This is Bird Note.

Migo Jimenez is a PhD student doing research on bird migration, but he wasn't always so

aware of birds.

I didn't grow up birding, but it's also really cool for me as someone who didn't grow

up birding to go to some of those old spots and kind of rediscover them as a birder.

I grew up going to Mantras Beach a lot, which is a beach in Chicago.

I'd play beach volleyball there.

I don't think they have these anymore, but every Thursday night they used to have reggae

nights.

So in high school, that was a beach that I would go to all the time with my friends.

When Migo went to college, he began developing an interest in birds, which gave him a new

perspective on familiar places in Chicago.

And so I'd come home from break and slowly started realizing that Mantras Beach is one

of the best migration or just birding hotspots across the city.

And just a few years ago, piping plovers started breeding there, which are an endangered

species.

And so for me as someone who grew up in that city, how cool it is that urban ecosystems

are these kind of multi-use spaces often.

That's been a really special place for me, and I think it's a special place for a lot

of Chicago birders, but it's cool for me that it has that dual kind of memory.

For Bird Note, I'm Ariana Rimmel.