Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Gull Joy with Amar Ayyash
753 Plays1 month ago
It’s finally here! The long-awaited Gull Joy episode. This week, Dexter and Jason converse with one of North America's most well-known gull experts, Amar Ayyash. We sit down with Amar and discuss how he went from making French fry-infused eye contact with gulls as a kid to being the author of a sensational new gull text, “The Gull Guide: North America.” We dive into how to find joy in the pursuit of gulling. This includes visiting Cape May to see an Ivory Gull, hanging in landfills, and enjoying a nice Gull Frolic every winter. Amar makes it clear that gulling can be for everyone. He shares his experiences with beginners and advanced birders alike. You can feel the gull joy emanating from every moment of this episode. If you are looking for a fun and inclusive discussion on how to get started, look no further. Be sure to check out the North American Gulls Facebook page and anythinglarus.com for the community you seek!
Be sure to follow our podcast on Instagram at @thebirdjoypod and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the bird joy podcast. I'm Dexter Patterson and I'm Jason Hall. This is the podcast for all the bird nerds and homies out there that want to find a little gold joy today. Let's go. So today we are so honored to introduce the goal homie of all goal homies. Author Ammar Ayash, author of the new Goal Guide of North America. What's up, man? How you doing? I'm doing great, guys. It's great to be with you. I'm excited for this.
Ammar Ayash's Birdwatching Journey
00:00:49
Speaker
quite often on the Bird Joy Podcast. Expert uncles in North America, evangelists for goal recreation. He hosts a very popular website, anythinglaras.com. Brother, thank you for being here with us today on the Bird Joy Podcast.
00:01:05
Speaker
Oh, thank you for having me. It's mid-November and the northern gulls are here and we've got about four months of this. Yeah. For some people, gull season starts right around Thanksgiving. For me, it never starts. It never ends. It's just there's something to do year round.
00:01:22
Speaker
This is the most exciting time of the year because we get this variety of Northern birds, you know, mid latitude breeders that are still here. And there's so much to see. Yeah, man. Yeah. I, you know, I'm wondering, uh, cause this is, you know, we call ourselves novice enthusiastic novices. And I had the, I had the pleasure of meeting you last year for the Christmas bird count here in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. We got stranded standing in the trash dump for like eight hours.
00:01:48
Speaker
Y'all do that out there too, huh? Yeah, yeah, it was awesome. I thought that was just a Wisconsin thing. We hang out at the landfills just looking at goals like we're normal human beings, you know what I mean? um you're
Early Experiences with Gulls
00:02:01
Speaker
kind of you're kind of spoiled the farther north you go because, you know, that aroma that comes with the landfills, it's not really a problem once you get north of a certain latitude. I was in Brownsville, Texas last week, all the way at the bottom tip of Texas. And you smell that from a few miles away.
00:02:18
Speaker
Once you get up on the mountain there, it's, it's bad. It's heavy. Yeah, it's yeah man. Just, just that Texas trash bacon in the sun. yeah I mean, it's probably smells delicious to those, to those Franklin's goals. And oh yeah stuck down there right already we Yeah. Right. So a lot of people, Amar, we've spoken about this. Others speak about this. You know, goals are are quite a, quite a conundrum for them and they kind of don't know where to start. And so I'm more interested. How did you start? Right. I know I've heard before that you've kind of always been into goals. Do you remember your starting going being anxiety riddles or anything like that? Or did you have a more kind of calm approach to it? I didn't consider myself a birder at the time. um I just kind of approached Gulls like dropping french fries one day. like that's That's my first memory of dropping french fries and Gulls landing on the hood of our car and just staring at us through the windshield. and so
00:03:14
Speaker
I didn't know what they were called. I didn't know they were these various age groups. I didn't know they were a challenge for a group of bird watchers worldwide. I know no notion of birding at the time. So it was very low pressure, very just I'm doing this because I enjoy it. I'd go to like marinas. I'd go to lakes, ponds, wherever I could find them. I had like a probably a $10 pair of binoculars. He's really flimsy little binoculars and I'm making it work. I'd run it. I'd run into birders. I could see they had what I thought were cameras on the tripods, which turned out to be scopes. And they'd be like, hey, you want to take a look through this? Yeah, I'll take a look. I was amazed at what they were seeing, loons and greaves and ducks and gulls and terns. So that's how I got into birding, is driving around, going to find my own gulls. I love that. Cause you mentioned this time of year, ah especially here in Northern Illinois, I'm in Madison, Wisconsin. And this time of year, people be like, it's weird duck season. Yeah, it is. And it's also goal season. So like when we host events, we're always this time of year, we're like, Hey, we're going to go and we're going to focus on goals in water file.
