World War Tree: The Agony and the Ecstasy of Competitive Bird-Watching

Summary

Pablo Torre Finds Out

Episode: "World War Tree: The Agony and the Ecstasy of Competitive Bird-Watching"

Date: July 8, 2025
Host: Pablo Torre
Guests/Co-reporters: Mickey Dujay, Sharon Stiteler (a.k.a. Birdchick), Charles Clarkson (“Birding Jesus”), Peter Kastner (“Inspector Kastner”)

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the intense, eccentric, and sometimes comically passionate world of competitive bird-watching, or “birding.” With the help of correspondent Mickey Dujay, Pablo Torre is inducted into the quirky culture of birders — from spiritual pursuits and competitive list-making, to the personal agony of chasing your “nemesis bird.” The episode is part field documentary, part zoomed-in portrait of human obsessions, and it’s peppered with insights from experts, legendary birders, and moments of Pablo’s own journey in Central Park hunting his assigned nemesis, the Northern Parula warbler.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Rise of the Side Quest Hobby (01:07–02:30)

• The Zeitgeist: Mickey notes an explosion of “side quest” hobbies in 2025, thanks to changing work-life dynamics: “We are living in a golden era of side quests... All of these pastimes are really booming.” (01:07)
• Bird-watching has emerged as an unlikely yet booming pursuit — one that blends outdoor adventure, mindfulness, and, increasingly, competition.

2. The Concept of the “Nemesis Bird” (02:32–06:33)

• Origin Story: Mickey recounts an encounter at a party of “serious bird watchers” who introduce him to the idea of a nemesis bird — a species that perpetually eludes you, becoming an obsession.
• Birding as Sport: Pablo draws parallels between bird-watching’s “honor code” and self-policing in sports like pickup basketball (04:26–05:05).
• The Chase: Birders develop extensive knowledge but still fail to spot their nemesis, feeling both haunted and motivated by the elusive bird.

Notable Quote:

• “A nemesis bird, it turns out, is a flying Moby Dick. It is the creature that keeps eluding you.” — Pablo Torre (04:42)

3. The Ecstasy of the Birding “Find” (08:24–12:17)

• Expert Testimony: Sharon Stiteler (“birdchick”) describes the rush of finally spotting one’s nemesis bird, likening it to a rare high, “up there with like having a 16-year-old scotch or a really amazing orgasm” (08:38).
• Personal Stories: Sharon, going through a divorce, becomes obsessed with finding the spruce grouse. Her tale involves new relationships, wild offers, and a literal fall off her bike in pursuit — ending in fist-pumping, life-affirming triumph.

Notable Quote:

• “I kind of describe my perfect day as getting the trifecta of birding, bike riding and banging.” — Sharon Stiteler, birdchick (08:45, also 09:05)
• “Seeing your nemesis bird — it’s a top five life moment.” — Sharon Stiteler (11:43)

4. Birding’s Competitive Evolution: From Opera Glasses to Apps

(12:45-19:41)

• Historical Context: In the late 1800s, bird-watching shifted from hunting to observing, thanks in part to ornithologists like Florence Bailey and Edmund Seles.
• Modern Birding, Huge Numbers: Birding today is worth $300 billion in the U.S., employing a million people (16:32).
• Gamification: Apps like eBird (Cornell Lab of Ornithology) gamify birding, with leaderboards and logged sightings, sparking both community and controversy.

Notable Quote:

• “Birding as a hobby even contributes $300 billion in revenue to the United States.” — Charles Clarkson (16:32)

5. The Dark Underbelly: The Big Listers and Their Arms Race

(19:41–34:54)

• The Big Listers: Competitive birders catalog every species they’ve seen (“life lists”). Hitting 8,000 is “insane;” 10,000 is nearly mythical. Only 10 people have ever surpassed 9,000.
• Inspector Kastner vs. Dr. Jason Mann: The episode chronicles a real-life rivalry for the title of world’s greatest birder:
  • Kastner’s Guinness World Record exploits, penchant for numbers, and cloak-and-dagger tactics to keep his sightings secret.
  • Mann’s rapid rise, questioned credibility, and accusations of “fishy” species logged from far-flung and nearly inaccessible locales.

Notable Quotes:

• “To me, 10,000 is like the ultimate... an almost unattainable goal.” — Peter Kastner (21:34)
• “All of a sudden… two people doing it and claiming it on the same day is just nuts. The birding world exploded.” — Peter Kastner (29:41)
• “Either this guy is the luckiest birder alive, having rediscovered several lost species, or his list is not to be trusted.” — Pablo Torre, reading a community post about Dr. Mann (31:18)

6. The Birding Jesus View: The Spiritual, Non-Competitive Path

(34:18–39:27)

• Birding as Spirituality: Charles Clarkson (“Birding Jesus”) finds competition antithetical to the deeper joy and mindfulness of birdwatching: “That’s kind of the antithesis of why I love birds.” (34:49)
• The narrative shifts to the journey, not the number — appreciating the moments, immersing oneself in nature and the search itself.

7. The Holy Grail: The Spiritual Find of a Lifetime

• Clarkson’s Nemesis Bird: After a decade pursuing the elusive rufous-vented ground cuckoo — revered as “the ghost of the forest” — Clarkson finally finds it, describing a tearful, transcendent moment:
  • “Based on its jizz… everything about this bird screamed rufous-vented ground cuckoo. So my heart absolutely stopped.” (37:29)
  • He’s moved to tears and calls his wife, only for her to say, “I’m so happy for you. I’m going into Home Depot. I’ll call you later.” (39:22)

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Key Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• Birding Ecstasy:
  08:38 Sharon Stiteler: “When you do finally see a bird that you’ve been looking for, it’s a dopamine rush. It is a high…up there with…a really amazing orgasm.”

• Lifelong Pursuit of Numbers:
  21:34 Peter Kastner: “To me, 10,000 is like the ultimate.” 22:33 Pablo Torre: “He’s saying that he intends to see a new bird species every other day for the span of his entire life... which seems…impossible.”

• Suspicion & Rivalry:
  29:41 Peter Kastner: “After a lifetime of nobody ever coming close to 10,000, two people doing it and claiming it on the same day is just nuts...the birding world exploded.”

