A personal story from Talkin’ Birds Ambassador Barb Gee, Port Allegany, PA.

When my children were young, I bought a house and started putting up bird feeders to see what we could attract. I had only a small pocket field guide with one photo of each bird, but the kids and I would look up every one as best we could to see who came to visit each day.

My middle son, Nate, was six years old, and he seemed to enjoy it the most. One day he came running to get me because the feeder was covered in beautiful speckled birds. We looked in our book, but there was no bird in there with all of those spots! So we decided to call them “Natebirds” to honor Nate’s discovery. We soon learned that these birds were European Starlings in their winter plumage, but we continued to call them Natebirds because it was fun.

Well, the name somehow got stuck on my son, and we started calling HIM Natebird. It gradually got shortened to "Bird." That six-year-old boy is now 6 feet tall and 33 years old, but we still call him Bird. His nieces and nephews call him “Uncle Bird,” and now THEY look out the windows at my feeders and watch for the Natebirds to come.