So we do spend a lot of time talking about the old school ways of doing things because we do not think that these apps have replaced ear birding or actually chasing birds down until you can see them. Right. I'm a year. The birds aren't as vocal. So Merlin isn't going to help you find worbler's right now, but the world is coming through. So learning bird behavior and those skills are what are going to help you at other times of the year that they're not singing. Well, and I think that behavior and there's a whole lot about that in the book and I think that's where a lot of the really good watching comes in. Absolutely. You know, is watching their moves, the differences among them where you see a particular type of bird habitat wise, you know, getting to know them, yes, not just not just oh that's the little you know, indigo-colored bird, you know, where and what does it do and anyway, I love all that. That's the behavior is the exciting part. Yeah, I think once you sight a bird your job is just begun, you You shouldn't just say, oh yeah, yellow-rumped, warglard next. But if you just stay on it as long as it permits you to, it may do something really interesting that maybe nobody's ever seen one do before. And that's where I get excited about bird watching because I like to stay with them and see what they're up to. Well, and I think in the book, you all right, something that's really important, and it took me a long time when I was a beginning birder to really remember this. My impulse was if I would see a bird, I would run to get my field guide. And you know what happened when I got back with the field guide, the bird wasn't there. So you say, look at the bird, not the field guide. And then you say something else, sort of a carol, everything, talk to yourself. And those were two really good things to like say out loud what I was seeing. Do you know what I mean? Like to vocalize it so it got stuck in my head so that when I did go get the book, I knew what had struck me, right? Right. Exactly. Exactly. You're trying to take a mental photograph of this thing to hold in your brain until you can get to that book. And the longer you stay on the bird,

the more you're going to notice about it. So really, your time is best spent with that bird. It may only give you 20 seconds. You might as well spend those with it. Right. Right. What's things Jessica? Like, are there things that you, when you're out bird watching, are there things that you always look for? you know, like telltale aspects of a bird, or do you have a sort of what you prioritize? You know, as a beginning birder, I would say I always wanted to identify it. Like it was just important to know what I was looking at. And the more experienced I've become, it has become less important to put a name to that bird than to spend time with it and enjoy it. And you know, I'm at a staging hour. Most of what I see when I'm out birding, I'm going to know what it is. But I went birding yesterday and I saw a lot of warbler butts and I don't know who they belong to. And that's okay. I still enjoyed finding those warbler butts because it was it was hard to even see because they're so high up and yes. Where neck is a real phenomenon. So I think a younger version of me birding would have been frustrated by that but I had no problem. I was still eburning and I had no problem checking worbler spa. I know was, oh, I know that hurts some people. So we should explain what Warblers spa is on eburd because eburd.org is the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's sort of database, so to speak, that we get participate in and we can register our our sightings. So an and word blur SP period is wordless

species when you don't know which one it is but you know it was a warbler right? I know that's painful to a lot of people like Julie but I know that when I go back and look at that list I'll be like oh yeah we had a whole handful of flitter flaring activity up there and I'll remember it was September 1st and maybe next September 1st I'll have a similar experience and you know it just there's can that's being connected all the time so right and this is this is

such a fun time

of year too because like it's been a doldrummy summer. It's been hot and

humid and gross and I haven't wanted to be out there birding. But now that it's

cooled down, it's gotten dry or air and the birds are starting to come through.

I'm doing a daily ebber list again. And I've really missed that

during the summer. So I always like this morning, I woke up to the call of a red-breasted nut hatch. Right outside my window and I was like, yes, they're here. So it's just fun. It gets you, it gets you kick-started. It's really nice to be able to make a little daily list and then you can look back at it, it's wonderful.

Right, and the great thing about using something like Ebert is that you're then sharing your

list, and so scientists and so forth are also getting to see it. So it's, it has that community aspect as well. But yeah, I loved another sort of command in the book. It said, first impressions, leverage you know, to sort of look at, is see what strikes you most about a bird when the first glimpse you get of it. And over the years, I, you know, tried to figure out what things should I look for, or kind of, you know, you know, and you know, you wouldn't, I wouldn't have thought in the beginning of learning to bird a little bit that like looking at its bill, you know, it's beak, that that was important for instance or do you know what I mean? Like, details like that, I wouldn't think about that yet. Sometimes that can, something so small as that can say something about that animal that you do know I mean. It's oh yes you and that's one of the most common things you see on the identification group Facebook pages where people say I believe this is a yellow warbler and then people will swoop in and say not with that conical beak it's not you know it's not right right. Because they're just going on local color and field marks and they aren't thinking about overall structure. And it's so important to really honestly, beak shape is one of the first things you should look at. Which is, again, counterintuitive to a beginning birder completely. And I forget and I have to remind myself to just look and see because it tells us something about well about their family because you know and what they can manage to eat so to speak. You know, they're not built for, for instance, cracking nuts. Right. Right. Yeah, the beak will get you right into family. So I really kind of zero in on the head first of all. Okay. Is there so much information there? Okay. So the beak around the eye, if there's like an eye ring or anything definitive like that, is it? What else? A eye ring, eye line. Yeah. And then kind of move on back the bird. Does it have wing bars? Does it have long wings? Does it have short wings?

Does it have a long tail? What color are the legs? And it's so funny because when people come to you with, oh, I saw this bird, what color was it? Well, it was grayish. And you're like, well, was the gray on the top? I don't know, it's just grayish. So it's black. Right, right. It becomes pretty obvious pretty quickly that they haven't taken the kind of careful look at it that you need to to affect an ID. Right. And then more in the spring, I feel like again that behavior thing that you guys were mentioning earlier. I feel like I can in the spring, I can take notice in summer. I can take more notice of the behavior, at least traumatic examples of bird behavior. In the fall I'm not as, I don't know exactly, except if there's so-called feeder birds, I guess that I would refer to them who show up. I guess I know their behavior well, but I don't necessarily know what the migratory birds, I don't know what behavior to expect of them, so I don't know their signals that way. Whereas, you know, my in spring and summer, the visitors, like if I have a Louisiana water thrush, you know, it's going to be doing that bobbing dance move, you know, over by the wall, actually, you should be by the water garden or like a America red start will be like fanning its his tail, you know, and I don't know, he just looks like a butterfly to me sometimes when he does. You know what I mean? There's certain have them. Yeah. You're lucky to live around red starts. They're lovely. Oh, they nest in the garden. They all every single year they nest in the garden, the same tree in fact. Oh, which is so wacky. The nest.

You've actually seen the little nest. Oh sure. It's right. It's right near my, um, like my sort of, uh, one of the upstairs rooms right near a window of one of the upstairs rooms in the dogwood tree. Wow, perfect.

Come on.

Come on.

Come on.

...