• Skepticism of Mann’s Claims:
  31:18 Pablo Torre (reading from a forum): “Either this guy is the luckiest birder alive…or his list is not to be trusted.”

• High Art of Birding:
  34:49 Charles Clarkson: “Viewing them [birds] as a source of competition… that’s kind of the antithesis of why I love birds.”

• Transcendent Encounter:
  37:29 Charles Clarkson: “My heart rate went up... everything about this bird screamed rufous-vented ground cuckoo. So my heart absolutely stopped.” 38:32 Charles Clarkson: “Yes, well, yes, I did have tears in my eyes.”

• Humor and Touches of Absurdity: 33:44–34:04 (On bird watching slang):
  Mickey Dujay: “That’s jizz, Pablo.”
  Pablo Torre: “You got me? Yeah, I’m hooked.”

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Field Report: Nemesis Bird Quest in Central Park

(41:05–49:37)

• Launching the Quest: Pablo, Mickey, and Birding Jesus (Charles Clarkson) set out in Central Park, donning gear and guided by expert knowledge.
• The Assigned Nemesis: Pablo’s nemesis bird is officially designated as the Northern Parula, a small, yellow-bibbed warbler whose song is so high-pitched that some people can’t even hear it (40:35–40:47).
• Comedic Nature Doc Parody: Throughout, a narrator parodies David Attenborough-style, describing Pablo as the rare “Filipino American Podcaster” caught in the wild.
• The Climax (Not): Despite valiant searching and humorous banter, the team does not spot the nemesis bird. Instead, they hang up a “Have you seen this bird?” flyer with Pablo’s hotline (50:28) and joke about the innuendo-laden culture of birding.

Notable Quotes:

• “The name of my nemesis bird is the northern parula.” — Pablo Torre (47:07)
• “We have not seen the nemesis bird yet. But the nemesis bird also hasn’t seen us.” — Pablo Torre (48:01–48:04)
• “Even though I’ve gained a nemesis, I’ve also gained a friend.” — Pablo Torre (50:04)

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Themes and Takeaways

• Agony and Ecstasy: Birding contains both the torment of obsession and the thrill of discovery.
• Spiritual vs. Competitive: The hobby is divided between “big listers” treating it like sport and “birding believers” seeking transcendence.
• Community & Comedy: Obsession leads to humor, rivalry, camaraderie — and tons of innuendo.
• Modernization: Technology has gamified birding, for better or worse, deepening rivalries but democratizing access.
• Serendipity Over Success: The pursuit is often more meaningful than the outcome — both for birds and for life’s quests.

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Useful Timestamps Quick Guide

• 01:07 — The rise of “side quest” hobbies
• 02:32 — Defining and describing the “nemesis bird”
• 08:38 — Birdchick on the ecstasy of the chase
• 13:36 — Birding goes mainstream; historical turn
• 16:32 — Birding becomes a billion-dollar industry
• 19:41 — Gamification and eBird controversy
• 21:34 — Inspector Kastner’s 10,000 species ambition
• 29:41 — Two birders claim 10,000 in one day — controversy erupts
• 34:49 — Birding Jesus on birding as spirituality, not sport
• 37:29 — Spiritual “find” of the rufous-vented ground cuckoo
• 40:10 — Pablo’s nemesis bird revealed: the Northern Parula
• 41:05–50:04 — Field expedition in Central Park searching for the nemesis bird
• 50:04 — “Even though I’ve gained a nemesis, I’ve also gained a friend.”

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Tone and Style

The episode walks a sharp line between high-energy journalistic exploration, wry humor, and genuine profundity. The conversational banter, playful innuendo, and faux-nature-documentary narration evoke a tone that is as irreverent as it is deeply curious. The speakers embrace the obsessions and eccentricities of their subjects, creating a portrait of birding that is both hilarious and moving — perfect for listeners who appreciate insight, competition, and, yes, a little bit of joyful weirdness.

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Transcript

[Pablo Torre]

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre. And today we're gonna find out what this sound is.

[Narrator/Voiceover Guy]

Ah, the North American podcaster. A modern species of extreme abundance. One defined as much by its curiosity as by its tweets.

[Pablo Torre]

Right after this ad. So this is appearance number four for you, Mickey.

[Mickey Dujay]

Fourth time. Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

It's no exaggeration to say that you are perhaps our most honored and weirdest correspondent.

[Mickey Dujay]

I'm gonna make some business cards. That's flattering. Thank you.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, you've allegedly broken the law for us sawing down a goalpost.

[Mickey Dujay]

Had to go away after that for a little bit.

[Pablo Torre]

You revived your former life as a goth tennis player. Also, you literally shoveled for us investigating Nikola Jokic's horse racing obsession. So what have you brought us today?

[Mickey Dujay]

So, Pablo, we are living in a golden era of side quests. Whether it's learning to get fit or hiking up a mountain learning to play a new instrument. This is a real moment where maybe because work life in 2025 leaves a little bit to be desired, or it just gives us a great excuse to get off of our phones and tablets. All of these pastimes are really booming.

[Pablo Torre]

So just to preempt what I think you're about to do here. You're staging an intervention for me?

[Mickey Dujay]

Well, I'm worried about you, Pablo. I mean, we've even reached the point where subjects of yours are tweeting that maybe you need a hobby.

[Pablo Torre]

You've also, I think, astutely understood that the best way to get me to do something is to Trojan horse it in the form of an episode of this show.

[Mickey Dujay]

But I need a hobby too. So I've brought a solution, actually, for both of us. It includes plants, which you love. I do. It includes tweeting. And not the tweeting you're kind of thinking, but this kind of tweeting. Oh, God, Pablo, that song that you just heard, that siren song, is the sound of your very own new nemesis bird.

[Pablo Torre]

Okay? So to just understand the concept of the nemesis bird, which is stunningly not a thing that PTFO correspondent Mickey Dujay just made up for us, we do need to go back about six months or so, because Mickey is a very busy and Emmy nominated documentarian and artist and animator whose original illustrations you can see as this episode unfolds over on our YouTube channel. But in a rare bit of free time, earlier this year, Mickey found himself at a party. A party that can best be described as elderly.

[Mickey Dujay]

Elderly, okay. And as the subject of hobbies came up, I was Doing my usual, I don't have a hobby, and I could probably use a hobby, yada, yada. And as I was doing that, an older gentleman stepped up through the crowd, and he was carrying a bottle of wine. And he came over to me, topped off my wine glass, and cryptically asked me if I had ever had a nemesis bird. And it was like such a spooky moment because he's staring at me.

