This is Bird Note.

Dave Mull is an avid birder and a professional skateboarder, or skateboarder, as he likes to say.

And he definitely turns some heads.

If I'm skateboarding and then I pull out my binoculars and start birding, some people see that and they're like just totally taken aback.

And they're like, why does he have binoculars? And what the heck is he looking at?

Usually people just laugh outright. But then if they're nearby, I'll be like, you got to check

this out and I'll let them take a look through the bins. That's burterlingo for binoculars.

And they're amazed. They're like,

what? How did you know that was there? It's really fun to peak people's interest like that,

really unexpectedly. And sometimes it's right in the middle of me trying to film a trick. So the people

filming, you know, they might get impatient, but they know at this point I'm obsessed with birds

as well as skateboarding. So if I see like a couple of hooded orioles behind me when I'm about to go

try a trick, I'm going to put my board down and like check out what those orioles are doing.

And the birds really aren't a distraction for Dave.

They help him stay in the zone.

In skateboarding, you'll get a lot of distractions while you're trying a trick, say like traffic

or passers-by.

When I'm skating, I actually gain inspiration from my surroundings and try to take what I can

from it to actually encourage me.

You know, the birds are flitting from one tree to the next like it's nothing.

And I try to imagine I can do a little bit of that, you know,

even if it's just hopping for a fraction of a second in the air on my skateboard.

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