It is just the last minute and a half of a talk by Jack Laws at Richardson Bay Audubon Center & Sanctuary in September 12, 2012.
You can watch the original here.
Transcript:
“The last thought is 'Why birds?'
"I
am continuously amazed and awed by birds. If you are interested in
observing animals and you want to look at mammals, they all hide from
you. So what do the biologists do—the naturalists leading the field
trips? They're like, “Oh my gosh, there's some scat!” Right? And
they get all excited about looking at animal scat because the mammals
are all hiding. Nobody looks at bird scat—because the bird is
actually out there in front of you doing their bird thing!
"People
say, 'I can't draw that because they fly away.' Yes, that's the
point. Because they can fly away, they can hang around, right?
It's because they can fly that makes them such great subjects. They
can take off any time they want. And they kind of go like, 'You going
to catch me? I don't think so, you land-locked primate!' So they will
be out there in front of you courting and feeding and preening and
cleaning themselves and doing all these sorts of things.
"You want to
see mammals? You can go to the zoo. You can look at a nature special.
You can look at scat on the ground. But it's nothing compared to the
opportunities to see the real wildness that birds give us every day.”
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