[Pablo Torre]

At which point Mickey realized that he wasn't at any old, old person party. He was being watched. He was being watched by an increasingly tipsy group of largely bald and very serious bird watchers. The kind of obsessive competitors, in fact, who would argue about records and statistics and asterisks and honor, all of which turns birdwatching into something like a sport. And so now I'm visualizing, you know, the binoculars, the bucket hat, the bird watching sort of regalia, all that gear.

[Mickey Dujay]

That glorious gear, and collectively, they all kind of flock together, as it were, and started to tell me that having a nemesis bird is actually the most epic side quest you could ever have.

[Pablo Torre]

Because a nemesis bird, it turns out, is a flying Moby Dick. It is the creature that keeps eluding you. And sure, if you only cared about statistics, you could technically just lie and say that you saw your nemesis bird whenever you wanted to. Because bird watching, not unlike pickup basketball, does rest upon a certain code of honor in self reporting fouls, as it were. But the oddest thrill of the chase itself is kind of the whole point of this hobby in the first place. You may know where this nemesis bird nests when it migrates, and yet, despite repeated quests to lay eyes on its feathers, it remains a ghost, which is a torture felt by birders of all ages all across the world, as we'll see.

[Mickey Dujay]

But sometimes you can still hear it without seeing it, which sounds like it's even more torturous than if you can't see or hear it at all.

[Pablo Torre]

So in that case, this bird is not merely ghosting you, but kind of haunting you.

[Mickey Dujay]

Yes, that's the best way to put it.

[Pablo Torre]

And just to be clear about what you're haunting me with already, that sound is the sound of, I'm not gonna.

[Mickey Dujay]

Reveal too much more about your nemesis at this point, because I really want you to come to appreciate the real agony and ecstasy and even almost spiritual religiosity of this practice of birding. I've previously spent my life considering bird watching probably to be the lamest of all hobbies.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, I feel like a lot of our viewers and listeners may be thinking that very same thing to themselves right now.

[Mickey Dujay]

Totally. And six months ago, I was right with them before. It was kind of my side quest outside of my old person party. And some of these people have traveled the globe to see thousands of birds each. Some have vanished into thin air amidst having a war with other mysterious birders. Or else they've spanned decades and continents, bushwhacking through rainforests, climbing up active volcanoes just to see their one single nemesis.

[Pablo Torre]

So I should say that I think I actually, at this point in my life, appreciate birdwatching in theory more than you used to. I have gone to Central park, for instance, and like, stared up at a tree among other people, looking at Flaco, the now deceased escaped Central Park Zoo owl. I've seen red tailed hawks in Washington Square park attack, you know, squirrels. And I have been a rubbernecker, if not a watcher. I just didn't realize that today, apparently I would get to mix the metaphors here. A personal white whale, you will come.

[Mickey Dujay]

To appreciate things like this. So this sound.

[Pablo Torre]

Which the more I hear, it feels like a crowd at a baseball game, sort of like building an applause to Rudon, a pitcher.

[Mickey Dujay]

So that sound, Pablo, is actually the mighty tail swish of the ruffed grouse.

[Pablo Torre]

Okay, I see you're doing okay. We're doing the David Attenborough thing now.

[Mickey Dujay]

And that Pablo is actually a close relative of the longtime nemesis of just one of the many birders that I met for you.

[Sharon Staetler (birdchick)]

My name is Sharon Staetler and I'm known online as birdchick.

[Mickey Dujay]

And Sharon described to me the satisfaction of finding your nemesis as being this kind of ecstatic experience.

[Sharon Staetler (birdchick)]

So when you do finally see a bird that you've been looking for, it's a dopamine rush. It is a high. I mean, I get this sensation in my chest and it is, it's up there with like having a 16 year old scotch or, you know, a really amazing orgasm. I mean, it's just actually, I kind of describe my perfect day as getting the trifecta of birding, bike riding and banging. If I can have that, that is a perfect day.

[Pablo Torre]

Shout out to Sharon. Shout out to bird chick. This, by the way, is the, this is the big beautiful build I was hoping for. Birding, bike riding and banging.

[Mickey Dujay]

It's the much better BBB for all the obvious reasons. So Sharon's search for her nemesis bird, the spruce grouse, coincided with a period of time in her life where she was also going through a divorce.

[Sharon Staetler (birdchick)]

So right before the pandemic My marriage ended, and I went a little wild. And some people were talking to me about showing me spruce grouse. And the adult son of a friend of mine was like, sharon, I'd really like to help you find it. And thinking about the other person, I just said to myself, I was like, I wonder if I just started, like, offering, like, I don't know, blowjobs for a spruce grouse, if that would be a good dating strategy. I was just thinking out loud, I'm single now. I don't know what to do.

[Pablo Torre]

You know, what I'm finding out today is that somehow the bird watching episode is also the most explicit one we may have done to date.

[Mickey Dujay]

So Sharon actually gets in so deep that she starts dating a guy who actually has the same nemesis bird as her.

[Pablo Torre]

A tale as old as time.

[Sharon Staetler (birdchick)]

It's like, okay, the world's falling apart, but we're gonna get a spruce grouse.

[Mickey Dujay]

While biking alone in Alaska.

[Sharon Staetler (birdchick)]

I see this dark blob in the road moving and swishing its tail. And I just knew. And I gassed and I stopped and I tried to untangle myself.

[Mickey Dujay]

She tries to untangle from her bike. Her bike falls over.

[Sharon Staetler (birdchick)]

I'm trying to set up my spotting scope that I had in my bike pannier, and I'm on the ground, and I just.

[Mickey Dujay]

She manages to take what she calls a craptastic video.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, my God, there's a second one coming in.

[Mickey Dujay]

Holy. Holy.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, my God. Be cool, Be cool. What's funny about that video is that the Blair Witch style narration belies the absolute focus and clarity that we get on this video, which we're showing on YouTube, by the way of the bird. You can. Very clear. I mean, Mickey. And it is. It's a big, beautiful bird.

[Mickey Dujay]

It's presenting. It's swishing its tail feathers.

