When I attend birding festivals, I love to go out on tours. There’s nothing like loading into a van with five or ten other bird enthusiasts and a couple of guides and see what we discover together. Plus: the guides carry the big, heavy spotting scopes, which is a nice perk on a long, hot day.

I don’t usually look into who my guides are before I sign up for one tour over another—I figure that if they’ve been hired, they’re qualified and know the area, and that I’ll have plenty of time to get to know them over the course of our day.

Last November I went to the Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival. Highly recommend—it was so well-organized that there were volunteers standing outside of the tour vans at 5:30am just to hand out free lens wipes and make sure we had enough water! A great festival with astounding birds, many of which are found only outside the US and in the Rio Grande Valley.

One day I signed up for a “Big Day” trip—a full day of friendly competition. Ten or so vans filled with birders trying spot as many birds as we could within a specific window of time. One of my guides on that day turned out to be Derek Sallmann.

Derek is the co-founder of Badgerland Birding, an organization that does everything from education to conservation to tours. He has a delightful, educational YouTube channel that’s well worth perusing, and a podcast as well.

I didn’t learn any of this until I Googled him. In typical Midwestern fashion, Derek would never toot his own horn. In fact, I didn’t even think to look him up until our group stopped to try and find a Common Parauque and a nine-year-old birder from another van came up to us, looked at Derek, and said, “It’s YOU! I watch you ALL THE TIME!”

To be on a tour with a fellow Wisconsinite warmed my heart, and Derek was a wonderful guide through the Rio Grande Valley. I am delighted to know that Badgerland Birding exists, and I know that you will be, too. Join us as we learn from Derek about the birds of Wisconsin, what makes a good birding guide, and what he hopes to accomplish in 2026.

Today we’re joined on the show by Jennifer Grant, a Chicago author of books for children and adults. I’ve loved Jennifer’s work for years and was delighted to pick her brain about her newest work, Consider the Birds, a lovely picture book filled with wonder.

Jennifer talks all things children’s books, birds, and faith, including how her faith compelled her to take a stand against certain governmental practices in Chicago this autumn. Jennifer is a gentle soul and a wise guide, and I know you’ll be just as enriched by our conversation as I was.

Check out more of Jennifer’s work on her website, including fabulous books for adults like my favorite, Dimming the Day.

Gina and I became friends over social media a few years back. Then we became good friends when she started regularly texting me photos of Northern Cardinals. I live in California, you see, and those red beauties rarely make it out past the Rocky Mountains. What a gift!

It was only then that I picked up Gina’s book: Dorothy & Jack: The Transforming Friendship of Dorothy L. Sayers and C.S. Lewis. and discovered that she is not only a generous cardinal photo-sender, but she’s a phenomenal writer as well. I learned so much from this book about two authors I’d admired for years but hadn’t known very deeply.

Join Gina and me for a conversation about these two saints of the evangelical church, the power of friendship, and why cardinals just might be the world’s best birds. Plus, check out her fantastic SubStack, Dear, Strange Things and her fun blog about Charles Dickens.