July 26, 2023 • 18 mins
Maria chats with author Jennifer Ackerman about her latest book What An Owl Knows: The New Science of the World's Most Enigmatic Birds. Did you know that owls first appeared on Earth 56--65 MILLION years ago?? And an owl's ears are like a dog's nose?
Learn so much more about owls in this episode and in the book!
Learn so much more about owls in this episode and in the book!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
It's Maria's MutS and Stuff. Whata great idea on iHeart Radio. Welcome
to Maria's Mutts and Stuff. Andwith me is New York Times best selling
author Jennifer Ackerman, and we're goingto talk about her latest book, What
an Owl Knows. So, Jennifer, thanks for chatting with me today.
(00:24):
I appreciate your time. Oh it'sgreat to be here. Thank you,
thanks so much. So. Now, you've been writing about science and nature
for over thirty years. What madeyou decide to write about owls? Yes,
well, I love birds, allbirds, but owls they're just so
intriguing and so unusual in many ways. You know, we've been obsessed with
(00:48):
them as a species. I thinkfor tens of thousands of years. Some
of the oldest cave paintings show anowl. But and they're they're just they're
they're such skilled hunters, you know, they're called wolves of the sky.
They have these amazing sensory superpowers thatallow them to pinpoint their prey and in
darkness, like extraordinary hearing, invision and dim light. And they have
(01:11):
these wings and feathers that are sobeautifully adapted that their flight is just you
know, virtually silent um. SoI just wanted to dive in and just
find out what we know about owls. And it turns out that we know
quite a bit. You know,We've been studying them for a long time
now and and some new some newtechnology has helped us really unearthed and solve
(01:36):
some mysteries that have been around forcenturies. So it was a good time
to write the book. Sure,and like what okay, like a solved
mystery, what is one that's themost prevalent in your brain, that's something
that we've all been like unsure aboutor not sure about, like an unsolved
mystery about an owl. Well,one of the points that have really been
(01:57):
illuminated is in their communication. Youknow. We we sort of used to
think, while a hoot is ahoot, is a hoot, you know,
But it turns out, it turnsout that owls have a really tremendous
and elaborate vocal repertoire, and it'sactually their conversations are teeming with meaning.
This is something we just didn't know. You know. They have greeting hoots
(02:20):
and territorial hoots and emphatic hoots,and they titter and squawk and squeal and
all these different calls they communicate reallyhighly specific information about an owl's size,
it secks, its weight, andits individual identity, even its state of
mind. Wow. You mean solike if an owl is unhappy or it's
(02:40):
stressed about something, it will hootin a different way for that emotion.
It will, right, It'll reflectit. It's reflected in its in its
circalizations. And also each owl hasa very highly distinctive voice, so they
can actually recognize one another by voicealone, and those calls, those hoots
are sufficiently distinct from one another forhumans also to fingerprint individuals. So that
(03:07):
has been a real breakthrough. We'vebeen able to now monitor populations much more
accurately. We can tell one individualfrom another. We've gotten a window yeah,
social lives. Yeah, yeah,so I'm sorry, I mean yeah,
I mean to interrupt you. Sothat then that's provided a window into
their social lives. Then like ifthey're yeah, well we've also yes,
(03:30):
exactly, we've We've we've got anew window on their social lives and configure
out who's mating with whom and whetherpairs are actually staying together. Wow.
Wow, So I mean almost ifan owl is cheating on an owl.
You we could probably know that nowby the way they're communicating, and now
humans can understand that. Well,that's just it. We thought that that
(03:53):
many species were of owls were monogamous, you know, pears made it for
life. But it turns out nowthat we can actually identify by who's meeting
with whom and when and where.It turns out, to the great surprise
of scientists, that there's actually alot of mate switching going on among whow
yeah, yeah, you know,yeah, this isn't supposed to happen.
(04:15):
You know, it's like a soapopera in the the owl world, and
the owl world must be like freakingout now, like, oh my goodness,
they're they're onto us the humans know, right, wow. And but
that's not the same with other birds. Is that correct? That it's more
of traits of an owl, meaninglike other birds, that they don't have
(04:36):
the same communications that you can recognizethat owls have. Oh yes, no,
though other birds also have signature callsand parents in particular, they can
recognize individuals around them by their calls, so it's not necessarily unique to owls.