00:04:23
Speaker
you
Challenges and Writing a Guide
00:04:24
Speaker
know being in a parking lot and dropping some french fries i remember being on like a cruise boat and and just watching goals just fly by as people like throw food in the air and they're little
00:04:40
Speaker
is there what you would call your gateway goal right was there a specific moment or species beyond like the french fry moment that really sparked that passion for these often overlooked birds kate may iver goal once i got into listing and met birders and started doing cbcs there was a rare bird alert on the illinois burgers forum they're like hey you guys i think everybody should know about this there's an ivory gall in New Jersey. And this was posted on an Illinois group. So I'm like, so why is this, why is it so important that it be posted here? And I saw the enthusiasm and excitement of all the veteran birders. I thought, okay, this must be a cool bird. So we took a 12 hour trip to Jersey from Chicago, six of us in a van. oh Let's go.
00:05:29
Speaker
That was an overnight trip. Gotta think it in Ohio on the way there. Worth it. we Yeah, it was worth it. Definitely worth it. But that, I think if there has to be a spark goal, that would probably be it. Because after that, there were about five or six more of these in the next couple of years. And that's my spark goal, I guess.
00:05:48
Speaker
And that's a really, really pretty one too. I suggest folks Google that tell you to do that all the time. If you're hearing about a bird that you don't know yet. And so that's a, that's a great goal to have as a spark goal. Cause it's super rare, you know, to come down over this way. I found myself, um, before I even knew you, I knew of your name from the North American goals page on Facebook. I would see you and and Liam and others answering questions. I found myself one winter trying to decide I was going to learn goals, right? This was 2022. I was like, you know what? I'm a watch. some YouTube videos, you know, I fell asleep watching some video from some dude that was like two hours long. That just helped me had no personality, but more credit to him. I was like, you know what? Let me just get out and study. So I started going out and starting to study. And then one day I was having a crap day at home and my wife was like, get out of the house, go do something. Right. It was February. And I went up to our local place near here, Green Lane. And I just sat there like a curmudgeon in my chair with my scope looking at these goals on the ice float there. I found a goal that was like bigger than everybody else and not as dark in the plumage, just a tank and white wing, but it was definitely juvenile. I wasn't a full adult plumage, right?
00:07:02
Speaker
And i I sat there like a clown for a couple of hours and just took pictures. I didn't know what I was looking at. I'm looking through my little Sibley's field guide and and not necessarily always helpful um with the different variations and stuff. And I finally get back in my Jeep. My fingers are freezing. I text our homie, George Armstead, and I'm like, yo, is this, I'm crazy, right? Cause this is definitely not a Glaucus Wingull. And he texts, I guess, uh, uh, Alvaro and, and he returns like, yeah, pretty sure that is right. And in the meantime, I had posted it on your North American goals page. And I remember I wrote at the beginning, I wrote, please take it easy on me. It's my first time posting a goal here. Right.
00:07:38
Speaker
I don't know what I'm doing. the pressure And that turned out to be the state first for Pennsylvania. And so I found myself with this spark goal, really not having any major goal knowledge, just really beginning my journey. And that's kind of how it kicked off for me. And so I wanted to talk to you so much because there's a lot of beginners like me and they get to that North American goals Facebook page and they see so much information, but it's not necessarily organized and distilled in a way that you can just pick it up anywhere. Was that more,
Learning and Community Support
00:08:08
Speaker
uh, some of the impetus of you writing the book, the goal guide, right? Is that you wanted to put all that information in kind of an orderly fashion for people so they could figure out the on-ramp. Oh, certainly a hundred percent. You nailed it. I was reading through resources and asking questions. I always felt like it wasn't distilled. There wasn't something that walked me through step one. Here's how you approach a flock of goals. Step two, here's what you're looking for. Step three. Here's how to differentiate the different common species, the different age groups in those common species. I felt I wanted to write a book that would be useful to me as a beginner and then it would walk me through that growth, that curve of becoming intermediate and eventually some good meat and potatoes in there for advanced birders. I think I achieved that. I think I have something for everyone in that book, starting with the introduction and just inviting beginners who don't know much about gulls to the group of birds. But then we do get into weeds. It's it's not just for beginners because once you get into the species accounts, you have to have a baseline. You have to have some familiarity with what it is we're referring to when we're pointing out field marks and and what it is we're looking at. But certainly i I remember the frustration of asking questions on ID frontiers. I don't know if you guys are familiar with ID frontiers asking questions on the Illinois birders forum, just local chat groups. That's what we were in. We were in chat groups at the time, never really having people to fully engage me. They'd answer these questions very briefly. Yeah.
