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The Study of Birders with Jordan Rowley
842 Plays1 month ago
Dexter and Jason sit down with Jordan Rowley on this week's episode. Jordan is a PhD student at Utah State University, where he focuses on the social science surrounding birders and birdwatchers. It’s like birding… but of people! The research is fascinating as it breaks down some of the demographics of birders and where they fall on different social scales. We research and discuss why things would break down that way. Dexter and Jason get a crash course on multi-species justice. We also discuss adventures and misadventures surrounding McGillivray's Warblers and Mountain Bluebirds. We get into the fantastic YouTube channel Bright Eyed Birding and discuss how it helps create a welcoming and inclusive community. Jordan puts us onto what he sees as the opportunity for a better birding community in his area and has us dreaming about Pink Robins and Montezuma Quail!
Join us this week as we have a convo with Jordan and spread some of that Bird Joy!!
Be sure to follow our podcast on Instagram at @thebirdjoypod and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
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Transcript
Introduction to Bird Joy Podcast
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. They want to find a little bird joy. Yes, yes, yes. And are you ready for some more bird joy?
Meet Jordan Rowley, PhD Student and Birder
00:00:13
Speaker
Keeping up with the trend of season two, we have another guest for you all today to give you another dose of that bird joy. Are y'all ready? Let's go. Yeah, I'd like to bring to the table the homie Jordan Rowley. Jordan is a PhD student at Utah State University. And so welcome, Jordan. How you doing, man? I'm doing good. I'm good. Thanks for having me. Yeah, man. Thanks, sir. Did you say Utah State and then your name is Jordan? And you know, I'm sitting here in Wisconsin. Wait a minute. We have a certain quarterback that, you know what I mean? It's pretty dope by the name of Jordan Love that came to us via Utah State. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's a little cheese head in me, man. Jordan, Utah State. Yeah, only I would come up with that. But yes, welcome to the show, Jordan. Thank you. Thank you.
00:01:07
Speaker
Awesome.
Birding as a Family Adventure
00:01:08
Speaker
so So Jordan focuses his research on social science surrounding birders and birdwatchers when he's not researching, you can find him out in the field exploring Utah's the first landscapes and filming bird adventures for his YouTube channel, Bright Eyed Birding. As a husband, dad and avid birder, Jordan is passionate about sharing his love for nature with his family and his online community. And I can say I have been the recipient of one of these bird adventures. Uh, when I was out there for black birders week in 2024, we went and found the McGillivray's warbler and got some bonus, some bonus Hammond's flycatcher action. There was a beautiful morning out there exploring, and it was really kind of ah a good example of what it means to have a welcoming and inclusive birding community kind of anywhere you go in the country. So Jordan, thank you for that man. And and again, we're so happy to have you here, bro. Yeah. Yeah, no problem. It was really fun going out birding with you. Leela, my partner, doesn't get to go birding very often. We have a three-year-old, so that makes things a little bit hard. That's one of our favorite birding memories to this day. Just saying that we'll find the MacGilvery's Warbler and then actually delivering on that was incredible.
00:02:12
Speaker
Yeah. It doesn't always happen that way, right? The pressure was on. I was like, well, let me see what this, let me see what this dude's all about. You say, yeah, when you find the war, but let's see, let's see what's what, what's good. You know? So let's go. Yeah. It was awesome. Delivered the homie, homie delivered. I think we had more than one too. We only saw one, but we had a few singing on that, on that trip and it was absolutely beautiful.
Birding from Passion to Research
00:02:32
Speaker
Yeah, man. So like, how did you, you know, was, was birding always part of your life? Because, you know, looking at some of your research in social science, like, you know, when did you, when did you get into that? No, it wasn't always part of my life, at least birding how I do it now. I, as a kid, I was fascinated with nature and I had a grandmother who fed
00:02:53
Speaker
hummingbirds, right? So she had a hummingbird feeder. She would, to to this day, she wouldn't call herself a birder, but she definitely inspired a love of birds in me. So I started collecting field guides as a kid and I would just flip through them. And I never actually went out and found those birds. It was always like a dream to be able to go see. I think mountain bluebird was definitely that bird that I wanted to find. And yeah. Yeah. I need that bird. I need that bird in my life.
00:03:21
Speaker
It doesn't disappoint. Yeah, you know, there's this void, and you know, you know, I always wake up with this empty feeling, you know, like, what is my life? Well, you know, what am I doing with my life? Because I've never seen a mountain bluebird. And you there's just a little bit of blue in me, you know, a little bit of sadness.