But you know, we really thoughtthat that this, We thought that
(04:59):
the communication of owls's very simple atterms, it's very complex, right and
and and full of meaning that wejust didn't know was there. Wow,
that's fascinating. It's fascinating, itreally is. And I learned from reading
your book that. I mean,because everybody knows a dog, what is
their most important part of their body, It's their nose. They do everything
(05:20):
through their nose. But with owls, would you say it's their ears the
same way as a dog's nose iswhat makes the dog able to do all
the things it does. With anowl, is it it's ears in the
same kind of yes, same respect, Yes, yes, yes. The
hearing is so essential to an owlthat you know, they, especially owls,
(05:43):
there's some species that hunt solely byreally by ear. They use their
vision some, but they're mainly huntingby ear, and their ears are just
little holes in the in the sidesof their heads. They are covered with
these specialized feathers that allows found inBut the it's what's inside those ears that's
really amazing. It's the equipment thatthey have and owls inner ears, it's
(06:09):
it's auditory system. They've been describedas the race cards. The ferraris of
sound sensitivity. And the owls.Yeah, they have these really big cochlea,
which is the hearing organ in thebrain, and it's this crazy long
and owls, you know, fouror five times the length of the cochlea
most other birds. And that givesum like barn owls, a sense of
(06:30):
hearing that's nearly unequaled in the animalworld. Wow. I mean, that's
fascinating. These are all things thatthe regular person, like the civilian like
me, who just knows of owls, we don't know this stuff. But
your book explains all that. That'sit's really it's very fascinating, I think
because all of us always, youknow, growing up or whatever, it's
just, oh, owls are justwise. Now what is that about?
(06:51):
Where did that come from? Andis it true? I guess they are
wise, but they're complex systems.But where did that ever start that owls
are so wise? Yeah? SoI think that it goes back to Greek
times for Assina, who was thegoddess of wisdom, and she had a
little owl that she you know,was supposed to be her her sort of
(07:14):
a company, her, the animalthat accompanied her. But also I think
it's because owls look a little bitlike us. You know, they have
forward facing eyes, they have theseround heads, so there's something deeply familiar
in them, and I think peoplehave associated them with wisdom for that reason.
And whether they're actually and this isone of the questions I wanted to
explore in the book, is youknow, they have this reputation for wisdom,
(07:39):
but really are they in fact smart? Right? And and you know,
we used to think that they actedpretty much only by instinct, you
know, that the behavior was kindof hardwired. But now we understand that
they are in fact highly intelligent,but maybe in ways we can't fully appreciate
yet and have trouble measuring. Um, they're they're much more subtle, harder
(08:01):
to read. But they do havebrains that are very big for their body
sides, just like we do.And they're also very flexible in the behavior,
and they learn throughout their lives,so not all of their behaviors hardwired
by any means. They do theydo actually learn. Wow, that's it's
almost human in a sense, right, Yeah. Yes. And one of
(08:24):
the stories I like to tell aboutthis was an ornithologist named Rob Beauregard.
He works with a species called thebard owl and you know, you ask
him whether alf are smart, andhe tells you this story about the wild
bard owls that he trains. Hetrains these wild owls to come to a
whistle so that he can actually tagthem with a GPS tracker or retrieve the
(08:48):
track or if he's already put iton them. And what he does is
he puts an mouse out on agrassy area, and when the owl comes
down to catch, at which itwill, he whistles, and then he
put it's out. Another mouse whistles, another mouse whistles. After three mice,
they come to the whistle and theowls they learned this in a day,
and it never takes longer than thanthree sessions to get a bird completely
(09:11):
trained. So that Wow, that'svery impressive. Yeah, that's extremely impressive.