[Pablo Torre]

It has, like, a red sort of, like, crown deal on top.

[Mickey Dujay]

It's really puffed up and strutting its stuff. So Sharon describes this moment almost like seeing a celebrity, like seeing George Clooney.

[Sharon Staetler (birdchick)]

Somebody might get super excited seeing George Clooney walk down the street. Like, be cool, be cool. Don't freak out. Because if you freak out, the bird's gonna freak out and the bird's gonna go away. You wanna stay here and you wanna watch it. You don't want the bird to think you're a.

[Mickey Dujay]

She describes it as a top five life moment. So just to complete the picture, here, here's a photo of Sharon right after seeing the spruce grouse.

[Pablo Torre]

So what you see as she's wearing her bike helmet and her sunglasses is her celebrating, pumping her fist into the sky, framed by evergreens, as if she just scored the game winner in the World Cup.

[Mickey Dujay]

Just look at the ecstasy, Pablo.

[Pablo Torre]

It is, dare I say, an orgasmic level of satisfaction.

[Mickey Dujay]

And given that, I mean, don't you wish that was you?

[Pablo Torre]

So one big thing that Sir David Attenborough will not tell you, as much as I love the BBC documentary Planet Earth, is that the world of birding has been shaken by a lot more than merely the tremors of the human orgasm. It has been overwhelmed by technology and electrified by a civil war for its soul. But before we continue this parade of competitors whose eccentricities will truly rival those of the birds themselves, you should know that in the United States, the bird started going from something to be shot and worn to something to be watched and counted. Not that long after the actual Civil War, around the late 1800s, a much.

[Mickey Dujay]

More humane brand of birding emerged. An ornithologist named Florence Bailey wrote a series of books and field guides aimed more towards an amateur audience. And the most famous of these books was a book called Birds through an Opera Glass.

[Pablo Torre]

And an opera glass, for the record, is like a pair of kids binoculars with a stick.

[Mickey Dujay]

Yeah. And they're, you know, things that kind of the upper class use when they go to performances.

[Pablo Torre]

So these are golden.

[Mickey Dujay]

But moving from the scope of a rifle to opera glasses brought a totally different enthusiast into the world of birding.

[Pablo Torre]

And in 1901, thanks to the work of an enthusiast and ornithologist named Edmund Seles over in England, the term bird watching was hatched.

[Mickey Dujay]

He, like other ornithologists, would also kill birds to study them. But then Dr. Selles had this epiphany. On June 23, 1899, at precisely 3:15 in the afternoon, he began to watch a pair of Eurasian nightjars. The nightjar, as Dr. Selles wrote in issue 699 of the Zoologist, harmonizes to absolute perfection with the sandy ground, dry sticks and pieces of fir tree bark amongst which it so often lays its eggs. I once belonged to this great poor army of killers. But now that I've watched birds closely, the killing of them seems to me as something monstrous and horrible. So the last century of birding has actually been really, really interesting. What started as just a really scientific study or just this hobby of rich people has increasingly become more and more of an everyman's activity.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, it is even popular, it turns out, among your balding friends at that old person party.

[Mickey Dujay]

Absolutely. And contrary to Popular belief. It's not just popular among the hairless, as I discovered when I met the man that they call birding Jesus. Is it okay if occasionally I call you Jesus as well?

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

If you would like to, yes. I have no qualms with that whatsoever.

[Pablo Torre]

This is not an exaggeration. If you are not watching on YouTube, this man looks like Jesus if he loved birds and also had a perm.

[Mickey Dujay]

So birding Jesus, AKA Charles Clarkson, is the director of avian research for the Audubon Society of Rhode island and someone who also runs, like, a very successful bird touring company. Charles told me that the barrier to entry is so low nowadays that birding as a hobby even contributes $300 billion in revenue to the United States.

[Pablo Torre]

$300 billion?

[Mickey Dujay]

Yeah. And that over a million people are employed in the American birding industry.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

Yeah. I am inordinately happy to sit and watch one of the most common species for hours, just do its thing so I can better appreciate its behavior, its evolutionary history. And so one of the biggest things for me that brings me great joy is when I go to the tropics, these incredibly speciose countries where you've got thousands of species present, to have a client of mine who's on one of my tours see these really charismatic, beautiful birds that I've seen thousands of. But to see one right in front of them and then to see the look on their face and to hear the oh, my God, that comes out of their mouth when they see this bird is just such a rewarding and amazing experience to me that, that just, you know, it's a kind of a cup overflow moment for me. My quest is to make sure that I can, prior to my death, captivate as many other people as possible with the beauty of nature and the mystery of humanity.

[Mickey Dujay]

So I spoke to a few romantics like this who commented on, like, the always on quality of birding. So when you're commuting to work, you could be birding. If you're smoking a cigarette on your lunch break back behind the restaurant, you could be birding. One of my spiritual new friends actually called it a, quote, lifetime scavenger hunt. But there are others. There's a subset of birders who get way more hardcore and competitive about it. Elaborate lists on birding apps and trying to stay atop these leaderboards of, like, who's got the most birds seen in their life?

[Pablo Torre]

So these are the volume shooters.

[Mickey Dujay]

Totally, yeah. Total volume shooters. And these people are known as big listers because all of these people will log their life lists Usually on websites or apps. The biggest app is an app out of Cornell called Ebird, which is sort of like the Wikipedia meets JSTOR for birding. It's moderated by volunteers, and also the data is kept for scientific purposes. So, you know, you log in, you log your geolocated checklist, and you can be sure that it's safeguarded, along with like half a billion other sightings that this digital community has pulled together. But you should know that Birding Jesus has a problem with Ebird.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

I think it has helped to lower that barrier. But eBird is also largely responsible for the gamification of birding. You know, this is an app that creates leaderboards where people can compare themselves and their bird lists to the lists that other people have submitted. And it does tend to kind of expose that dark underbelly of competition where people are acting in their own self interest and they have this singular mission which is to best the other competitors.

[Pablo Torre]

This is beyond David Attenborough now. This is get. I mean, this is getting a little real. According to Birding Jesus.

[Mickey Dujay]

You have no idea.

[Pablo Torre]

So bird watching, very possibly an actual sport. And as I realize now that this is also clearly a story about the humans involved, that I need to know who the. My nemesis bird is. Who is the official nemesis bird of Pablo Torre? Finds out.

