Indeed, I still try not to become too distant from the world of real scientific discovery, and since starting at SBS, I have contributed in very minor ways to ongoing research projects and have written an undergraduate
textbook about ecology.
People who identify birds while they travel are often surprised that the habit causes them to soak in much bigger themes
about the world: watching birds inadvertently educates the birding traveler on subjects like geography, habitat and
ecology, and in a way that is much more profound than studying the same subjects in
textbooks.