Like who would have thought that's somethingeven a dog needs more than three
times? You know, I wouldjust think of training dogs it's something like
that. Wow, Wow, Iwould I would never know. That's a
great that's a great example and agreat story. Um. I mean,
you're you are very very very knowledgeableabout owls and birds, and I know
(09:35):
that was there anything that you learnedU that shocked you doing the research for
this book. You know, therewas something about every species that just blew
me away. Okay, there's athere's an owl called a short eared owl
that has the wildest courtship ritual.It does what's called a sky dance,
(09:58):
okay, and it goes, um. This is a male bird goes shoot
straight up in the air and thenit kind of drops suddenly and it claps
its wings beneath it, and it'sit's a performance that's designed to impress the
female. She's on the ground watchingall this, you know, distermining whether
his performance is up to snuff.Um. And there's also right right right,
(10:26):
and there's there's a little owl calledthe northern foe at owl and it
uses its of to lure or drawa woo a mate, and it toots.
It has this very high little tootand it doesn't this toot one hundred
and sixty times a minute to tryto draw in a female. So some
(10:46):
of these quitture rituals, which isamazing. Um. And then I was
shocked to learn that there's a anowl that actually uh nests underground in the
burrows that are dug by prairie dogsor brown hogs. Armadillos. It builds
its nest underground in these burrows,and the males actually decorate the mouth of
(11:09):
the burrows. It's hysterical. Andwe're bringing all kinds of stuff like swatches
of fabric and corn cogs and youknow, big chunks of moss and dried
up mushrooms and and it's really away that the male tells other males,
this burrow is mine. It's taken. You know, I've collected all this
stuff. I'm a tough guy,right right, It's like it's man cave.
(11:33):
It's exactly right. But his femaleis in there. She's already laid
her eggs and she's nesting, sookay, he's really demonstrating, Yeah,
this is mine, stay away,this is mine. Exactly. Wow,
that's fat. I mean everything.I keep saying the word fascinating because these
are really really fascinating. It's all, you know, these facts are just
who would know, you know,like, yes, it is, it's
(11:56):
fascinating. I don't think I've everheard that about any other foul doing something
like that, whether it's you know, right, some birds like yeah,
there's some birds that that decorate theiruh they're bower birds that I've written about
in the past that decorate their bowersto draw and a female. But it's
all about courting and this is reallyabout territory and establishing territory. Uh,
(12:22):
you know what there so true?Who studies these burrowing outs? That to
me? You know, if youwant to say you're a tough guy in
the world, burrowing out you decorateyour home? So funny you decorate?
I just love it. They reallyare. It's really true. Yeah,
and it's true of every species.There's just something absolutely astonishing about them that
(12:46):
you know, just uh, justI find incredibly fascinating and uh and yeah,
just they're they're so intriguing and uh. It was such a wonderful book
to work on, and I reallydo hope people enjoy absolutely. How long
did it take you to put thiswhole book together? Because I know it's
a lot of research too. Um, didn't take you over years to do
(13:09):
this? Yes, you know,it usually takes me three or four years
to write a book, and thisone was it was about three years.
Yeah. I went out in thefield with some of the best owl experts
in the world and watched what theydo and and really learned from them.
It was a. It was anabsolutely wonderful experience. I went in Montana
and Europe and Brazil, South America. It was really really exciting field work.
(13:35):
I'm sure. And I guess didyou start this, did you start
writing and doing your research? Iguess before the pandemic or during? Like
did that interfere with your whole projects? Yes? Yeah, it was.
It was tricky. Um, Ihad to work. I do a lot
of research at home, to alot of interviewing people by phone and zoom
(13:56):
and reading a lot of materials.So I had a very hence information gathering
period. But then I did eventuallygo out in the field, and that's
the part of the research that's justmost exciting to me, and and and
generate slots of really wonderful stories.I mean, some of these people who
study these words are just so interestingand so wildly enthusiastic about their their bird
(14:22):
of study, and they're just reallyfun to be with and really fun to
get stories from, I'm sure,and they're probably also very excited to have
someone like you interested in their storiesand all their information. Yeah, they're
they're all of them were just toa person, they were generous with their
time and their expertise and just reallyexcited about getting the word out about there
(14:46):
the work that they're doing. MNo, I'm sure. So the question
that I hate to ask, butI have to ask you are are owls
of threatened species? Do we needto worry about them disappearing like so many
other creatures? Yeah? Yeah,well, you know there are it's a
it's a it's a group of birds. So there are two hundred and sixty
(15:07):
species. Some of them are verymuch threatened. Uh. There there are
the biggest threat to owls species ofall kinds of habitat loss and you know,
yeah, they're losing they're losing nestinggrounds and hunting grounds in old growth
forests and in grasslands. And someof these birds, some of these owls
(15:28):
are just so um uniquely adapted toa particular niche that they're really in trouble
when they lose their habitat. Butthere are other species that seem to be
adaptable on The bard owl is one, and also in some places the burrowing
owl in Europe, the tawny owl. So there are owls that that seem
(15:50):
to be doing okay, and um, but you know, I just urge
everyone to you know, support thoseconservation and research organizations that are really working
actively to try to protect these birdsand their habitat, because you know,
I want people, I want ourchildren and our children's children to be able
(16:11):
to see the owls that we see, of course, you know, and
learn from them. Yeah. Sure, I was just going to say that,
you know, for the generations tocome, they need to know that
there's an owl and know and likewe did from kids, that it's a
wise that you know, a wisecreature. So yeah, I mean you
answered the question before I got achance to ask you, like, what
can people do and support the organizations? So well, this is right?