[Mickey Dujay]

Well, I haven't told you because I haven't introduced you yet to the absolute goat of burning. The former senior inspector for the U.S. state Department is this guy named Peter Kasner.

[Peter Kastner (Inspector Kastner)]

Does it work better with the reading glasses or not?

[Mickey Dujay]

I would say without, just because it has some shine.

[Peter Kastner (Inspector Kastner)]

Okay, My name is Peter Kastner.

[Pablo Torre]

So the greatest birdwatcher alive is an actual spy?

[Mickey Dujay]

Not a spy, but Inspector Kastner did tell me that he's not a spy, but he's an inspector that after 36 years working in the Foreign Service, living in places that from Afghanistan to India.

[Peter Kastner (Inspector Kastner)]

I was in a fairly high stress business as a diplomat. And I found that whether I was dealing with a plane crash, or visiting an American in jail, or talking to a family of a deceased American, getting out in nature was just a wonderful way to disconnect, to refresh, to re energize my spirit and, and just enjoy.

[Pablo Torre]

So just as a matter of scouting here, what makes Inspector Kastner the goat?

[Mickey Dujay]

So Inspector Kastner is the world's preeminent big lister.

[Peter Kastner (Inspector Kastner)]

I am kind of crazy about numbers. I have always had a real connection with numbers and I don't know why. If I'm tuning a radio and the the proper volume is at number 13. I'll change it to 15 or 10 or 12 because I can't have it stop on a prime number. It just, it just, it's just not right. It's got to be an even number. It's got to be divisible by 5 by 10. I mean, 10 would be perfect. So I mean, it's just an affliction that I have. But to me, 10,000 is like the ultimate. And it's interesting because it's, it's resonated a lot in the birding community. I think a lot of people see that as not the Holy Grail, but certainly an almost unattainable goal.

[Pablo Torre]

10,000. Like we should just do the math here for a second because how old Mickey is Inspector Kasner?

[Mickey Dujay]

Inspector Kastner is 72 years old.

[Pablo Torre]

Okay, so let me just do some math here. Right, so 72, 365. All right, so we're looking at 26,298 days.

[Mickey Dujay]

Oh, and also he said that he started burning at four years old.

[Pablo Torre]

Sorry.

[Mickey Dujay]

So take that.

[Pablo Torre]

Excuse me. 365 times four, minus that. Okay, taking out 1461. Inspector Casener has spent 24,837 bird watching days on Earth, which means that 10,000, I mean, he's saying that he intends to see a new bird species every other day for the span of his entire life, which seems, needless to say, impossible.

[Mickey Dujay]

It does. But you gotta realize that this guy is in the Guinness Book of World Records. He was the first person to see an example of every single bird family in the wild. And he's also like the only recreational birder who's ever discovered an actual new species of bird. He discovered this bird called the Cundinamarca ant pitta in Colombia.

[Pablo Torre]

What is the all time scoring list? What does that ranking actually look like?

[Mickey Dujay]

So you should know that a life list that is over 8,000 species is considered like insane. There's a list with only 32 people on it that have ever gotten that number. And only 10 people all time have ever had lists over 9,000.

[Pablo Torre]

And so the all time record is what then?

[Mickey Dujay]

So it was thought before Inspector Kastner came along that the all time long list record belonged to this British Canadian guy named Philip Rostron. He's got a list that has 9763 on it. And Inspector Kastner was climbing the list through eBird, which again is the Wikipedia of bird watching. Meet JSTOR with the community of scientists who are monitoring, you know, the progress. But the inspector also used a separate website called Igo Terra, which is kind of more of like an IMDb, which.

[Pablo Torre]

Is a less academic fact checking.

[Mickey Dujay]

There's more species available. So Inspector Kastner, he made a pretty big deal out of it in the birding community.

[Peter Kastner (Inspector Kastner)]

I had it all planned out. I was going to do it. My 10,000th bird was going to be a wonderful thing called a tufted puffin.

[Mickey Dujay]

Which he would get on US soil.

[Peter Kastner (Inspector Kastner)]

And Oregon standing on US soil. I mean, this is going to be.

[Mickey Dujay]

The best after going to 195 countries and territories.

[Peter Kastner (Inspector Kastner)]

And then all of a sudden, then.

[Mickey Dujay]

Came along Dr. Jason Bourne. I mean, I mean, Dr. Jason Mann. Oh, Jason Mann.

[Peter Kastner (Inspector Kastner)]

This Jason Mann shows up and he's almost behind me.

[Pablo Torre]

Who the is Dr. Jason Mann?

[Mickey Dujay]

So Dr. Mann, as far as I can tell, is an American healthcare investor who's living abroad in Hong Kong. And he'd been logging his bird sightings on this other less popular birding website called surfbirds.com. so out of nowhere, Dr. Mann's list pops up on Igo Terra, which is like a legit site and where Inspector Kastner had been climbing gradually the leaderboard past the 9,000 mark. When Dr. Mann shows up, suddenly he's right there and he's got over 9,000 as well.

[Pablo Torre]

So what you're telling me is that this is the real life Dragon Ball Z meme in which a guy has a power meter and he's saying it's over 9,000.

[Narrator/Voiceover Guy]

It's over 9,000.

[Pablo Torre]

What?

[Mickey Dujay]

9,000.

[Pablo Torre]

That is literally what's happening now.

[Mickey Dujay]

Yeah, totally. And like the race was on.

[Peter Kastner (Inspector Kastner)]

I became aware that Jason Mann had moved his list to Igo Terra and that he was only 50 birds behind me. I said, holy moly. This guy has caught up 3, 300 birds in three months. That's a little unusual. So since I had put my plans out there, I snuck off to Taiwan and I really, absolutely snuck off. I didn't tell anybody I was going except for one guy. In fact, I, and I really, I'm not sure I should say this in public, but I kept birding in ebird as if I was in my backyard while I was in Taiwan. I have, I have a, a, a streak of like 7,000 8,000 days in a row. But I've done ebird checklists and people actually follow me and they say, oh yeah, well, I see, see your e birding in in Florida or I see your e birding in in Malaysia, whatever. So I kept ebirding in my Backyard. And I didn't put the birds in in Taiwan until I left Taiwan. And then I erased all the erroneous data and replaced it with the Taiwan data because I didn't want anybody to know I was there.