00:03:38
Speaker
Every day when I wake up knowing that I have not seen that bird, maybe Jordan someday I'll have to come out to your neck of the woods and and you can get me on a mountain bluebird. Oh yeah, absolutely. They're incredible birds for those at home. I mean, definitely Google it if you don't if you haven't seen one before. but Just that pure blue top to bottom is it just, it just caught my eye immediately. I was like, wow, I can't believe something like that can look so colorful in nature. I actually ended up finding that bird long before I became a birder. That was probably the spark experience that I had. But it was it was just recently, the last couple of years that I started using, I discovered eBird and then I was hooked, you know, after that. and and then i And then once meeting the birding community, it was like, okay, I study human behavior. Nobody is studying birders. yeah
00:04:29
Speaker
ah there's ah There's definitely studies out there, but it's not a mainstream topic. So I was like, I got to bring this into the research field. That is fascinating. I love people watching as it is, but to study birders, I mean, like you you kind of live in a life right now. yeah yeah you did to get Meet new birders, study birders, study behavior.
Aligning Career with Passion
00:04:50
Speaker
You know, I would say it's like ah when you find something that doesn't feel like work, you're not working a job, right? Like that's a career. So I always tell my students, make your passion, make sense early in life.
00:05:01
Speaker
ah Because when you're when you're doing what you love and you're passionate about it, it's like you don't feel that grind. The grind doesn't feel like the grind so much. you just You're just like, this is what I'm supposed to do. So to hear that you get to study birders and birds is like absolutely fascinating. How do you ever change jobs?
00:05:21
Speaker
yeah Yeah, no, it's it's so true. And it it took a little bit of convincing, right? Because for a lot of people, birding is very niche. It's a very niche hobby. But what what we don't realize is there are, I believe, according to a 2023 study, there are 96 million birders in the US alone.
The Need for Birding Research
00:05:38
Speaker
And that's counting you know people that sit outside in their backyards and watch birds. If we're going to talk about people that travel to go find birds, that's around that's above 40 million. that's that's a that's an entire That's bigger than some states in the US. It definitely needs needs needs to be looked at and studied. And it's exciting to see that more research is going in that direction. I had to go look some stuff up because I don't know what sociology is. I didn't really
00:06:00
Speaker
go down that path in my education. So when I was reading it, you know, defined as the scientific study of human social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior. And so I'm thinking about it in Dexter mentioned people watching, right? It seems a lot like birding, but for people, right? If I read it, right? If I just changed the word, the scientific study of bird life, bird change, and And you know, and so like, as you're, as you're doing this, right? Like I imagine, like you said, not a lot of people are studying birders as a indicating group of, of social change, or right? do Do you find any.
00:06:39
Speaker
similarities between the way birds organize themselves and adapt to changes and humans. And like, I just, I'm so fascinated by the, by the connection of those two things. Can you talk a
Parallels in Social Behavior: Humans and Birds
00:06:49
Speaker
little bit about that? Yeah. I mean, as human beings, we are, we are very, very socialized. A lot of our behavior, if not all of our behavior is, is learned.
00:06:58
Speaker
we learn it from somewhere and, you know, bad behavior or good behavior is is passed down through our societal structures. And, you know, there's on the on the bird side of things, I'm not as versed, but you see birds that learn from from each other. Right. Bird behavior is very, very structured as well. And birds are a lot of people. I feel like they don't give birds as much credit for being intelligent creatures, but they are so they're so smart. I was in in Utah.
00:07:27
Speaker
Because we're out west, there's a big duck hunting season. I'm sure it's the same out you know in the Midwest, yeah probably across the U.S. You see those ducks occupying those non-huntable ponds. like They know where to go for sanctuary and people don't give them the credit that they deserve. you know As human beings, we are we are very we are not too far off from our non-human-like friends out there in the animal kingdom. and We learn our behavior in a much ah much of the same way as birds learn their behavior through structures and through learned learning it from somebody else. It's pretty fascinating. You also you kind of focus on the social aspect or social impact of birds and birders. Can you explain to our audience a little bit about more about that as non sociologists?
00:08:14
Speaker
Yeah, so I got to shout out my team real quick just because so much work went into this project. I have Dr. Kirsten Vignetta here at the ah Utah State University, Dr. Jules Bacon at Grinnell College, and then another fellow student, Graham Ward at Grinnell College. And we focused on multi-species justice. And I want to break that down a little bit.
00:08:36
Speaker
I have my notes here.
Exploring Multi-Species Justice
00:08:38
Speaker
Essentially, multi-species justice is kind of a newer framework. It's emerged in the last five years. It kind of rejects this idea that we as humans are exceptional. We are not the only things that matter on our planet. Our policies, our behaviors affect everything. And we are part of nature, not apart from nature, right? Uh-oh. You're speaking Jason's language right now. I feel like we're about to go to church. Go ahead, brother. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like this. I like this.
00:09:05
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So it's a pretty cool concept and multi-species justice really integrates justice for humans and more than human species. We know that birding, for example, has usually been focused on the welfare of birds, but it often ignores um the welfare the welfare of marginalized communities in the process. And so we're trying to look at it through this lens of it's all interconnected. If a part of the chain breaks, then the whole chain breaks. The system is broken.
