J. Drew Lanham’s Taxonomy of Bird Obsessions

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J. Drew Lanham’s Taxonomy of Bird Obsessions
Written by J. Drew Lanham

This is BirdNote. I’m J. Drew Lanham, an ornithologist, naturalist and writer.

I’m often asked:  “What’s your favorite bird?” My standard response is “The one with feathers!” Birds deserve more than the disappearing by billions and reducing them to just names on a list. But here’s the recent taxonomy of my obsessions. Selected birds of the moment annotated by why.

    [White-crowned Sparrow song]

White-crowned Sparrow.

Envying the brown, ignored thing — all sparrows and BIPOC are top of the list.

    [Loggerhead Shrike song]

Loggerhead Shrike.

Stuck on a raptorial passerine, this bad boy is a songbird that hunts.

    [Bobolink song]

Bobolink — AKA Ricebird.

Black birds are my birds. History lesson. Ricebird ancestors shared the terror and toil in Lowcountry rice fields with enslaved Black people. They were persecuted for eating the rice that made the planter class filthy rich so they could enslave even more Black people and grow more rice. See the cycle?

    [Bobolink song]

There you have it. Three fave birds, and why. This list is subject to change and right soon. Stay tuned. I’m J. Drew Lanham.

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Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. White-crowned Sparrow ML207181 recorded by Bob McGuire. Loggerhead Shrike ML276755401 recorded by Andrew Spencer. Bobolink ML219708 recorded by Bob McGuire. 
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© 2024 BirdNote July 2024
Narrator: J. Drew Lanham

ID# LanhamJD-01-2024-07-17    LanhamJD-01