(16:34):
Yeah, I mean this has justbeen so fascinating. Where can my listeners
get your book any place where booksare sold? And I do have a
website Jennifer Ackerman author dot com.Oh perfect, So it's Jennifer Ackerman,
author dot com. That is soperfect. So I know your book just
came out, and I know you'vedone a lot, you know, over
(16:55):
your your three years to do theresearch for it, and you're you're probably
not thinking what's next or do youhave anything that's next. I always have
to ask that because sometimes people arelike, oh yeah, I have my
next three books written, and I'mlike, what, but no, no,
I do have an idea for anotherbook, another book about birds.
Okay, I'm going to be kindof owly about it and not get more
(17:17):
specific. Oh I love that.Okay, that's so cool. All right,
So I will talk to you againat a future date with your next
project. But right now, JenniferAckerman, What an Owl Knows, Thank
you so much for sharing this bookand all of your knowledge and research with
us, because it really is afascinating book and so many facts that I
(17:37):
learned that I'm sure my listeners willlearn as well, including the photos.
I love the photos that are inthe middle of the book. So so
thank you so much, and thanksfor chatting and good luck with everything.
But I do appreciate all your hardwork and talking about owls. So thank
you. Thank you so much.For Maria, was a delight to talk
with you. Thanks so much.Share has never been a greator operator.
(18:02):
And just want to see you later. For the Gator
It's Maria's MutS and Stuff. Whata great idea on iHeart Radio. Welcome
to Maria's Mutts and Stuff. Andwith me is New York Times best selling
author Jennifer Ackerman, and we're goingto talk about her latest book, What
an Owl Knows. So, Jennifer, thanks for chatting with me today.
(00:24):
I appreciate your time. Oh it'sgreat to be here. Thank you,
thanks so much. So. Now, you've been writing about science and nature
for over thirty years. What madeyou decide to write about owls? Yes,
well, I love birds, allbirds, but owls they're just so
intriguing and so unusual in many ways. You know, we've been obsessed with
(00:48):
them as a species. I thinkfor tens of thousands of years. Some
of the oldest cave paintings show anowl. But and they're they're just they're
they're such skilled hunters, you know, they're called wolves of the sky.
They have these amazing sensory superpowers thatallow them to pinpoint their prey and in
darkness, like extraordinary hearing, invision and dim light. And they have
(01:11):
these wings and feathers that are sobeautifully adapted that their flight is just you
know, virtually silent um. SoI just wanted to dive in and just
find out what we know about owls. And it turns out that we know
quite a bit. You know,We've been studying them for a long time
now and and some new some newtechnology has helped us really unearthed and solve
(01:36):
some mysteries that have been around forcenturies. So it was a good time
to write the book. Sure,and like what okay, like a solved
mystery, what is one that's themost prevalent in your brain, that's something
that we've all been like unsure aboutor not sure about, like an unsolved
mystery about an owl. Well,one of the points that have really been
(01:57):
illuminated is in their communication. Youknow. We we sort of used to
think, while a hoot is ahoot, is a hoot, you know,
But it turns out, it turnsout that owls have a really tremendous
and elaborate vocal repertoire, and it'sactually their conversations are teeming with meaning.