00:09:33
Speaker
One of the main things we focus on for this project is a pretty broad umbrella. We sent out a big survey right to organizations across the US, 152 organizations, and we got back 572 responses.
00:09:47
Speaker
And it is pretty broad. So I can get into a little bit of that maybe later. One of the things we focus on was the renaming initiative and birders attitudes towards that. And that really ties into that multi-species justice. You know, you see this thing that doesn't really impact birds. They don't really care what they're called. They don't know, but it definitely impact. It's a human justice issue and that's all interconnected at the end of the day. I love that Christian was on the show and talked about that because he's been recently given some keynotes on that on that topic. So I love this. This is so I can't help but think about it. We did a birding trip out to ah Central Park in May and we went to the Rockaways
Balancing Conservation and Community Needs
00:10:25
Speaker
in New York, which is a historically black community. and But it's also a key nesting habitat on the beach for the piping plover. And, you know, we were we were hanging out with the folks from the the and NYC Plover Project.
00:10:37
Speaker
They were talking about how that very thing exists, where they're trying to preserve the beach for these plovers. But if I'm a black community member there, my beach is the only beach getting shut down. Right now, I can't go to the beach with my family because of these little birds. And so I don't know that a lot of communities have even heard the term multi-species justice. and And I feel like we'd be in a better space space if we took that approach right off the bat and said, hey, we need to do this for everybody, rather than just, hey, we need to save the save the Plover because there are a lot of communities that are that are impact impacted by that more than others. We can get into your data a little bit because I kind of want to know like what kind of data are you collecting and what do you what do you plan on doing with it? Yeah so uh we did it's kind of a mixed methods project right so as social scientists we do a lot of qualitative research which is interviews, observations, people watching uh like Dexter was saying we do
00:11:32
Speaker
So we did a key informant interviews. We tried to get, now these aren't just like, oh, general population. We went out and we found people, a representative group of people to to speak on the the bird name change issue. Members from the LGBTQ community, BIPOC birders. And just to get that perspective from everybody, one group that we could not get to talk to us were people that opposed the name changes.
00:11:55
Speaker
This isn't an anonymous. It's so mad. Yeah. What did Christian say? We got to let go of the anger, right? yeah yeah we got We got to let go of the anger and hopefully maybe as they start to see like the process and and he mentioned that they're going to take it slow. So one name at a time, maybe maybe maybe they start to slowly let go of that anger and maybe they'll start to open up to maybe move into like, hey, ro we'll talk to you about this now.
00:12:23
Speaker
Yeah. And you know, it's interesting too, because this is all anonymous, right? Um, ethical science requires, uh, you to be anonymous. That makes it even more fascinating. Like they don't, they really just don't want to, they're mad still. Yeah. That's a mad, like I'm mad. I'm mad still. Yeah. And I, you know, I, in contacting some people, I got a lot of varied responses and sometimes it was just as plain and simple as like, I just don't want to talk to you.
00:12:47
Speaker
So that was, that was one limitation of the project. I really wish we would have gotten, you know, because you want things to be representative of everybody. The survey did go out to a whole bunch of people and some of the data we got back, at least on the renaming of the birds was 48% of people agreed with name changes. And that's actually significant because 29% were neutral and only 22% disagreed.
00:13:12
Speaker
right So you have this case of a very i think loud minority out there pushing back against these bird name changes when really the the wide majority of of birders agree with that movement. I have a little bit more data too and some of this stuff might not come as a shock but I think it's really important to sometimes as humans we we just assume people think a certain way but it's really good when we can get that data down on paper and show that voters think a certain way. Respondents that were more likely to support the initiative. Several of these groups included non-binary birders, low income birders and birders with no religious affiliation were more likely to, those were statistically significant. And then respondents less likely to support the initiative were straight birders, non Democrat party birders, especially Republicans and the older birders as well, the older generation. Those were some of the highlights of the bird name changes from a more quantitative statistical point of view. Sure. It's not it's not surprising. It's kind of breaking the way a lot of things break. And and you know, it is it is always interesting, right? Because I met other folks in Salt Lake City as well, in particular some folks that were advocating for ah the conservation of the of the lake and kind of what's what's happening. there and And you see the same thing break in the same way, right? That those younger, more diverse groups are pushing for some of these changes to ways that we do things, right? And so it's not surprising to see it here. It is, it is surprising though, that there's so many folks that are kind of ambivalent to it and kind of can, you know, maybe make a choice one way or the other. And and that's that's why I think it's important the way we, the way we frame this for people, right? And that's, I go back to that multi-species justice concept that you brought up at the beginning, right? It's like, I wonder if those 29% are more persuadable if they feel like they are part of a bigger system or if they would be threatened when we say you're not exceptional and you're part of a bigger system, right? Like it's kind of a hard concept, I think for humans to get through that that we are part of a larger thing rather than the apex of the thing. and absolutely Yeah. So many people.
