The joys of reporting on 3 teenagers chasing glory in the World Series of Birding
6/13/202610 min
Reporting assignments can often lead to unexpected joys and lessons. That was the case when NPR's Natalie Escobar and Ava Berger were sent on the road to tag along with three teenage boys competing in the World Series of Birding. The teens had 24 hours to crisscross New Jersey and tally up the number of bird species they spotted. For this week's Reporter's Notebook we hear from Escobar and Berger about how the assignment was both challenging and illuminating.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsAdrian Florido· Host0:00
It's Consider This, where every day we go deep on one big news story. At NPR, we bring listeners to the front lines of conflict, we report on political upheaval, and we also share people's passions, like for the natural world.
Speaker 20:15
Oh, a nest. Whoa.
Eva Berger0:16
Whoa.
Speaker 20:16
You have to pin that.
Eva Berger0:17
Pin, pin, pin, pin.
Speaker 20:18
I'll pin it.
Speaker 40:19
Sharpy nest.
Speaker 20:20
It's so orange.
Eva Berger0:20
Where is it?
Speaker 20:21
Sharpy nested.
Speaker 40:22
Good.
Speaker 20:22
Yeah, that's really good.
Speaker 40:24
Holy.
Adrian Florido· Host0:24
We're listening to the sound of some teenage birders.
Speaker 20:28
So we're using our scopes to try and try and find an owl on that pipe out there across the river, or across the pond.
Speaker 40:35
Do you guys see- We're just trying to scan ... in the water, two black skimmers. Everyone, both.
Eva Berger0:39
They're not skimmers.
Speaker 40:40
Yes, they are.
Speaker 20:40
Skimmers?
Speaker 40:41
Look, they're flying very low. The wings are- Oh, yeah, I see ... pointed. Do you guys see two black skimmers?
Speaker 20:45
Yeah, whoa.
Eva Berger0:46
Wow.
Speaker 20:46
Yeah.
Eva Berger0:47
Dad, we just got a skimmer.
Adrian Florido· Host0:48
These boys were competing last month in New Jersey Audubon's 43rd annual World Series of Birding.
Natalie Escobar0:55
So the gist is that you have, it's an entire day, um, from midnight to midnight.
Adrian Florido· Host1:01
And this is Natalie Escobar, an NPR editor who spent that entire day with them.
Natalie Escobar1:06
And the goal is that you have to count as many species of birds as physically possible- [laughs] ... within the borders of the great state of New Jersey.
Adrian Florido· Host1:16
Natalie recruited colleague Eva Berger to join her as she criss-crossed the state.
Eva Berger1:20
So I'm not someone who was in the birding world, so I, I didn't know what to expect. But did I expect us to actually be following around three teenage boys for