I am a huge fan of podcastes of all kinds. Especially when I’m working a pair of very “avoidy” birds and I’m basically in for several hours of watching an unchanging pile of food on the ground, an earbud with a good story is the key to maintaining my focus on the sidewalk, rooftops and trees for any incoming birds. One of my favorite podcasts is The Story Collider which describes itself as “stories about how science touches people’s lives”. I highly recommend it for both science geeks and non-scientists alike, but I imagine it resonates deeper with those who feel engaged with science on a more regular basis. A common theme of these stories is “the golden moment”, and whatever that may mean for the storyteller. Which got me thinking: What’s my golden moment?
Conducting research in an urban environment, especially a study as conspicuous as mine, has it’s benefits and drawbacks. Drawbacks include: Confrontation over the study itself, people or pets unknowingly interfering with experiments, sometimes unpleasant or slightly risky work environments, etc. But the advantage is easily summarized: I get to engage with all kinds of people about my research. I derive and immense amount of joy from explaining my study to folks, especially in the company of children. There’s one particular moment in the course of the experiment, however, that stands out from the rest.
At a certain point in the study I have the masked person walking around instead of remaining stationary. Today I found myself conducting just such a trial and, frankly, these tests can be rather awkward. I can hear people whispering about the masked person, what they might be doing (often they don’t notice their “UW CROW RESEARCH” sign) and rarely are they emboldened enough to ask and, frankly, it’s probably for the best because I need my full attention on my birds during these tests (I’m working the camera while my volunteer walks around). As you can imagine, it can be a bit uncomfortable to cause such a stir and then just keep walking leaving people to scratch their heads (or think worse) about what they just saw. But occasionally the golden moment happens. That moment when they’ve noticed the mask, perhaps even read the sign and are eagerly discussing what a bizarre scene they’ve just witnessed with their companions when, boom, in comes the crow. Suddenly, without my needing to explain it, every onlooker can see precisely what’s happening: A crow knows that person and they don’t like them. An explosion of scolding, body language and flight patterns makes the target of their animosity well known. During these moments without any effort or intention, people are experiencing science. They’re watching crows and potentially learning something new about them. They will not know the full back-story to what’s going on of course, but there’s enough information laid right out there for them that conversations about crows and their intelligence and antics are inevitable. Suddenly the bird so many people ignore becomes the object of fascination and attention. These are the moments that I believe create changes in attitudes about crows and, more broadly, what science research looks like. These are my golden moments.
corvidresearch.blog 