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The Private Lives of Public Birds
Highlighting the familiar birds we see and hear in our neighborhoods
© David Barton
Jack Gedney’s book, The Private Lives of Public Birds, is dedicated to the familiar birds we see and hear in our neighborhoods. Illustrated by Anna Kus Park, the book shares charming vignettes about the birds’ behavior that are scientifically accurate but that also have an emotional weight to help us connect deeper to these birds.
Listen to this episode in Spanish here.
BirdNote®
The Private Lives of Public Birds
Written by Camilo Garzón
ENGLISH VERSION
This is BirdNote.
[California Towhee song]
Jack Gedney’s book, The Private Lives of Public Birds, is dedicated to the familiar birds we see and hear in our neighborhoods. Illustrated by Anna Kus Park, the book shares charming vignettes about the birds’ behavior that are scientifically accurate but that also have an emotional weight to help us connect deeper to these birds.
Jack Gedney: A lot of times, the stories that I share in the book, whether it's from Native culture or poems or simply the old folk names of birds, they often embed a lot of valid scientific information about the ecology of a species, the sounds of species in a way that's more memorable.
One of those public birds? The California Towhee.
[California Towhee song]
They’re common birds with a special trait that sets them apart from other songbirds.
Jack Gedney: They'll essentially mate for life unless something happens to one of the partners. And you can see this every time you see them. If you walk out in a neighborhood or a city park, you’ll almost always see them foraging in pairs together, and they have distinctive call notes that they make to stay into contact with their partner.
[California Towhee call notes]
Jack Gedney: And most endearingly is they have duets. They perform these duets all year round.
[California Towhees duetting]
What are they saying, you might ask?
Jack Gedney: It's them saying, I'm glad you're here. We are a pair together.
For BirdNote, with this love story, I’m Camilo Garzón.
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Senior Producer: John Kessler
Producer: Mark Bramhill
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Conor Gearin
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. California Towhee ML118849 and ML50142 recorded by Geoffrey A. Keller, and California Towhee ML217448011 recorded by Tito Gonzalez.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2023 BirdNote September 2023
Narrator: Camilo Garzón
ID# gedneyj-01-2023-09-05 gedneyj-01