This is something we just didn't know. You know. They have greeting hoots
(02:20):
and territorial hoots and emphatic hoots,and they titter and squawk and squeal and
all these different calls they communicate reallyhighly specific information about an owl's size,
it secks, its weight, andits individual identity, even its state of
mind. Wow. You mean solike if an owl is unhappy or it's
(02:40):
stressed about something, it will hootin a different way for that emotion.
It will, right, It'll reflectit. It's reflected in its in its
circalizations. And also each owl hasa very highly distinctive voice, so they
can actually recognize one another by voicealone, and those calls, those hoots
are sufficiently distinct from one another forhumans also to fingerprint individuals. So that
(03:07):
has been a real breakthrough. We'vebeen able to now monitor populations much more
accurately. We can tell one individualfrom another. We've gotten a window yeah,
social lives. Yeah, yeah,so I'm sorry, I mean yeah,
I mean to interrupt you. Sothat then that's provided a window into
their social lives. Then like ifthey're yeah, well we've also yes,
(03:30):
exactly, we've We've we've got anew window on their social lives and configure
out who's mating with whom and whetherpairs are actually staying together. Wow.
Wow, So I mean almost ifan owl is cheating on an owl.
You we could probably know that nowby the way they're communicating, and now
humans can understand that. Well,that's just it. We thought that that
(03:53):
many species were of owls were monogamous, you know, pears made it for
life. But it turns out nowthat we can actually identify by who's meeting
with whom and when and where.It turns out, to the great surprise
of scientists, that there's actually alot of mate switching going on among whow
yeah, yeah, you know,yeah, this isn't supposed to happen.
(04:15):
You know, it's like a soapopera in the the owl world, and
the owl world must be like freakingout now, like, oh my goodness,
they're they're onto us the humans know, right, wow. And but
that's not the same with other birds. Is that correct? That it's more
of traits of an owl, meaninglike other birds, that they don't have
(04:36):
the same communications that you can recognizethat owls have. Oh yes, no,
though other birds also have signature callsand parents in particular, they can
recognize individuals around them by their calls, so it's not necessarily unique to owls.
But you know, we really thoughtthat that this, We thought that
(04:59):
the communication of owls's very simple atterms, it's very complex, right and
and and full of meaning that wejust didn't know was there. Wow,
that's fascinating. It's fascinating, itreally is. And I learned from reading
your book that. I mean,because everybody knows a dog, what is
their most important part of their body, It's their nose. They do everything
(05:20):
through their nose. But with owls, would you say it's their ears the
same way as a dog's nose iswhat makes the dog able to do all
the things it does. With anowl, is it it's ears in the
same kind of yes, same respect, Yes, yes, yes. The
hearing is so essential to an owlthat you know, they, especially owls,
(05:43):
there's some species that hunt solely byreally by ear. They use their
vision some, but they're mainly huntingby ear, and their ears are just
little holes in the in the sidesof their heads. They are covered with
these specialized feathers that allows found inBut the it's what's inside those ears that's
really amazing. It's the equipment thatthey have and owls inner ears, it's
(06:09):
it's auditory system. They've been describedas the race cards. The ferraris of
sound sensitivity. And the owls.Yeah, they have these really big cochlea,
which is the hearing organ in thebrain, and it's this crazy long
and owls, you know, fouror five times the length of the cochlea
most other birds. And that givesum like barn owls, a sense of
(06:30):
hearing that's nearly unequaled in the animalworld. Wow. I mean, that's
fascinating. These are all things thatthe regular person, like the civilian like
me, who just knows of owls, we don't know this stuff. But
your book explains all that. That'sit's really it's very fascinating, I think
because all of us always, youknow, growing up or whatever, it's
just, oh, owls are justwise. Now what is that about?
(06:51):
Where did that come from? Andis it true? I guess they are
wise, but they're complex systems.But where did that ever start that owls
are so wise? Yeah? SoI think that it goes back to Greek
times for Assina, who was thegoddess of wisdom, and she had a
little owl that she you know,was supposed to be her her sort of
(07:14):
a company, her, the animalthat accompanied her. But also I think
it's because owls look a little bitlike us. You know, they have
forward facing eyes, they have theseround heads, so there's something deeply familiar
in them, and I think peoplehave associated them with wisdom for that reason.