00:09:41
Speaker
no detail. And so I did a lot of the research and and studying on my own. I think I learned outside of the Howl and Dunn field guide, I pretty much learned gulls on my own watching gulls. And that that is the most powerful way to learn birds is by observation time, your own field observation time and taking notes and making these these distinctions for yourself. It is always helpful to be with somebody more knowledgeable than yourself.
00:10:07
Speaker
To be with a group a group that's going to lead you this way and kind of just walk you through what it is You should be seeing but I didn't have a lot of that. I didn't locally in the Chicago area There were only a handful of people intrigued by goals and the and these are folks I didn't necessarily have access to if you do have access to somebody who is interested in goals is knowledgeable in goals boy by that person lunch and get get out there and It saves you a lot of frustration, a lot of years, let's say, trying to figure out your common species on your own. For new birders, I always try to tell people in our club, like, please don't be afraid to ask questions. And
Tips for Identifying Gulls
00:10:46
Speaker
I think even with goals, that fear of asking questions is kind of magnified a little bit. Even for me, that's an experienced birder. But I would say many of our listeners, and we have a wide range of listeners from people that probably like, are certified laurel files like yourself and maybe ones like Jason and people who are brand new to it and are actually starting to pay attention because somebody was so nice to them to put them in their scope and say, look, yeah, this is what I'm looking at. But for listeners who are new to gulls, what's a common species they can look for? What's a simple tip for them to identify it? kind of depends on the region you're in. You know, if you're, if you're in California, Oregon, you're probably going to want to learn Western Gull, California, go really well. Heard you're going to see year round, you know, 12 months, 12 months of the year. If you're on the Atlantic, you definitely want to know herring, gall and ring, build and even laughing, gall, which isn't, which isn't much of a problem, herring and ring, bill. And most of the interior, I would say herring and ring, bill. There is a switch over. Once you get to the Colorado front range where California replaces herring, But yeah, those those common species in the lower 48 ring build California herring Western if you're on the Pacific and beginning with the adults, right? There's no reason to mess with the first cycles second cycles if you haven't taken the time to get that size shape structure down and you can do that through the adults and then graduate over to the first cycles and see what they look at.
00:12:14
Speaker
The age group I typically tell people to put off. I mean, if you have a flock of gulls, you're not going to discriminate. You're going to look at all the birds. But you want to really nail down adults in first cycles. The variation in second and third cycles is somewhat bewildering in some species, especially like herring gull. That's a lot of fun. If you have the time and patience to make it a point to find second and third cycles and like understand why that's a second cycle, look at the tips to the primaries, look at the underwing, and just making out these patterns that make this bird different than a first cycle, for instance. With that said, you guys probably know the the rarest age group in four-year gulls is is third cycle. you don't have a lot of third cycles to look through. After that, the rarest age group is second cycle. And so the most common age group in any golf lock should be adults, and then it should be first cycles. And yeah, yeah that's just a ah consequence of demographics like birds, nourishing so many birds dying their first year of life. If they get to three, four, five years old, they're likely going to continue on and live long adult lives where they contribute to the gene pool.
00:13:24
Speaker
you would be actually, um, finding third year birds is is not an easy task. Like
Writing and Discoveries
00:13:29
Speaker
you really have to squint and look hard in those flocks to find third cycles. Yeah. You said so many good things that I want to, I want to call out for people. So like mentioning just which cycle, right. And what the color of the primaries are. and And, um, you know, I found myself, I didn't even get to a species account yet. Right. I just, I spent all my time in those first 58 pages of the introduction or whatever. Right. Because it's good. And it's organized in a way that helps you kind of go to a spot. So like, I would tell people if they're looking, you know, when they when they get the book, and by the way, go get the book, a lot of bird guides, sometimes you can really blow through the introduction sections, because you kind of generally understand the morphology your way around the bird. And there's a lot of birds that you can see them once.
