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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and for our last few minutes today and for the week, welcome to spring here on May 3rd, when the weather keeps switching back and forth between winter and summer. Sometimes in the same day, flowers are blooming, pollen is floating, and oh, birds are flying, migrating to be exact, it's peak migration season as you birders out there know. Let's talk birds for the last few minutes today. At WNYC, we're blessed to have some birders among us. Kate Hinds will be hosting all of it shortly for one and my guest for this Jason Saul, WNYC's assistant program director, and a former managing producer for BirdNote. Hey, Jason, welcome to the show.

Jason Saul: Good morning, Brian. Thrilled to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Is this the best time of year for birders?

Jason Saul: Yes, it's really fantastic. In the New York area is when a lot of our migrants, our neotropical migrants, which means from South America and Central America, are starting to arrive in our area. We're getting bird alerts from the bird Twitter accounts just about every day and they're really just starting to show up and starting to sing.

Brian Lehrer: You mean they don't fly to Texas and then Governor Abbott deports them to New York?

Jason Saul: [Laughs] There's a lot of fun conversation about migrants and the movement of people as well as the movement of animals. A lot of the people who are arriving in New York are probably familiar with some of the birds that are arriving here right now.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to get some birding tips for this time of year from Jason here but listeners, do you have a question about the birds or birding? What was your spark bird, as I think they call it in that world? If you are already a birding enthusiast, have you had a big sighting already this spring? Favorite birding spot? Call and share it, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 or you can text. Jason, do you have a favorite bird?

Jason Saul: I do, and some of our listeners are probably going to disagree vehemently with me but I love blue jays. I just adore them. They're a corvid, which is one of the family of birds that includes crows and ravens, and they're just brilliant and beautiful and everywhere and super annoying. I like to think of them as one of the most human birds. They form lifelong partnerships with one another, they have family groups, and they talk to one another.

Brian Lehrer: Is that the New York state bird? The blue jay?

Jason Saul: It is the eastern bluebird, actually.

Brian Lehrer: Bluebird, not blue Jay. There's a good naïve question that I will ask. What's the difference between a bluebird and a blue jay?

Jason Saul: They're very different families of birds. Blue jays are corvids, they stay here all year long, they don't migrate, whereas bluebirds mostly eat bugs. When the weather turns colder and the bugs disappear, these birds need to fly south in order to eat.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, do you have a favorite bird or a favorite migrating bird to watch for when it is the season like it is now? 212-433-WNYC. Does anybody besides our assistant program director Jason Saul actually have a favorite bird? 212-433-WNYC, call or text? 212-433-9692. How's it going this spring? Any fun sightings?

Jason Saul: Oh, they are starting to show up in force right now. Somebody has seen a prothonotary Warbler in Central Park. Somebody saw a I think it was a Vermilion Flycatcher, is this beautiful red bird. They're starting to show up. I saw for the first time a migrant in my backyard just last week, an eastern Phoebe. This bird probably came from Florida or maybe even farther south than that and it was just in my backyard in Brooklyn so welcome to spring. Good morning.

Brian Lehrer: Yay. One of my colleagues told me that you love pigeons. Did I get that right?

Jason Saul: [Chuckles] Yes. Do you want to hear a story about pigeons?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Jason Saul: I adore pigeons. Pigeons are a companion animal to human beings. Some people may not know that while we have native doves here, that typical pigeon that you might see on the street, the New York City pigeon is not native to here people brought them here. Pigeons are originally native to cliffsides in Asia, and people have been taking them all around the world for meat, for companionship, for racing and they brought them to New York and a lot of them got loose.

What we have in New York are plenty of little bits of crags that are high up just like pigeons. We bring them here, we throw food down, we let them go and they're everywhere but I think they're beautiful. They're so sweet and when the light hits them, they're just brilliantly colored these greens and purples. They're just a wonderful thing to see, and you can see them everywhere.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, now you have a new way to observe the pigeons of New York City, and you don't have to call them rats with wings. Don in Lambertville, you're on WNYC. Hi, Don.