00:15:13
Speaker
They walk around like the world revolves around them. You know, I always tell people when I had kids, that's when I figured it out. That's when they like snapped. I was like, Oh, guess what, dude? This world is nothing about you, right? Like you are one part of this greater thing that that's beyond you personally. So So I like this framework. I think there's legs to it. So hopefully you continue to to build on and ah and continue the research. And I know many of our listeners fall into those groups that you mentioned and we're constantly on this show trying to advocate for those folks and differently abled people and people of all walks of life. because I feel like so many of us, when you add us all up together, this is a big group. you know What was that number you mentioned earlier, Jordan? How many how many birders in ah in the world or in the country? 90 plus million. That's crazy, right? yeah So I was just like, all right. Big block.
00:16:09
Speaker
We try and advocate for all of them, right? And especially especially the ones in that
Diversity and Representation in Birding
00:16:14
Speaker
group that maybe weren't even counted in that, that enormous number, which is kind of crazy, right? To think that like there's so many of us that are out there, like we are out here. But when you start to just see all these different groups and all these different clubs and organizations and people doing this work,
00:16:30
Speaker
I get inspired because I know that the birding community is growing. Then we can have these conversations already only a couple episodes into this season. We're having conversations that I feel like can help start spark whatever that might be to start getting the the needle moved in certain areas. and And especially for some of these groups that typically go ignored when we're talking about birding and just even bird habitats. and like we've we've had Jason and I were on ah a podcast, we were talking about the you know green space and the limited green space that that there is in some of these low income neighborhoods, which that changes the birds that you see. there is There's so much research that can be done even in that relationship.
00:17:16
Speaker
right like where you live and what birds do you see and the impact of that. Dude, like I'm really excited to kind of see where you go with this and and and how this this ah data develops and changes or not or grow whatever happens over time. I'm really, really fascinated to see where this goes.
00:17:33
Speaker
you You mentioned one of my favorite studies of all time that ah redlining and ah tree canopy bird diversity study, that's a multi-species justice issue, right? You know, historically redlining neighborhoods to create segregation in this country, investing in trees and planting trees in, you know, white neighborhoods really reduces diversity and of birds in BIPOC neighborhoods, right? And I think, you know, you mentioned 29%. What can we do about the 29% of people that are on the fence Science is very hard science, ah numbers and stuff. kind of It's kind of disconnecting sometimes because as humans, we're not. And what I love about social science and qualitative research is you can talk to people and you can get their stories. I have a quote here from, this is from ah one of our
00:18:22
Speaker
participants. And this was a white straight birder. And they said, I don't care if it's called a Cooper's hawk, because it didn't impact my history or my ancestry. But it if it did to you, and it's a big deal for you, and it's not a big deal to me, I should bend to that. I should accept that I'm not stuck with old names. And if it's offensive, get rid of it. And so I think, you know, I think if if more people had that perspective, like, why Why are we hanging on to some of this stuff that doesn't impact us? you know it It doesn't impact... These names don't have any negative or positive impact to white people across the board. And this birder is really expressing this. They're saying, if it doesn't matter, but it it's it's it's impacting somebody else, we should bend to that. It matters to them. And it should, because it matters to them, it should matter to us too.
00:19:07
Speaker
i species and so yeah so i think it's just so important that science takes the emotion out of things sometimes social science a lot of in a lot of ways puts that emotion back in and makes this stuff human and makes these stories human and makes us realize you know what this is this is important yeah man i Wow, <unk> ah this is going to be really exciting. We have a we have another homie, um Deja Perkins, who does research on citizen science data, especially that data coming from urban communities, marginalized communities. And so I'm definitely going to have to connect you two because I hear a lot of what she has talked to me about or Dexter about when we were hanging out before and in some of the research you're doing. So maybe that's a good connection we can make there. But let's ah let's ah flip over to to to the YouTube channel, which is kind of
00:19:53
Speaker
Like, that's kind of like where I first like when we met and then I, you know, was able to see your YouTube channel. I was like, Oh, my homie is out here, out here, like going on burning adventures all the time. And you even made one from our adventure with the McGillivares war boy, right? Which was, which was
Spreading Joy through Bright Eyed Birding
00:20:08
Speaker
super awesome.
