This is Bird Note.

Karina Newsom grew up loving animals, but didn't pay much attention to birds until her junior

year of college.

As part of my Zoo and Wildlife Biology degree, I had to take ornithology, which I was dreading

from the time I had selected that major because I had heard from other students, you have to

memorize 150 birds by sight and like

dozens and dozens by sound.

And I was like, if this is how I'm going to fail out of college, you know, so be it.

You know, because I just really could not imagine enjoying that or even being able to do well in that class.

And so on the first day, before we started going out into the field to identify birds,

my professor introduced us to some of the most common birds in our region. He started out with

the American Robin. And I was like, oh, okay, yeah, I know that bird. And then the second bird he put

on the screen was the Blue Jay. And I yelled in class. I had never seen such a thing in my whole life.

I was like, you are not telling me

this bird is outside this window right now,

like outside of this classroom.

And sure enough, at the end of class, I went outside

and they were literally everywhere.

How on earth, being a wildlife scientist in training,

did I miss a bright blue, loud, common bird?

Karina didn't just pass her class.

She went on to study avian ecology and now works in the field professionally,

...