[Pablo Torre]

Try not just read between the lines of Inspector Kastner. He's alleging that something nefarious, something maybe a little dishonest may be.

[Mickey Dujay]

I mean, the race to 10,000 at this point goes full cloak and dagger with each man crisscrossing the globe in this high stakes pursuit to reach the finish line first.

[Pablo Torre]

Right now I have Maguire and Sosa. Now I have the two of them, like barnstorming around the world, competing, keeping.

[Mickey Dujay]

Up with each other in this world. It was that big. So Dr. Mann is in Columbia, where there are tons of species of birds. So Dr. Mann takes the lead. When he's there in Colombia, Inspector Kastner sees this. He decides to go from Taiwan to the Philippines.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, hello, Inspector Case.

[Mickey Dujay]

And then on February 9, 2024, I.

[Peter Kastner (Inspector Kastner)]

Just posted a photograph of myself and the back of my camera showing the, the orange tufted spider hunter with a little sign saying 10,000. And that was it.

[Pablo Torre]

So this is where birding big listing becomes actual sports. He's doing the Wilt Chamberlain thing.

[Mickey Dujay]

Totally.

[Pablo Torre]

He has his big round number and.

[Mickey Dujay]

He looks so happy in the photo too. So the inspector posts these photos everywhere. He puts them on I Goterra, he posts on Ebird, he posts on Facebook. This is top moment for him. And it seems like Inspector Kastner has won this epic race. But then it actually comes out that Dr. Mann had actually done his own post just 12 hours before. 12 hours, claiming that actually he was the first to 10,000.

[Narrator/Voiceover Guy]

My God.

[Pablo Torre]

So Dr. Mann's production values here seem to be even greater than Inspector Kastner because he has graphically edited like digital medallion he's given himself in gold where it says 10k and it has lifetime birds underneath. Is that fake? Did he put fake confetti? Like golden confetti? He's like sweaty in a jungle, but he's like superimposed confetti. And it says new world record Jason Mann and has a little illustrated bird on the side.

[Mickey Dujay]

This is his trophy for the world.

[Pablo Torre]

And the reaction is what?

[Mickey Dujay]

So Inspector Kastner says that with these things happening at the same time, after.

[Peter Kastner (Inspector Kastner)]

A, you know, a lifetime of nobody ever coming close to 10,002 people doing it and claiming it on the same day is just nuts. And the, the, the birding world exploded. It really did.

[Pablo Torre]

It's a little suspicious. Dr. Mann, is he legit? Like, what do you think? What do you know?

[Mickey Dujay]

So Dr. Mann did not respond to many texts and emails that we sent him over the last few months. And he keeps like a very low profile online. He even took down a bunch of his LinkedIn profile after we initially reached out to him.

[Pablo Torre]

So I'm now just like, I'm doing some just cursory research into Dr. Mann and there's this thread on, on birdforum.net it's, it's a comment thread and the quote, I think says what many viewers and listeners might be thinking. Quote, either this guy is the luckiest birder alive, having rediscovered several lost species, or his list is not to be trusted. End quote.

[Mickey Dujay]

Yeah. So a lot of the species that Dr. Mann had on his I Gotera list and did raise eyebrows. Inspector Kastner said that it would be headline news, for example, to see or hear a bird as rare as the New Caledonian nightjar. You'll remember from the great epiphany of 1899 in issue 699 of the Zoologist, the song of the nightjar. But this is no ordinary nightjar, Pablo. The New Caledonian nightjar has not been seen on Earth since 1939.

[Pablo Torre]

Which is all to say, I suppose, that if you had in fact found such a nightjar, you would not bury it on your list. You'd be shouting this from the rooftops.

[Mickey Dujay]

Or treetops for sure.

[Pablo Torre]

I'm looking at just the other pages available to me on birdforum.net and here's the quote from one of the pages. Jason Mann reports several dozen extremely fishy species that besides him, no one has claimed to have seen for decades. Some occur only in war regions, on islands that can only be visited by scientists, on remote mountains that can only be accessed via helicopter. These include the following near mythical species. The bare legged Swiftlet. The buff breasted saber wing.

[Mickey Dujay]

The buff breasted button quail.

[Pablo Torre]

The scaled flower piercer.

[Mickey Dujay]

The Sulawesi Woodcock.

[Pablo Torre]

The Papuan whip bird.

[Mickey Dujay]

The Taliabu bush Warbler.

[Pablo Torre]

The Kangian tit Babbler.

[Mickey Dujay]

The black throat.

[Pablo Torre]

Of course, this now is like an NC17 rated bird watching episode.

[Mickey Dujay]

Oh, and we haven't even gotten to a very important burning term.

[Pablo Torre]

What term have we somehow not gotten to yet?

[Mickey Dujay]

That's jizz, Pablo.

[Pablo Torre]

So I. I should disclose that you got me? Yeah, I'm hooked. I think that's very clear to everybody. Now I am ready to start collecting some nice big round numbers on one of these many apps available to me.

[Mickey Dujay]

So we all Know that you get your ecstasy from competition, but let's recall that before we got distracted by the dirty birdie names here, that our friend Charles birding Jesus. Right, Birding Jesus mentioned that big Listers actually represent the dark underbelly of birding and kind of like the gamification of what should be a spiritual experience. So I got Charles to talk about this race to 10,000, and Jesus got angry.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

Pablo, I can't fathom the idea of spending large sums of time and money to go to some faraway location, only to, you know, zoom around the country in a very short period of time, jumping in and out of cars just to see one bird, check it off a list, get back in the car, and drive to another location. There's nothing else. That, for me personally, is as impressive as the lords of the air flying all over our planet. And so they've always been a source of my motivation, and in many ways, they are a pretty consistent source of my happiness, Viewing them as a source of competition, you know, even on a personal level, to try to set a goal of seeing X number of species. And to me, that's. That's kind of the antithesis of why I love birds.

[Pablo Torre]

The lords of the air being the birds and not the people.

[Mickey Dujay]

So consider the nemesis bird, Pablo. It's not about finding it or not, even though it seems to be. It's really about the search, investigating, interrogating, noticing things, being out of cell phone service, to not be immersed in cyberspace, but actually be immersed in reality. And after doing that, you can witness these, like, small, majestic miracles. So, I mean, you're probably tweeting right now.