00:20:08
Speaker
And so the YouTube channel is called bright eyed birding and you just take people on these adventures. So like, number one, why did you decide to start that? And did you, did you land on that format right up front or did you, did you kind of have to come to that? Yeah, that's a, that's a good, uh, question. Um, honestly, the point of the YouTube channels is not too much different than, uh, y'all's podcast over here, bringing that bird joy to other people. I would go out birding and I'd see, in my opinion, I would see the most fascinating stuff. You know, I was seeing, I would see Ruby crown kinglets and red wing blackbirds and just like this incredible array of things that I never, I didn't look at that stuff before. And you know, I see, and I'd be looking at an osprey in a tree, like 10 feet above me. And then these people would just be walking underneath me oblivious. I was like, how are you not seeing this? You know, it was kind of like, happens yeah I felt like I was in a dream. And so I'd come home and I'd tell people, I'd say, you know, I saw this bird today and I'd show them a picture and they'd be like, oh, that's cool. And it was kind of like you had one of those, you had to be there moments. And so I said, you know what, what if I started filming birds, filming these adventures and putting them on YouTube? So not only my family could watch them, my daughter could watch it as she grew up, but also so other people around the world could discover this, this thing that I found so incredible. incredible. And it was just all about bringing that bird joy into whoever, whoever could stumble across it on YouTube. Yeah. So it's, it's just about bringing that joy to other people. Have you, like, do you have one or two of those experiences that if I told folks to go look at your YouTube channel today, we were like, Hey, if you want to see Jordan freak out like a five year old child when he sees a bird, like which ones should they go find?
00:21:53
Speaker
Yeah, ah in the what we we call ourselves bird tubers, right? um In the in the YouTube community. And I have a kind of this rap of being the and the highly enthusiastic one when I find birds.
00:22:10
Speaker
And so honestly, any of those episodes, but one that comes to mind specifically is it's very early on. I went searching for California condors and I went to um Navajo bridge, which is an amazing place to probably, in my opinion, the best place in the world to see condors up close and got to film those condors and share a little bit about their comeback story. Right. And.
00:22:35
Speaker
And I would definitely check out ah the video with Jason in it, where we find that McGilvery's Warbler. ah ah That was a lot of fun. Yeah, we did do some dancing in that video, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, we were. Life or Dance. Yeah, kind of. Yeah, yeah pretty much. I forget would approve. We got back on last week.
00:22:55
Speaker
That's awesome. So cool. Just fun stuff. It's just so fun. And, you know, I get a lot of joy about bringing, uh, non-birders birding or people that just, you know, they're curious about it. They're like, why do you spend 10 plus hours a week doing this thing? And they, most of the time they get it, they get it when, when they see that bald eagle flying over or they see that red, green, black bird perched up nicely singing for them. They, they.
00:23:17
Speaker
They get it. I love it. I mean, I basically literally do the same thing on my Instagram, you know, where yeah it's just like going out in these first person documentary style ah birding adventures and trying to bring as many people along as possible. Like I always say, thanks for joining me. or i And I love it because it really talks about another conversation that we're pretty passionate about. What we're thinking about this multi-species framework is accessibility, where it's just like, there are also a lot of people.
00:23:49
Speaker
that would love to go out birding with the whisko burger would love to go birding with Jordan, but they just can't or they don't live near you or they'll never be able to get to this specific habitat. They just don't, it's not going to happen for them. So I think sometimes we don't realize how we're helping the burning community and and leading the burning community by making burning more accessible, making people say, dang, like,
00:24:13
Speaker
Look how excited these guys are about birds. Like maybe I should just like pay attention because there's a freaking osprey 10 feet ahead above me. Like I'd probably walk up to that person and shake them. You know, like what is wrong with you? It's a freaking osprey. How dare you? Yeah. I just think that's that's awesome and I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about how you see these burning videos and and these adventures that we all go on. like we're We're all sharing these types of adventures with people, help with accessibility in the burning community. I think I love watching your, you know, your, you and Jason's exploration videos on on Instagram. There's, there's so much joy in that. And for someone with a little bit of social anxiety, myself, it's, it's, it is hard sometimes to just get up and say, I'm going to go on this birdwalk with people I've never met before. That's to me, for some people, that's not scary to me. That's scary. I, I am very,
00:25:09
Speaker
anxious around you know new people. i just It's just always been a part of life for me. And being able to kind of go along on these journeys with you guys for 10, 20 seconds, it kind of makes you feel like you have community. yeah comment on People comment on those videos that may not walk up to you and talk to you in person because that's easier for them. and And for me too, there's so many people in my comments that say, I love going birding with you. And while I'm out there in the field,
00:25:36
Speaker
i make sure i remember that i act like i'm talking to them so they can feel like they're there and hopefully my my hope is is that as they watch those videos they come closer to being able to actually go on some of those in person bird walks this start to feel a little bit more comfortable around birding. They start to feel a little bit more comfortable um with the community. And I think, you know, just being able to bring as many people together, like thousands of people watch those videos on Instagram. Thousands of people watch these videos on YouTube. That's impactful. That's super impactful. He brought in community, Jay. I know. I know. I know. I told you. I told you. I told you Jordan was the guy. I don't know even know why anybody even doubts me. like i yeah this This is great. Doing that and and being able to reach out to the community is is you know it's this it's this beautiful through line to your research as well. right its because like Those are the things that are going to make the difference. with
00:26:30
Speaker
Helping people get back to that space of understanding where they fit in the system as you are kind of you know you you live in utah and like what is it what is it like to bird out there you mentioned some social anxiety of rolling up to new people that you never met right you came to my bird walk in salt lake city i am going hiking with some with some folks that i met there some mutual contacts and and got my ass kicked hiking up some mountain somewhere. If you've never been to Salt Lake City, Utah, it's like a valley. But if you want to go hiking, you're going straight up. like Every trail is like this ridiculous climb to the top of something. Let me say this. On the East Coast, we believe in switchbacks. right We believe in taking our time getting up a mountain. Not on the West Coast. The West Coast is just like, oh, we're just going to make this trail go straight up the side of this mountain. No rest, no nothing.