00:14:11
Speaker
And you're good. Your brain locks that in. But when you mentioned what those feathers look like, first cycle, second cycle, third cycle, right into adulthood, you have to look at those multiple times. You can't just say, all right, well, I saw a first cycle herring gall and I'm good. Right. Because The first 58 pages really walks you through this puzzle. And that's really how I see it, right? It's great because I i did like the first section on Molt. It was so funny because I was sitting at the table. My wife was like, why are you drawing stuff? And I'm like, well, listen, Ammar has this organized like this. And I didn't even know what pre-basic Molt was. And these alternative plumages and these partial multicycles. And I'm like, drawing stuff out because you're explaining it. And it was so funny because I drew it out and I was like, okay, I got it. And then I turned the page and you had a figure
Gull Behaviors and Adaptability
00:14:59
Speaker
right there of the exact thing. And I was like, I'm an idiot. I should have just kept reading. That's really what I love about the beginning of this book. Cause I, you know, I've tried a couple of other gold guys and there are some that, you know, there's gold simplified and then there's a couple of other ones. and
00:15:12
Speaker
And there's no in between space of like, I can explain this to a seven year old. And then I can also have a conversation with someone that's been studying goals for 50 years. You can already see that in the book. I'm wondering like when you're out there finding your joy in goals. And since there's so many, so much variation, like, is there a particular kind of goal puzzle that you like to solve? Do you love a good hybrid? You know, you wake up on Sunday morning, some people love the New York times crossword. Like, do you love like a good, Facebook page, a good hybrid or or a good vagrant. Like what's your, what's your go-to there? Yeah. So my most interesting thing happening here on Lake Michigan are herring gulls. We have our population is the Great Lakes herring gulls, Dexter. That's probably what you're seeing in Madison. yeah They tend to mature a lot faster than Atlantic birds.
00:15:58
Speaker
So if you look at a Great Lakes herring gull, right now in November, a bird that hatched just this past June, it's going to typically look a lot more mature than an Atlantic coast or northern Arctic type herring. So right around this time of year, for me, it's all herrings. I'm not bothered by, can I find a vagrant? What rare gull am I going to find today? That is always an added bonus. I just let those things happen. I'm i'm not out looking for rare gulls, although i'm always they're always on my radar. for me For me, it's what interesting herring am I going to see today? Which one am I going to take 200 photos, 300 photos of? and And still be wondering where this bird originates from. So so I'm always, I have you know my search image for Great Lakes herring gulls. I know what they generally look like. And then I'm looking for things that I think may have come from like Baffin Island or I don't know, the Yukon territories or something. That's generally it for me. I want to look at these patterns on first cycle birds, the way their tails are patterned, the way their coverts are patterned. On the adults, I'm looking at their wingtips. How much white is in this wingtip? How much larger does it look than a general?
00:17:08
Speaker
Great Lakes Herring, and we have the smallest herring gulls in North America. You look at our herring gulls, they're these cute, petite, compact, and then you look at the herrings on the Atlantic, and they're they're intimidating. they look like They look like they grew up taking steroids or something. That's how we roll. That's how we roll out here. Oh, yeah. No, they're beasts. They're beasts. So that's generally it for me. I'm i'm intrigued by herring gulls. I think there's enough variety there to busy you for a few hours and and and still be wondering, you know, what what exactly is happening with this herring gull? That's my puzzle is just taking apart herrings mostly. That's so cool. I remember telling Jason I had this huge flock of herring gulls near me and he was like, dude, I'm like jealous right now. Like how are you just hanging out with herring gulls? Like it's nothing. Cause I don't like, I gotta to go to the shore in the summer to get those, you guys are surrounded by lakes. So I'm like, I gotta to wait till the winter to actually get some good study time. So. Ammar, honestly, your goal guide has become this go-to resource for goal enthusiasts all over the all over the country. What's one surprising fact or something you uncovered while putting your book together? What's something that just kind of just really surprised you? Yeah, there's a few of those. Probably the most shocking thing was yellow legged gull is an obscure gull for us here in North America. I went into the book project thinking I have to learn yellow legged gull. There's these records of them on the Atlantic. We've been promised that they're being seen as far south as Florida, as far south as Texas. I don't know if you guys are familiar with Rare Birds of North America by Steve Hall. In that book, it's, I don't know, it's probably about 15 years old now, maybe a little less than 15 years. In that book, he talks about the rise of yellow legged gulls in North America. And to me, that's very interesting as a gull guy, where are these yellow legged gulls? So as I went into the literature and and took those records apart, like I got in touch with records committees, can I look at the evidence? Can I look at the photos, the reports?
00:19:10
Speaker
It looks like every yellow legged gull record outside of Newfoundland is problematic. It doesn't look like those are actually yellow legged gulls. A lot of them look like oh no American herring, um American herring, lesser blackback hybrids. About the time these records started to
Complexity and Learning Opportunities
00:19:28
Speaker
spike on the Atlantic was about the time lesser blackback gulls started to explode in North America. And so I think what was happening is they were already hybridizing with American herring gulls and people weren't really onto them in the 80s. And so they're they're seeing these birds that look intermediate between herring and lesser blackback thinking these are yellow legged gulls. A lot of the birds that I went through the records from like Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, even Quebec, doesn't look like they have any any good yellow legged gulls. And so that was probably the number one surprise for me. But there were other minor things, like things I didn't realize until doing the research, like second cycle, great blackback gull. Very, very often shows a mirror on P10. It's a quirky little detail, like nobody's life would change knowing this. yeah As I did my research and looking through specimens, I'm like, there are very few second cycle lessers who don't, or great blackbacks that don't show P10 mirror. Little things like that I thought were interesting. By far the biggest surprise was how little we actually know about yellow legged gull, which probably has not has not made this incursion into North America, like some folks thought.