And whether they're actually and this isone of the questions I wanted to
explore in the book, is youknow, they have this reputation for wisdom,
(07:39):
but really are they in fact smart? Right? And and you know,
we used to think that they actedpretty much only by instinct, you
know, that the behavior was kindof hardwired. But now we understand that
they are in fact highly intelligent,but maybe in ways we can't fully appreciate
yet and have trouble measuring. Um, they're they're much more subtle, harder
(08:01):
to read. But they do havebrains that are very big for their body
sides, just like we do.And they're also very flexible in the behavior,
and they learn throughout their lives,so not all of their behaviors hardwired
by any means. They do theydo actually learn. Wow, that's it's
almost human in a sense, right, Yeah. Yes. And one of
(08:24):
the stories I like to tell aboutthis was an ornithologist named Rob Beauregard.
He works with a species called thebard owl and you know, you ask
him whether alf are smart, andhe tells you this story about the wild
bard owls that he trains. Hetrains these wild owls to come to a
whistle so that he can actually tagthem with a GPS tracker or retrieve the
(08:48):
track or if he's already put iton them. And what he does is
he puts an mouse out on agrassy area, and when the owl comes
down to catch, at which itwill, he whistles, and then he
put it's out. Another mouse whistles, another mouse whistles. After three mice,
they come to the whistle and theowls they learned this in a day,
and it never takes longer than thanthree sessions to get a bird completely
(09:11):
trained. So that Wow, that'svery impressive. Yeah, that's extremely impressive.
Like who would have thought that's somethingeven a dog needs more than three
times? You know, I wouldjust think of training dogs it's something like
that. Wow, Wow, Iwould I would never know. That's a
great that's a great example and agreat story. Um. I mean,
you're you are very very very knowledgeableabout owls and birds, and I know
(09:35):
that was there anything that you learnedU that shocked you doing the research for
this book. You know, therewas something about every species that just blew
me away. Okay, there's athere's an owl called a short eared owl
that has the wildest courtship ritual.It does what's called a sky dance,
(09:58):
okay, and it goes, um. This is a male bird goes shoot
straight up in the air and thenit kind of drops suddenly and it claps
its wings beneath it, and it'sit's a performance that's designed to impress the
female. She's on the ground watchingall this, you know, distermining whether
his performance is up to snuff.Um. And there's also right right right,
(10:26):
and there's there's a little owl calledthe northern foe at owl and it
uses its of to lure or drawa woo a mate, and it toots.
It has this very high little tootand it doesn't this toot one hundred
and sixty times a minute to tryto draw in a female. So some
(10:46):
of these quitture rituals, which isamazing. Um. And then I was
shocked to learn that there's a anowl that actually uh nests underground in the
burrows that are dug by prairie dogsor brown hogs. Armadillos. It builds
its nest underground in these burrows,and the males actually decorate the mouth of
(11:09):
the burrows. It's hysterical. Andwe're bringing all kinds of stuff like swatches
of fabric and corn cogs and youknow, big chunks of moss and dried
up mushrooms and and it's really away that the male tells other males,
this burrow is mine. It's taken. You know, I've collected all this
stuff. I'm a tough guy,right right, It's like it's man cave.
(11:33):
It's exactly right. But his femaleis in there. She's already laid
her eggs and she's nesting, sookay, he's really demonstrating, Yeah,
this is mine, stay away,this is mine. Exactly. Wow,
that's fat. I mean everything.I keep saying the word fascinating because these
are really really fascinating. It's all, you know, these facts are just
who would know, you know,like, yes, it is, it's
(11:56):
fascinating. I don't think I've everheard that about any other foul doing something
like that, whether it's you know, right, some birds like yeah,
there's some birds that that decorate theiruh they're bower birds that I've written about
in the past that decorate their bowersto draw and a female. But it's
all about courting and this is reallyabout territory and establishing territory. Uh,
(12:22):
you know what there so true?Who studies these burrowing outs? That to
me? You know, if youwant to say you're a tough guy in
the world, burrowing out you decorateyour home? So funny you decorate?