[Pablo Torre]

I have multiple tabs open for the record.

[Mickey Dujay]

But to hear Jesus tell it, for a birdwatcher to actually successfully find their personal nemesis bird, you almost have to be put yourself in, like, a sensory deprivation chamber for your soul.

[Pablo Torre]

Okay, I'm closing, closing my other tabs.

[Mickey Dujay]

So birding Jesus, longtime nemesis bird was the rufous vented ground cuckoo, which is known as the ghost of the forest for being really one of the most elusive birds on Earth. They spend their time chasing ant swarms through the jungles of Panama and Colombia. And there are all sorts of birds and other organisms that use them as a food Source. So after 30 trips down to the jungle over, you know, 10 years, as Charles was walking by himself through the jungle, he heard the call of an oscillated antbird. He refers to this call as the Holy Grail of antbird calls, because those birds only really hang around the most massive Ant swarms.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

And so, you know, my heart rate went up and the swarm seemed to be a few hundred meters off the trail. So I plunged headlong, bushwhacking into the rainforest as I typically do. As I transitioned from this very high light environment to I had to let my eyes adjust to this low light environment, I started seeing more and more birds. I would see wood creepers, I would see flycatchers, There were toucans on the ground, mots in the trees, ant birds. And they were all kind of profiting from this army ant swarm, which was absolutely massive. And it just sounded like it was pouring rain because of all of the ants kind of scouring through the leaf litter. And as I was kind of surveying the scene, I saw this blur of this bird that just disappeared over the hilltop. And based on its jizz, which is a birding term that refers to general impression of shape and size, everything about this bird screamed, Rufus Bennett, ground cuckoo. So my heart absolutely stopped.

[Mickey Dujay]

And yes, in case you were wondering, Jesus wept.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

Yes, well, yes, I. I did have tears in my eyes.

[Mickey Dujay]

I.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

It wasn't a nemesis bird of mine, because it was a bird. I wanted to check off a list. I was just absolutely captivated, enamored, fascinated by this group of birds that have evolved this incredibly unique lifestyle. This one individual would then choose to spend an hour and a half in close proximity to a human was just, I felt, a very special experience. So after a while, I called my wife and I whispered to her as I was kind of sobbing, you know, I found my bird. I'm staring at a Rufus Bennett, grand cuckoo right now. It's just a few hundred feet away from me. To which she responded, that is so wonderful. I'm so happy for you. I'm going into Home Depot. I'll call you later.

[Mickey Dujay]

So the question now, Pablo, is are you a believer?

[Pablo Torre]

I could not be. Yeah. More subscribed to the religiosity that you've brought me here.

[Mickey Dujay]

All right, so I asked Birding Jesus himself to help us choose the official Pablo Torre finds out nemesis bird. And he had looked at some charts and lists on your behalf. He considered a couple of wood warblers for you, like the ovenbird. Charles also liked a bird called the American redstart. Has big orange spots, but we thought maybe that was a little too trumpy for Morning Joe, Pablo. But then Burning Jesus settled on your nemesis, which is the northern parula.

[Pablo Torre]

The northern parula.

[Mickey Dujay]

Beautiful bird, Pretty small bird, A beautiful yellow belly. That's technically called its bib, Pablo.

[Pablo Torre]

It's Bib. All right, noted.

[Mickey Dujay]

They tend to live in the Caribbean, but they fly up to eastern North America to nest at this time of year, which is migration season.

[Pablo Torre]

Its song. Can we play that one more time?

[Mickey Dujay]

So Charles told me that the song of the Northern Parula is actually so high pitched that people that start to lose their hearing, they lose the ability to detect your nemesis bird's song, which.

[Pablo Torre]

Feels like a bit of a metaphor that I am unable to currently translate fully.

[Mickey Dujay]

It's a young man's bird, Pablo.

[Pablo Torre]

Right.

[Mickey Dujay]

A thinking manse bird.

[Pablo Torre]

And so what do I do? What do we do?

[Mickey Dujay]

So Charles told me that of all places, the birding Mecca is really Central Park.

[Pablo Torre]

We're going to go to Central park now? You want to take me to Central Park?

[Mickey Dujay]

We're going. I mean, let me just ask you this. What other kind of reporting could deliver a transcendent orgasmic moment of joy? And Pablo, Jesus has risen. Please meet Birding Jesus.

[Pablo Torre]

Hello.

[Mickey Dujay]

There he is.

[Peter Kastner (Inspector Kastner)]

How are you?

[Pablo Torre]

What the is happening? Foreign. So if you're not watching on our YouTube channel right now, what is happening is that we are being called to gather our gear by Birding Jesus.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

My wife is Catholic. She hates that you guys are calling me this.

[Pablo Torre]

There's nothing more Catholic than heresy. And so we followed him out of our studio and toward the elevator. Here at Meadowlark Media, it has occurred to me that Meadowlark is named after a bird.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

Yeah, I mean, it is one of the most imperiled birds in all of North America.

[Mickey Dujay]

Really?

[Pablo Torre]

Yep.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

75% of the entire population's disappeared since 1956.

[Mickey Dujay]

Oh, that's how it is.

[Pablo Torre]

And what's the.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

It's a grassland.

[Pablo Torre]

And it turned out that I had a lot of questions for our guide, whose government name, once again is Charles Clarkson, about New York City's whole birding ecosystem. What's your sense of like a red tailed hawk eating a rat? As we began descending into the subway, I couldn't help but feel this burning desire, a deep, almost primordial urge to turn this episode into. Into a nature documentary. And yes, to hire David Attenborough.

[Narrator/Voiceover Guy]

The North American podcaster. A modern species of extreme abundance, one defined as much by its curiosity alone, by its tweets. An exotic subspecies, however, known as the Filipino American Podcaster, or FAP for short, has become increasingly difficult to find outside of the studio and out in the wild. But all of that changes as we land on Planet Pablo this afternoon. The podcaster has camouflaged himself, swapping out the trademark blue cardigan of the Species for the cheap blue vest of the common birder. Our rare sighting begins during spring migration outside the American Museum of Natural History.

[Pablo Torre]

You see that? So we have the pigeons with a hawk on top of an eagle behind it. So.