00:20:38
Speaker
And that's, that's, uh, breaking news on the bird joy. And that's, and that's, that's so wild, right? Cause it gives, it gives this sense of mystery that like, there's like goals present this, I think because of what they are and how they, I say are, are not as as easily identified at times. but easy to find and study in most places, right? They don't think people take some stuff for granted sometimes, right? And there's probably some angry records committees out there, you know, around, you know, like golf. But, you know, I'm wondering, um I want to, I want to read something from your book really quick, because this is, this is in the introduction section. And Dexter and I always joke because sometimes guests come on and we feel like they're preaching to us and taking us to church.
00:21:22
Speaker
This was a moment this, I was reading this one and I, you don't see this very publicly that often, whether it's on Facebook pages or bird groups, this, this sentiment. So let me, let me read this. It is important to accept that identifying every goal, 100% of the time as an impractical undertaking. The sooner we come to terms with this, the sooner we're able to enjoy goals for what they are struggling with an identification should be looked at as an opportunity to grow and cultivate our craft. by no means should leaving a bird unidentified ever be written off as a loss. I mean, worse right there. Right. Like that is if I had to send somebody to your book, I would send them to read that page first. Say that really understand that first before you get into this. Well, I mean, like, did you have a clear intent of like, I wanted to make sure people knew this right off the bat. I love that message and I wanted that message to be clear. like i didn't I didn't want to beat around the bush or sugarcoat it. I struggle with IDEs. Some of the greatest GAL experts I know in the world struggle with IDEs and that's just the nature of GAL identification. But I do make it pretty
Evolutionary Success and Community Emphasis
00:22:29
Speaker
clear, we're talking about typically four cycle four-year gulls, the herrings, the Iceland's, the glaucous wings, not things like Bonaparte's and Little Gull and Savage Hills. those are Those are small time, easy going, very comforting larrids. I was referred to the four cycle gulls and just um be prepared to be humbled or just go into it knowing I already know Amar said you're not going to be able to identify. every fall in the flock. So that's not a cop-out. It's not, you know, encouraging people to quit easily, but it's also admonishing folks that this group of birds has puzzled people for decades and continues to puzzle us and for good reason, right? they've They've speciated very recently. And so they probably have evolved faster than any other group of birds. And so their DNA is so similar once you get into the northern species, a lot of the differences we're seeing in these birds might be controlled by just a few genes. yeah You have like ah a white glaucous gull and a black lesser blackback. ah You could think of these things, at least some evolutionary biologists think of them as a black lab and and a ah a white lab. They they may just be, phonetically speaking, just just
00:23:46
Speaker
A few genes control the differences in these birds, and they've diversified so quickly that they've exploited different regions of the world. They've exploited different habitats, and with that, they've evolved into birds that look different on the surface, but genetically, you wouldn't be able to tell them apart looking at their genes.
00:24:04
Speaker
I love it. I always tell our, our members, even if they don't know what they're seeing pointed out, you're being helpful. Let's figure it out later. Give yourself some grace. I always tell them that you don't need to be the pro. That's part of the fun is burning. I, and I, I don't know, maybe you feel the same way, but a part of burning. And I was saying with goals, there's always something to learn and I always consider myself a lifelong learner. And I think that's one of the things I love about birds and burning is like, I'm always learning. I'm leading hikes and. And I'm always telling people, I don't know. Sometimes I just don't know. And I think once you get to that point of being able to say, I don't know, let's figure this out, break out our resources, let's ask questions to our friends that you may have these answers, and especially when it comes to goals, right? I just love that that message of giving yourself some grace. And and we preach that to our listeners so much because burning as a whole can just be a little too intimidating for folks when it should just be about the joy and the fun. so Thank you for centering that message in your book that is touching and and changing the lives of a lot of people that are ah really, really, really, really taking that deep dive on goals right now. I just want to say thank you for that. you're right on right on thank you guys thank you I sincerely mean that if ah if you have someone who's not asking questions, someone who won't admit when they have an ID wrong, you don't want to be around that person. That's that's not the person to learn from and and look to for her help.