Don: Hey, Brian. Thanks for taking the call. My favorite bird is the goldfinch, the American goldfinch. I don't know much about them other that they visit my backyard every year, and they come around March, and you can spot them immediately because of their beautiful yellow color. They will stay all summer long and in late September, early October, I will fill the bird feeder daily because they will just gorge themselves, and then all of a sudden they're gone until next March.

Brian Lehrer: Don, thank you. The goldfinch, all these callers with favorite birds. Laura in Maplewood, you're on WNYC. Hi, Laura.

Laura: Hey, Brian. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good. What's your favorite bird?

Laura: My favorite bird is the northern mockingbird. The reason is, is because it sings all the songs of the birds that are around. It's a pretty aggressive and territorial bird, and it likes to perch on top of trees and act like the lifeguard of the park.

Brian Lehrer: Do you like its song in particular?

Laura: Well, it has several songs because it mimics all the other birds, so it sings every song.

Brian Lehrer: That's why it's the mockingbird. Laura, thank you. Helen in Brooklyn has a favorite bird too. Hi, Helen.

Helen: Hi, Brian. I love the red-winged blackbird, but I don't see them in my back garden. I have to go out to Jamaica Bay or other marshes because it loves to-- The males are the red-winged blackbirds. The females are brown just to be camouflaged. They sing on the stalks of tall grasses. They scope out their territory, they come up north first to claim their territories to attract the females when they come up later.

Brian Lehrer: The red-winged blackbird

Helen: They're just very handsome birds.

Brian Lehrer: Helen, thank you very much. I think Linda in [unintelligible 00:07:37] has a favorite recent bird sighting. Linda, you're on WNYC. Hi.

Linda: Hi. Can you hear me okay?

Brian Lehrer: I can.

Linda: Hi, Brian. Love your show. I was on a hike recently near Ramapo, New Jersey, coming up a hill and I heard this thumping, this very intense wood thumping sound. I thought it was a human being chopping wood. I came over the crest of the hill and we saw the most magnificent pileated woodpecker, which is the bird that the Woody Woodpecker cartoon was named after. It just was the most beautiful, amazing creature. It saw us and didn't like having any company and flew by us and just the sound of it, it was like a condor with the wings and the wind. It was just the most magnificent moment.

Brian Lehrer: Did it go, ha ha ha ha ha, like Woody Woodpecker?

Linda: [Laughs] No, but it was just such a magical moment.

Brian Lehrer: Linda, thank you very much. Well, what a nice sampling, Jason of people's favorite birds and that particular favorite bird sighting. Besides what they look like, like the yellow goldfinch, we heard about some of the sounds. The Mockingbird really does make multiple kinds of sounds, mocking other birds, and the woodpecker really does peck wood and sounds like somebody chopping wood like the caller said.

Jason Saul: Yes, absolutely. It is a whole difficult, complicated, fascinating, beautiful thing to try to distinguish birds by their calls or songs, which are a little bit different. Songs are usually the more melodic vocalizations that they do when they're breeding, whereas calls are all the other sounds that birds make. Since it is so complicated, there's this wonderful app that I want to recommend that people get called the Merlin Bird app, created by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. This thing is magical. You can put in just a couple of different things that you see about the bird, like where you are, and a couple of different colors or you can hold the thing up and hit record and it will listen to the birds and tell you what birds are singing around you.

Brian Lehrer: In our last 30 seconds beside the app, do you have a favorite birding spot to recommend or anything else for people who want to get started with birding for the first time?

Jason Saul: I think we are so lucky here in New York to have Central Park because we are right in the eastern flyway. There are very few other large green spaces in this immediate area for birds to go. At this time of year, if you go to Central Park and you hang out around the water, or in the bramble or the North Woods, you're likely to see all different kinds of creatures passing through.

Brian Lehrer: We thank our own, Jason Saul WNYC's assistant program director, who is also a former managing producer for BirdNote. Happy birding this weekend, Jason.

Jason Saul: Thank you so much. I'm going out early tomorrow morning.

Brian Lehrer: Well, happy Saturday, May the 4th be with you, and stay tuned for All Of It.

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