[Narrator/Voiceover Guy]

Before the podcaster ventures into Central park, also known as the Madison Square Garden of bird watching, a veritable mecca, even if one of its most colorful residents is a Baltimore Oriole.

[Pablo Torre]

I guess it makes sense for a show that is definitely a sports show to see the mascot of an actual sports team.

[Narrator/Voiceover Guy]

The obsessive Filipino American podcaster travels in a flock, most often with an extraordinarily endangered breed. The freelance reporter.

[Mickey Dujay]

When you said that the parallel might be watching us, I thought about predator. Oh, yeah, you know, hiding in the.

[Pablo Torre]

Air, slathered in mud. Yeah, that's what we gotta do. We are doing that technically.

[Narrator/Voiceover Guy]

And on this day, they are guided by a true wonder of nature, indeed, a mythological creature who simply goes by the name of Birding Jesus.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

So American robins are singing. Yeah, we've got some vocal activity. American robins are.

[Pablo Torre]

I just point to my ear and suddenly Birding Jesus is like, that's an American robin.

[Narrator/Voiceover Guy]

The podcaster is jubilant.

[Pablo Torre]

This is a great friend to have.

[Mickey Dujay]

Definitely.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

Yeah. Everybody needs a birding friend, I think.

[Narrator/Voiceover Guy]

Suddenly the freelance reporter sniffs out a lead.

[Mickey Dujay]

You were saying that kind of. The migration period is wider.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

Most of the time, males arrive Ontario territory prior to females so that they can compete with one another for access to a territory.

[Narrator/Voiceover Guy]

But the obsessive fap, having become perhaps unaccustomed to the great outdoors, provide the.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

Pending females with all the resources they.

[Narrator/Voiceover Guy]

Need to build a nest, seems on this day to have become particularly distracted.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

And then assess the quality of the male based on the territory he was able to procure.

[Pablo Torre]

Exactly. So Pending Females is also a good band name, by the way.

[Narrator/Voiceover Guy]

The podcaster, hungrier than ever for content and thirsty as they come, seeks his prey.

[Pablo Torre]

The name of my nemesis bird is the northern parallel.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

The northern paralla. That's correct.

[Pablo Torre]

Northern paralla.

[Narrator/Voiceover Guy]

So driven is he by the algorithm.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

Last year there was one documented right here in the rambles. So we are still within the realm of possibilities of finding a northern parallel.

[Narrator/Voiceover Guy]

But the podcaster will stop at nothing.

[Pablo Torre]

We will find them wherever they may.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

Be hiding, even the caveat here is they, you know, they weigh as little.

[Narrator/Voiceover Guy]

As 5 grams and especially at the incontrovertibility, and pick out the movements of.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

Birds that are moving around in a canopy that's being pelted with rain of the elements.

[Mickey Dujay]

Nobody said this quest was going to be easy.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

That's right. And it shouldn't be. This is a nemesis bird.

[Narrator/Voiceover Guy]

Nothing can stop the podcaster.

[Pablo Torre]

But here's the thing about a nemesis.

[Narrator/Voiceover Guy]

Bird and his very own brand.

[Pablo Torre]

We have not seen the nemesis bird yet.

[Narrator/Voiceover Guy]

Of climax.

[Pablo Torre]

But the nemesis bird also hasn't seen us.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

Canada goose.

[Pablo Torre]

Canada goose.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

Yeah, Canada goose.

[Pablo Torre]

Canada goose.

[Mickey Dujay]

Wait, the jacket or the bird?

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

There's a northern cardinal making a chip note behind us over here. You're hearing far more than you're seeing. So boning up on the vocalizations of birds is an absolute essential aspect of data collection or bird watching in general.

[Pablo Torre]

I've been stunned by the amount of boning that goes on in the bird watching community in general.

[Peter Kastner (Inspector Kastner)]

I'm sure.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

Yeah, it's a randy sport.

[Pablo Torre]

It is. It is a romantic pastime.

[Mickey Dujay]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And. And even, like the rain, the wet, the.

[Narrator/Voiceover Guy]

The wetness, the podcaster is distracted.

[Pablo Torre]

The clouds sort of shrouding, hiding, but also revealing.

[Mickey Dujay]

It's very beautiful.

[Narrator/Voiceover Guy]

Which is precisely the point.

[Pablo Torre]

As if it's pulling up a stocking on the. The skyscrapers of New York.

[Narrator/Voiceover Guy]

Of bird watching.

[Pablo Torre]

Getting to get it. Yeah, kind of beginning to get it.

[Narrator/Voiceover Guy]

Instead of podcasting.

[Pablo Torre]

I've greatly enjoyed this. Even though we have come up very empty and very wet. The northern parallel has evaded us. But I don't want to give up yet.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

Good. And you shouldn't.

[Narrator/Voiceover Guy]

It has been, as the Filipino American podcaster himself might say, an exclusive skeleton key for a time machine into the Kremlinology of what you might call the last American monoculture, with nothing less at stake than the very nature of nature itself.

[Pablo Torre]

What I found out is that even though I've gained a nemesis, I've also gained a friend.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

Absolutely.

[Pablo Torre]

Thank you for pruning Jesus.

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

You're very welcome. I'm so happy that I could facilitate this very wet day in the park.

[Mickey Dujay]

Before we go, though, I have a very New York City of us continuing our quest. I've put together a series of flags.

[Pablo Torre]

Have you seen this bird? With a black and white photo of the northern parallel?

[Mickey Dujay]

So I think we should hang it up.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, and you have the tearaway tabs at the bottom. 51385 Pablo that is actually our hotline.

[Mickey Dujay]

Put that up like that.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 51385 Pablo the Northern Kingbird need not apply. We're coming for you. Emphasis on coming.

[Mickey Dujay]

Don't say that.

[Pablo Torre]

Is that too much? Is that a little much?

[Charles Clarkson (Birding Jesus)]

No comments. It's your show.

[Narrator/Voiceover Guy]

At first. Pearl Jam Sorry, is this have I. Have I got the wrong program slightly confused?

[Pablo Torre]

And that, for the record, was not the real David Attenborough. It was actually some guy named Guy and you can find guy over on cameo.com voiceoverguyuk but this has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a metal Arc Media production named after one of the most imperiled birds in all of North America. And we will hopefully talk to you next time.

[Mickey Dujay]

It.