00:25:27
Speaker
So yeah, we have we have ah plenty of helpful people on North American Gulls who are just, you know, they yeah they they live on the keyboard, just helping folks with IDs. My trap in the last couple years has been, unfortunately, I don't have time to answer every ID question. So like, if if you look at my Facebook Messenger right now, I have just from this morning, probably a dozen inquiries.
00:25:52
Speaker
And they're not easy ones. Like I got one from Oklahoma, thinks they have a first cycle Vega golf. And then one in Wyoming, one in Wyoming, they think they have a first cycle Sladey back golf. So these are things you have to sit down and actually look at the entire photo set and wrap your head around what it is you're seeing. And so unfortunately, there's so many hours in a day where you can't get to all these inquiries. And so I have a backlog probably from last Monday of emails. I still need to answer. That's why we have North American gulls, right? We got about 15,000 people on there waiting to help. Hopefully I'd encourage your listeners. If you're not on Facebook, North American gulls, check it out. Yeah, for sure. And I think that's so it's so cool because you have a story in your in your book around a birdie and Kate May with ah another birder leading the birdwalk. And you guys had seen the gull down the beach that was written off as a great blackback. and And this is, again, prior to people really understanding what was happening with lesser blackback gulls. And I love the juxtaposition of as you start to question it first, right? And there's that cultural thing you're coming up against where the you know the person leading the birdwalk is like, no, this is what it is. Right. And they're very quick to it, but stopping and questioning it. And it sounded like you had other people around you too, that were willing to take that leap. And it was so funny. Cause as you guys talk about the bird getting closer and things, you know, things from a distance, yeah, it looked like pink legs and it was like 150 yards away. And now that it's closer, Oh, there's a tinge of yellow. Oh, okay. Right. Like that, that part about calling is also really special too, because I've heard you say this before that you can access goals so much easier than so many other birds, right? They're right there, right? Like you said, you know, they'll come get some French fries sometimes, you know, like, so So you can actually be weary of the tricks your eyes might play on you, your scope might play on you, your binoculars, right? And you can take the time if you have time to be patient and really hammer down on it. And that's, it's the cool part about the guide too, because it, like there's a whole section for folks that don't know on like light. how light changes. And I, you see it talked about all the time on the North American gold space. And even with some other birds, waterfowl and otherwise, right. You'll see that, but I've never seen anybody lay it out like that with just a ton of pictures, right? This goal guide has an insane amount of pictures, right? Which is really great, but making people comfortable with that fact that like, just cause you see it, that doesn't mean that's actually what it is. And you can be okay with that. You know, you can be okay with that and take your time around it. You know, every field trip I've ever led around goals, lighting comes up because someone will see something in the sky, white wing tips. And then two seconds later, Oh no, I was tricked. And that's what lighting will do. So yeah, I made it. I made it a point to give good examples, good images showing how things change on a dime like that. Yeah. It's not just goals either, right? The lighting, the lighting can do work wonders on you on a, do a number on you on a bunch of different bird species.
00:28:44
Speaker
What I love is like just watching you, listening to you just talk about goals. The joy just kind of seeps through your pores, my guy. And I'm really, I'm just like thinking about it. When you, when you say you advocate for goal recreation, can you share what it means to you and why looking at going in that way, like why is such a rewarding part of your burning experience? There is something strange about my approach to gulls. I look at them as underdogs in the avian world. Certain times in my life looked at myself as an underdog in school, in my community. And there's an interesting group of birders, good friends of mine who who think they are above the gulls. Like there's this strange
00:29:26
Speaker
culture, trash birds, you know? Yeah. Even then they were hanging out in landfills, but like, ah come on, man, let's be better than that. To be precise, there's birders who say, I don't do galls. And there's birders who say, I can't do galls. And those are two different things, right? We're going to church doctor. I know.
00:29:51
Speaker
We're splitting hairs now, but no, no, hear me out here. So yeah, I don't do gulls. Guys, I got a friend who lives in central Illinois. I don't do gulls. He just strikes me as they're not an intriguing group of birds. They eat trash. They're beneath him. They're beneath him. You'd rather look at dung flies or something. you know ah i don't I don't know what to say to those folks. you know if you're not If you're not intrigued by a group of birds that's taken to our presence, they have no problem surviving the way we survive on the food that we eat. They feed in our ag fields, they eat, you know they follow our trawlers in our landfills, they eat everything we eat. That to me is a thriving organism. like That is a smart evolutionary success story.