00:27:16
Speaker
and So that was the moment where I was like, I got to get my life together and get in shape. What is it like in the birding community out there in Salt Lake City or in Utah? Have you found that it's it's a little harder to break into? Have you found that your YouTube page helps you do that? Like, what is it? What is it like? What's the vibe? Yeah, there's a really good question causing me to reflect a lot on where I'm at. The the birding community I think is in Utah is very similar to a lot of bird communities across the states. and You have these Facebook groups and that do meetups and they're pretty active. But Utah, Utah is in a line, right? It's in eight hours north to south. you There's one road that goes through the whole thing. <unk> It's, you know, if there's an event going on up north, yeah, if there's an event going out about north, you can't. you can't come up from from the south south end and be there without taking a day trip and staying and over in a hotel and i think that's what's kind of hard there's not there's not events across the state there's events in concentrated areas and i think they do a really good job with those bird walks and you know making them very fan family oriented you know bring your kids
00:28:18
Speaker
who cares if they make a ton of noise, we might see some birds and that might be impactful for the kids, you know, stuff like that. So I think from that side of things, it's really, really good. I just do, I do think that it's not as widespread as i I would like it to be. Most of my social bird outings have to do with the YouTube channel, people reaching out and visiting from other states, going to, you know, some of these events with meeting with Jason and asking if he was going birding tomorrow, seeing if we could come along.
00:28:44
Speaker
stuff like that. So that's typically where I get a lot of my social interaction. Also from the study, I i get to interview a lot of people and I meet people that way who are birders and they're like, you could come birding with me sometime. And that's how I've actually gotten a ton of life birds, you know, um yeah from the research side of things as well. So I do think that, you know, I look at some of your communities and look at your BIPOC birding clubs and I see how united you guys are. And I, I envy that a little bit. I think I kinda, I wish we had a little bit more of that here as well. Well, listen, I mean, when you're done with your PhD, I know that's a lot of work, uh, you know, and let us know, right? If you need a little help starting your little, you know, little nonprofit birding club or something like that, you know who to reach out to, man. Cause it's, you know, we tell people all the time, like you can, you can be that change in your own community. And we appreciate you, you recognizing that cause it does take a little bit of work. And I, and I asked the question because you know, Philadelphia County is so dense, right? So I just, I got people everywhere, right? And so once we got off the ground, you know, Philadelphia also has a pretty, you know, the, the birders are closer together. So it's easier to find more birders and interact. to share information where I agree Utah is just massive. There's more land than people where it's different affiliate. I wanted to know what that was like right because everyone I met there, we did a walk at the ah ah Nature Center at Pia O'Qua, I think I'm saying that, downtown Salt Lake City where you know how we hosted a birdwalk for Black Birders Week and that's where I met Jordan. and There were so many new birders there. There's people that I was surprised, I was like, Man, y'all live in this place with these kinds of Orioles and all these damn hummingbirds you guys get, like this embarrassment of riches and y'all never been burdened. yeah you know And so I look at that and I say, man, there's a lot of communities like that where the the action potential go back into the molecular biology bag. The action potential is massive. Like you have so much space to create something. And I imagine there's a lot of communities like that out there.
00:30:42
Speaker
And so hopefully, you know, folks are listening to this and understanding that, like, you know, you can do it. You don't have to be doing a PhD to do it necessarily. Right. But there's there's a lot of people out there that they go watch Jordan's videos and they're like, man, and all they can think about now is when am I going to put myself in a position to go see a Condor myself, including because I've never seen you add me to that list. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe, maybe, maybe this is how we start the group chat. This is, yeah, this is how we start got to go check on to go on the trip. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Done, done and done. There's this issue and it's probably in other States as well, but according to a 20, I'm a research guy. So I'm going to say according to such and such a study, a lot of times, but 2016, there's a study in ah a demographic study of birders and they found that 94.8% of the birders in 2016 were white.
00:31:32
Speaker
There's structural forces in place this is not just something that's happened it's outdoor recreation across the board can people feel safe can non white people feel safe in these outdoor spaces you know i've done a lot of projects for class and trying to get different perspectives for class projects and studies and.