I just love it. They reallyare. It's really true. Yeah,
and it's true of every species.There's just something absolutely astonishing about them that
(12:46):
you know, just uh, justI find incredibly fascinating and uh and yeah,
just they're they're so intriguing and uh. It was such a wonderful book
to work on, and I reallydo hope people enjoy absolutely. How long
did it take you to put thiswhole book together? Because I know it's
a lot of research too. Um, didn't take you over years to do
(13:09):
this? Yes, you know,it usually takes me three or four years
to write a book, and thisone was it was about three years.
Yeah. I went out in thefield with some of the best owl experts
in the world and watched what theydo and and really learned from them.
It was a. It was anabsolutely wonderful experience. I went in Montana
and Europe and Brazil, South America. It was really really exciting field work.
(13:35):
I'm sure. And I guess didyou start this, did you start
writing and doing your research? Iguess before the pandemic or during? Like
did that interfere with your whole projects? Yes? Yeah, it was.
It was tricky. Um, Ihad to work. I do a lot
of research at home, to alot of interviewing people by phone and zoom
(13:56):
and reading a lot of materials.So I had a very hence information gathering
period. But then I did eventuallygo out in the field, and that's
the part of the research that's justmost exciting to me, and and and
generate slots of really wonderful stories.I mean, some of these people who
study these words are just so interestingand so wildly enthusiastic about their their bird
(14:22):
of study, and they're just reallyfun to be with and really fun to
get stories from, I'm sure,and they're probably also very excited to have
someone like you interested in their storiesand all their information. Yeah, they're
they're all of them were just toa person, they were generous with their
time and their expertise and just reallyexcited about getting the word out about there
(14:46):
the work that they're doing. MNo, I'm sure. So the question
that I hate to ask, butI have to ask you are are owls
of threatened species? Do we needto worry about them disappearing like so many
other creatures? Yeah? Yeah,well, you know there are it's a
it's a it's a group of birds. So there are two hundred and sixty
(15:07):
species. Some of them are verymuch threatened. Uh. There there are
the biggest threat to owls species ofall kinds of habitat loss and you know,
yeah, they're losing they're losing nestinggrounds and hunting grounds in old growth
forests and in grasslands. And someof these birds, some of these owls
(15:28):
are just so um uniquely adapted toa particular niche that they're really in trouble
when they lose their habitat. Butthere are other species that seem to be
adaptable on The bard owl is one, and also in some places the burrowing
owl in Europe, the tawny owl. So there are owls that that seem
(15:50):
to be doing okay, and um, but you know, I just urge
everyone to you know, support thoseconservation and research organizations that are really working
actively to try to protect these birdsand their habitat, because you know,
I want people, I want ourchildren and our children's children to be able
(16:11):
to see the owls that we see, of course, you know, and
learn from them. Yeah. Sure, I was just going to say that,
you know, for the generations tocome, they need to know that
there's an owl and know and likewe did from kids, that it's a
wise that you know, a wisecreature. So yeah, I mean you
answered the question before I got achance to ask you, like, what
can people do and support the organizations? So well, this is right?
(16:34):
Yeah, I mean this has justbeen so fascinating. Where can my listeners
get your book any place where booksare sold? And I do have a
website Jennifer Ackerman author dot com.Oh perfect, So it's Jennifer Ackerman,
author dot com. That is soperfect. So I know your book just
came out, and I know you'vedone a lot, you know, over
(16:55):
your your three years to do theresearch for it, and you're you're probably
not thinking what's next or do youhave anything that's next. I always have
to ask that because sometimes people arelike, oh yeah, I have my
next three books written, and I'mlike, what, but no, no,
I do have an idea for anotherbook, another book about birds.
Okay, I'm going to be kindof owly about it and not get more
(17:17):
specific. Oh I love that.Okay, that's so cool. All right,
So I will talk to you againat a future date with your next
project. But right now, JenniferAckerman, What an Owl Knows, Thank
you so much for sharing this bookand all of your knowledge and research with
us, because it really is afascinating book and so many facts that I
(17:37):
learned that I'm sure my listeners willlearn as well, including the photos.
I love the photos that are inthe middle of the book. So so
thank you so much, and thanksfor chatting and good luck with everything.
But I do appreciate all your hardwork and talking about owls. So thank
you. Thank you so much.For Maria, was a delight to talk
with you. Thanks so much.Share has never been a greator operator.
(18:02):
And just want to see you later. For the Gator
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