Nick Bayard ’04 is the new executive director of BirdNote, an environmental nonprofit that produces daily two-minute radio shows—broadcast on more than 250 radio stations around the country—about the quirky and fascinating lives of birds. Started in 2005, BirdNote has also developed longer podcasts Threatened and Bring Birds Back, hoping to inspire listeners to engage with, and help conserve, the natural world. Bayard’s background fits the job: During a stint in the Peace Corps in Paraguay, the environmental studies concentrator created a weekly radio show called Mainumby Marandu Porã, or The Hummingbird’s Good News, which covered environmental and health issues, then worked in nonprofits and in human rights at the city government level. To learn why great blue herons have such lustrous feathers, how some house sparrows have learned to open automatic doors, and how to tell the difference between a raven and a crow, check out www.birdnote.org.