00:31:49
Speaker
One of those, I was trying to find non-white birders in my home county of Cache County to interview. And I went down that top 100 list for the year, find an active birder. The only non-white birder in the whole county was my partner, Leela, on that list. can't interview Can't interview her because she knows. She knows. Wouldn't be a great study.
00:32:10
Speaker
but I just think that when you did your event, Jason, I was so happy because so many people came out to that event, people that I don't normally see, you know, at your local Audubon Society events. And I think that's so important. And can we make birding? That's why that's why I love about your your BIPOC birding clubs. It makes everybody feel welcome. Anybody is welcome there if they have a desire to go birding. there's just this issue of feeling safe in the state of Utah and bringing people from all walks of life together that I think, uh, needs to be addressed moving forward. Yeah. Yeah. And there's space to do it, man. What do you like? So, you know, let's, let's, I want to get to the nitty gritty now. All right. Like okay what bird is at the top of the lists? All right. All right. And so I'm going to ask him two parts, right? Which one is at the top of the list? which one is at the top of the list to see in general, like lifer, and which one is at the top of the list to get content for, for YouTube. And it's okay if they're the same. Cause I remember when we went out and we saw the, we we saw, you know, you said you had heard McGillic raised before, but you'd never seen them that well.
00:33:18
Speaker
And I was like, Oh, this dude is really looking for top quality content to get to his viewers, right? He's not, you know, like, I know you were like, the Hammonds fly catcher was back, back lit. And you were like, uh, you know, it'll do, but it's not, it's not the best. Right. So like, yeah what are those two birds or are they the same bird? That's a really good question. I have so many lists of birds, you know, US birds, international birds. The bird that I want to see the most during my lifetime is the the pink robin. The little Australian, honestly Tasmania is where it's, where it occupies mostly. It comes onto the mainland a little bit, but it's this little tiny gray bird with a beautiful bright pink breast. Oh my God. I just googled it. I just googled it people. I put it in the show. It should be on a key chain. It looks like it should be a shape in a bowl of Lucky Charms. like That's what it looks like. It's AI-generated. It almost looks AI-generated. It doesn't look real. and It's the bird I send to people. I have a lot of people in my life that get confused by AI-generated birds and they send them to me and they say, this is my new favorite bird. when i say I say, that's great, but it doesn't exist. Right. It's not real. Yeah. So then I send them this bird and I say, well, what about this? And they're, they're just shocked that you can find pink like that in nature. So that's probably the number one bird I want to see during my lifetime, as far as getting content for and by content, don't want to make that sound to a currency. Like, you know what I mean? It's more about sharing that bird with people so they can, so they can see it. That's, that's why I'm so passionate about getting stuff on camera. Great gray owl hands down. I hopefully will see one. I think I'm going to Oregon. this spring, there's an opportunity there. And we will see if that happens. But yeah, great, great. I was probably top of my list that and Montezuma quell. That's the other one. um Oh, yeah. That's a good one. I would love to film. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Great. I need to get the Zach Zimbog. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah man. ah First of all, Dexter, there's no excuse for you. All right. Because I literally when I went there, when I went there, I drove past you to get up there and see you on. So like you get it together, brother.
00:35:26
Speaker
Maybe I'll just kind of scoop you next time after I bang that right in Chicago. I'ma go, I'ma go. There's a lot of people out there. Yeah, we'll go up there and see Dudley. Yeah, see? Dudley. So like the ah the Montezuma Quail, is that one that you've seen and you just need to get content for? Like, like have you ever heard it? Never seen it, never heard it. It would be a life for me. Oh, wow. A first time. I just think they look they look incredible. They look so cool. That little patterning on their faces is so interesting. so It's also a hard bird to see, you know, it's it's a skulky bird. Quails in general are hard to see. You usually hear them, but that that would just be such an awesome experience, I think. Looks like they got a mullet, too. Yeah, that's actually kind of cool. It looks like they're like in Mexico and deep south southwest USA. That's crazy. Yes. So, Jordan, you you had mentioned, you know, and in regards to the work,
00:36:17
Speaker
and survey stuff that you were doing that you, you know, in your area, you're going through and you don't see any people from like underrepresented groups.
Amplifying Marginalized Voices in Birding
00:36:25
Speaker
But then you show up at Jason's event and there's people everywhere. When you think about the YouTube channel, it like opens us up to people all over the place and you got subscribers and fans all over the world. Are you able to ever just like apply any of your study to how you interact? with other birders and people on the channel or when you're on walks. I'm really curious about that. For me, it's just about talking about research isn't accessible. I'm just going to say academic research is not accessible to the general public. It's hard to get into. A lot of times it's behind a paywall. It often makes me wonder why the heck we're even doing it in the first place.
