Tom Pincelli, a.k.a. "Father Bird"

BirdNote^®

Tom Pincelli, The Birding Priest

Interviewed by Ellen Blackstone

This is BirdNote!
[Ambient sounds calls of Plain Chachalacas and Great Kiskadees]
Today we travel to the Lower Rio Grande Valley in Southern Texas, to talk to Father Tom Pincelli, a Catholic priest known to many as “Father Bird.” He’s an avid birder and conservationist.
Do birds and conservation fit together? Oh, most certainly! [Great Kiskadee in background] There’s a number of things the listeners can do if they care about birds. Obviously, do everything you possibly can to keep as much habitat viable as possible. That’s of critical importance. But in your own back yard. Make sure that windows are covered in such a way that we don’t have too many bird-strikes. Also offer food and water and cover. If you’ve got a cat, try to keep it indoors.
Thanks, Father Tom! We can make a difference, right in our own back yards. And what birds do Father Tom find most interesting in his yard?
One of them is the Green Jay. [Call of the Green Jay] An absolutely stunning bird, a combination of blue and black and green and yellow. A typical jay… raucous. … But a bird that will knock your socks off. I mean the colors are just iridescent! [Call of the Green Jay] 
You can see a Green Jay [Call of the Green Jay] at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival. It’s one of the premier birding festivals in the US, and it starts today. Come to our website, BirdNote.org, for a list of bird festivals all over the country. I’m Mary McCann.
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Call of the Green Jay provided by The Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York.  Recorded by G.A. Keller
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson
© 2011 Tune In to Nature.org   November 2011   Narrator: Mary McCann

ID# pincellit-02-2009-11-12-MM