00:30:37
Speaker
Not to knock warblers or songbirds, but those birds to me are they're interesting, but they're not as interesting as gulls. You know, gulls are their master opportunists. They're going to be, they're going to be okay at the time when climate change makes it very difficult for other bird species to survive. if If you have a limited diet and a restricted habitat, you can only survive, for example, on jack pine trees and you can only eat two or three different caterpillars. You're going to have a tough time compared to something that can feed on crustaceans, mashed potatoes, crab apples. like It sounds foolish delicious. yes yeah Fish, carcass, and not only that, i mean they they nest in a variety of habitats. you know we got In Milwaukee, you have gulls nesting on rooftops. In Illinois, you have gulls nesting um and in marshes. so it's It's intriguing to me that this group of birds probably is more diversified than any other group of birds on the whole. I write about it in a book like Arctic
00:31:38
Speaker
species feeding around polar bear carcasses, interior birds feeding behind the plow in ag fields, um birds offshore, birds at landfills, birds at catfish farms. they're They're everywhere and they do a good job at surviving. But then that other group of birds, birders that says, I can't do gulls, they need our help. yeah They need you know, let's go out for a birdwalk. Let's let's start with some common species and here's how we approach go Yeah, I stand by that. There's the I don't do gulls and I can't do gulls group of birders And I don't know what to say about the first group
00:32:12
Speaker
to come. Hopefully after listening to this episode, they come around. We'll see. i We'll see. well'ie We'll see. And you know, it's such a good, a good way of putting it right. It's like one is this passive voice of just giving up on something or being above it. And the other one is just, Hey, I need some help. You know, I need a ah good way to to get there. And I've heard you mentioned before, um, you know, we talk about, um, finding someone that essentially you can trust to, to learn from, right. That may learn goals already. Like I ah met George Armistead and didn't know he was a, a goal person until I heard him start talking about stuff. And then I, and then I, Honestly, I felt more comfortable like, okay, I i can text him if I have a question, right? Like he's not going to yell at me on Facebook. And so that, that part is really underrated when we need to talk to beginner birders or beginner gullers, right? It's like, let's do it with people. And you, and you help host an event every winter, right? The golf frolic. And I know Dex is going to love that word frolic because we like to frolic ah and talk about what that is. And has that been, you know, has that produced you think some good, some good community over the years? Uh, yeah, this event has been taking place. This will be the 23rd year. Wow. And it is on Lake Michigan on the Illinois, Wisconsin state line. right all day I think I need to come frolic with you, bro. I need to come frolic. Put it on your calendar, February 16th. I appreciate it. It's a Sunday. We are chumming gulls and we have two or three local landfills and the gulls come in all day by the hundreds. And it's just a sweet treat because the gulls are so close and we are lined up on a boardwalk.
00:33:51
Speaker
where you know every 10th person is pointing out an interesting bird to people and explaining this is what we're looking at. Here's how we know it's this. This is what you want to be looking for. And we have regulars. like We have people, as soon as registration opens, every year this event fills up within a few weeks.
00:34:07
Speaker
We cap it out at 150 because of building capacity, but it is um it is a very, very highly anticipated event for people as far as Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan. We get people that travel from across the country to come to our event. It's a one-day event.
00:34:24
Speaker
the neatest thing about this is the camaraderie. You have at any given time 40-50 people standing outside screaming, second cycle Thayer's, third cycle, lesser blackback, glockus gull. It's this constant flurry of gulls and the colder it is, the more ice there is, the better we do. Gulls the community. Oh yeah. love it yes it's yeah it's It's tough birding. We rent this yacht club and the yacht club is literally 30 feet from where we're standing. And so you go inside, you warm up, you drink coffee, you have some hot cocoa, some pasta. We have food, we have an event that is centered around a guest speaker in the conference room. We have some vendor tables. It's a fun winter event. And I hope hope to see both of you there. Yeah, man. Yeah, I got it on the schedule. I heard you talk about it at, uh, I think you were doing a, you did a YouTube or a talk with, uh, another group in Wisconsin for an hour. And you talked about it there before the yeah registration opened. And I, I was, I immediately looked, I looked it up today and saw it. So I'm the speaker this year. I haven't spoken at this event for probably 10 years, 11 years, the last time I spoke, but I'm going to bring all my gall antics to the frolic this year. frolic fun I know Jason's going to put that in the show notes so i will people know where to find that event. So we're talking about your, you've traveled quite a bit when it comes to goals and, you know, studying, studying them, taking photos of them. What are your top locations you've been to one or top one or two places you've been for goal watching? This seems to change the more I think about those trips. I took a lot of trips, Japan, Peru, Iceland, England, Portugal. We have a lot of great gulling places in North America. The Niagara River is is a great place to be. The Anchorage, Alaska region is a great place to be. But outside of North America, I think Lima, Peru was my favorite. Just just outside of Lima, south of Lima, on the coast, Pacific Ocean. Belcher's gull, gray hooded gull, kelp gulls. oh yeah And Franklin's, if you go at the right time of year, like starting now, there's probably south of Lima, 100,000 Franklin's. you can um So Peru's a lot of fun, and especially if you're near other birds, and I'm sure your audience is into other birds. You do gulls and terns on the coast, and then you go inland for for crazy songbirds.