00:37:02
Speaker
ah if people can't look at it. And so what I really like doing is things like this podcast, right? Is getting on there and just talking about things that I've learned, trying to amplify, you know, maybe marginalized voices who are often ignored on the channel. I spent the week before Jason came on the channel and went looking for the MacGilliver's Warbler Week. I talked a little bit on Blackbirders Week, just trying to bring it in into the community. on On YouTube, it's overwhelmingly, white as well. There are no creators as far. And if if I'm wrong on this, please send them my way. But as far as I can see, there's not there's not a lot of women creators. First of all, we need more women on YouTube. And and and there's not a lot of BIPOC YouTubers in the burning space. And and I'm not saying, you know, that's where people should. That's the responsibility right there to get the information. But on on the channel, try to amplify those voices. I talk a lot about Christian Cooper's book, tried to talk to talk about stuff. There's people that get mad. There's people that get mad and I'll take that all day as long as you can make more people feel welcome. I get comments all the time. I was going to read a few of them here, but totally forgot to write them down. But after Jason, after you came on the podcast, there were people in the comments section saying, thank you. Thank you for. Thank you for being here. I know Leela was very appreciative. She talked to you about, you know, not seeing representation in birding and that is, that is so important. And so about amplifying those voices, if there's any people who aspire or want to be a birding YouTuber, but they don't know where to start, shoot me a message on Instagram and I will be there with you every step of the way. We just need those voices out there. If you can see it, you can be it. That's it. That's right. Like I just love it. I love it. I love it. I felt like that, you know, before and in my own community where I be like at these places and I'm the only person of color going to a van after event, never seeing anybody that looks like me leading an event, you know, fly in milk. and You'd say a fly in milk. I never heard that one. That must be a Midwest thing.
00:39:01
Speaker
Oh man. That's crazy. Mom always told me to, you're either a part of the, of the problem or you're going to be a part of the solution. You know, so love it when, when all that stuff was happening with Christian and all the social justice movements happening all over the country during that time with Brianna Taylor, I'm all Aubrey George Floyd. Like it was all kind of meshing together at that point, you know, where it was just like enough is enough. We started our club. Our mission is to get more people of color outside, but we are a birding club for every single person. That's one thing that I'm always clear with people about, that yes, my mission is to get more people of color outside. But if you support that, just come on. You're my people. If you support that mission, you are welcome as well. And and and that's what people typically see is
00:39:49
Speaker
I feel like when i get to you know I go to our events, I feel like our events represent the country. you know like People see people of all walks of life and colors and shades and ages, and that's how it should be. you know that when When we're thinking about this multi-species lens on the world, um that that that's what I think that our clubs provide, and kind of walking the walk in that when when it comes to that. you know jordan Thank you brother for coming to hang out with us. Like super awesome. Just so interesting to hear about your research. If people want to want to get in touch with you and we either talk about the research or check out the YouTube or the Instagram, like where, where can they find you? Cause I imagine there's going to be some homies out there that are like, Oh, I need to send an email real quick to this dude. um You can find me, usually Instagram, I think is the, you know,
Connect with Jordan Rowley
00:40:37
Speaker
the easiest. So at bright eyed birding, it's also bright eyed birding at gmail dot.com. So bright eyed birding on everything. Thank you so much for having me guys. This was awesome. Yeah, man. That's the, that's the YouTube channel to bright eyed birding. Yep. Awesome. Yeah, exactly. So you guys can get some bright eyes and go find the homie. Um, definitely check out a lot. Like literally some, sometimes I'm like, when I'm, when I get through all the algorithm that my son put on my YouTube channel, weird video game play, eventually it'll get down to Jordan's videos and cup of coffee in 10, 15 minutes. And you, I promise you will feel so much better. Like just watching the journey.
00:41:12
Speaker
um He really covers it from like, what do I want to do? What do I want to see? Am I going to see it? Teases some things you got to wait and see. And it really, I think captures what it's like, that joy line that we've talked about in previous episodes of the pursuit and seeing something new and getting that payoff and appreciating it and finding your joy. So thank you again, Jordan, for being with us, man. This was so awesome. And so, uh, you know, we'll definitely talk to you again at some point in the future.
00:41:36
Speaker
Yeah. Thank you guys so much. I really appreciate it. And thank you everybody out there for joining us today on the bird joy podcast. We hope you enjoyed exploring the world of birding with us in Jordan. Make sure y'all go check out his YouTube channel, and subscribe, go get some of that bird joy that Jordan has to offer. And as we wrap up here, as usual, shout out to the homies in color birding and Philly. We got some events coming up for the fall and the winter. So check us out at in color birding.org. Yes, sir. Shout out to the BIPOC flock and make sure you please, please, please share, subscribe and shout out the podcast to all your fellow birders and help us spread a little bird joy. This is fine, brother. Yeah, this is awesome. Thanks again, homie. Thanks for joining us, Jordan. Thank you.