I'm Flora Lickman and you're listening to Science Friday.

Today on the show, why the story we're told about female birds just won't fly.

Female animals make up, you know, roughly 50% of populations, but they've historically been neglected in biological research.

But first, lace up those comfortable sneakers, get out your bug spray and your binoculars, because we are going bird or watching.

That's right. We talk a lot about birds on the show, but we are turning the binoculars onto the people who watch them.

We're swooping into the

culture of birding. What is it about getting up at sunrise, going into the woods, and waiting

for a tiny, feathered little muffin to fly past that thrills so many people? Here to bring us

into the surprisingly high drama world of bird festivals, avian stakeouts, and spotting your nemesis bird is Rosemary, a science writer, illustrator, birder, and author of the brand new book, The Birding Dictionary.

Welcome back to the show.

Hi, I'm so excited to be here.

How deep are you in the birding world?

I would say you could probably see like the top of my forehead sticking out of the swamp that

is the birding world.

I am pretty darn deep.

What was your spark bird and please define what that is?

A spark bird is a bird that gets you into birding. Like you might

have already noticed a few birds and gotten kind of excited, but a spark bird is the, the bird that

turns it into an obsession. And it's hard for me to say exactly what mine was because I was

burning since I was pretty little. But I have a really strong memory of

looking out my backyard in Ottawa where I grew up and seeing some people call them perulas,

some call them perillas, a fun bird and quirk, these beautiful little warblers flilling in my

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