00:36:51
Speaker
Yeah, that's fun. Iceland is a lot of fun, but it's it's not everybody's cup of tea in January. I was there in December, January. That's another level. Yeah, you you only get about three hours of daylight. Wow. And that's that's it. Like you're outside at 11 a.m. and then by like 2 p.m. it's game over. Go home. Yeah. So that's that's a lot of that's a lot of traveling. It's very expensive to go to Iceland. Yeah. and And you're only averaging about three hours a day. Like Costco open up at 7 a.m. I think Costco opens up at 7 or 8 a.m. and it's it's dark. It's like pitch black. You're going into this store in the morning and it's just black out. That's crazy. That's why I was wondering if you want to see nominate Iceland goals, that's a specialty for a lot of people in the Northeast. You got to go to Iceland. You got to go to Iceland for that. It sounds that sounds lovely, actually. You know, I like the cold, too. So so going is is right up my alley. All right. We're going to wrap up here in a couple of minutes, but I wanted to ask you some fun questions here before we get off. All right. Because we like to end it with joy and be a little goofy with some of this stuff. So I have three questions I'm going to ask you. Okay. If goals were the size of humans, which one would be the scariest? Great backpack. Yeah. And I saw them homies ripping apart a shark one day. They're tanks. High level predators right there. Awesome. Awesome. All right. Uh, let's see if you, this might be the same answer. If you had to fight a bully after school, which goal would you break? Oh yeah. I got to go with great backpack.
00:38:25
Speaker
well enough you know you you but That's funny. All right. Yeah, they are. I tell people all the time because they see him on our birdwalk. Sometime we get them in the, in Philly, actually some of our waterways and people are surprised that they're like, wait, this is the largest one in the world. I'm like, yeah, you live in Philly.
00:38:41
Speaker
It's not surprising, you know, the scariest ones of the gall tribe. there they are intimidating I remember reading about them one time and somebody was like, yeah, like some other goals, you know, use these kind of general tactics to find food and steal food and like great black black goals are brute force all the time. And I was like, wow. One thing you'll notice in mixed flocks, they like to stay to the back and they're the first to take off when they feel threat and they they got to get this head start. They run first and then they lift off, but they know if they get caught in those flocks, a tight flock, there's not enough airspace for them. So they're the first to leave. usually. Oh, yeah it's like, Oh, I'm the biggest airplane at the airport. I got to get out of here before I get back up. Yeah. yeah that so notice that I've been on beaches in Maryland, Jersey there. You get too close. The great black backs are the first to take off. Awesome. Awesome. All right. Last question. All right. And then we'll get you out of here. If you, this one's a little bit more existential. If you had to pick a single gall species to study for a whole year, which species would it be? More specifically, I would pick Thayer's Gull, Thayer's of the Iceland complex. it is It's troubled birders and ornithologists for decades. And that one, probably probably number one on my list for sure. Thayer's Iceland Gull. We just had one reported yesterday here in Madison. Pretty cool. All right. Well, I expect photos, Dexter. make photos, text them to me. We can talk about the ID. We can break out the goal guide, the goal guide. Make sure y'all go get that thing, you know, yeah it's out. But yeah, I want to thank everybody for joining us today on the bird joy podcast. We hope you have enjoyed exploring the world of Gold Joy with us and Amar today. Yeah, Amar, thank you so much for taking some time with us, man. I think people are really going to enjoy this conversation. You are one of our bird nerd homies. Definitely go out and get the Gold Guide North America by Amar Ayash, found on Amazon or Princeton University Press for the homies in Philly, as usual. If you want to get some going this winter season in colorbirding.org, we'll be going out to see some stuff. Yeah, same, same here in Wisconsin. Shout out to the BIPOC Birding Club. Check out BIPOC Birding Club.org. This winter, we will definitely be going to look at some gulls here in the Madison area as well as in the Milwaukee area. And please share, subscribe, shout out the podcast to all your fellow birders and help us spread a little gull joy. All right. Thank you. Thank you. This was fascinating. This was incredible. This was beyond my expectation. So thank you so much. And happy doll season, my brother. Much appreciated, guys. Thank you.