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The Current Transcript for May 12, 2025

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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SOUNDCLIP

PHIL HANLEY: You're nine years old and you're dyslexic and you go to school every day. You have the grit of someone that's been divorced twice and recovering alcohol. Like you've been through it at a really young age.

MATT GALLOWAY: When Phil Hanley was growing up in Oshawa, Ontario, the challenges created by his dyslexia seemed insurmountable. He would go to bed at night praying that he would wake up smart. In a wildlife that has included everything from modelling in Milan to stand-up comedy and appearing on The Tonight Show, Hanley has turned that disability into a strength. In 30 Minutes, how a dyslexic reads an audiobook, why Phil Hanly cries every time he thinks of how his mom defended him against an education system that called him lazy, and how the Grateful Dead changed his outlook on life. Also this morning.

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[birds]

MG: That’s the sound of spring. The science writer Ed Yong says noticing bird sounds opened his eyes and ears to a world he'd never paid much attention to before. In an hour, Ed Yong on how what he calls the onset of birder derangement syndrome helped connect him more to the natural world around us, and why a drop in bird populations should alarm us all. But in a time of economic anxiety, we begin with your questions about tariffs, financial turmoil, and where we go from here. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current.

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ECONOMY QUESTIONS

Guests: Armine Yalnizyan, Shannon Lee Simmons

MG: It is May, spring across this country, hopefully a lovely day wherever you happen to be today. You would be forgiven if you just wanted to ignore any of the bad news out there, bad news like Canada's new jobless numbers, which show US tariffs are taking a direct hit on Canada's economy. But today, we are here to help. All this economic uncertainty has Canadians of all ages worried and wondering about the future. And so last week, we put out the call to you to send in your questions about the economy for our expert panel. This morning, we have some answers. Armine Yalnizyan is an economist, Atkinson Fellow on the Future of Workers. And Shannon Lee Simmons is a certified financial planner and founder of the New School of Finance. Good morning to you both.

ARMINE YALNIZYAN: Good morning.

SHANNON LEE SIMMONS: Good morning

MG: Armine, we'll get to the questions in a moment, but I started with the unemployment rate. Went up to 6.9% in April. What are the sectors that are losing jobs in this country?

ARMINE YALNIZYAN: Mostly manufacturing and retail, the sectors that you would expect to be losing the most jobs. All of the bad news was kind of couched by the fact that we added a lot of people to deal with the federal election. So the pain was kind of masked. But it is a very bad news story, and it is hitting exactly where you would think it would hit, where people make things and where people buy things.

MG: Is this a nod, from your perspective, to how much damage this trade war is starting to do to our economy? I mean, we talk a lot about this, but it feels like the bite is being felt now.

ARMINE YALNIZYAN: Yeah, we have been waiting for this. We knew that the uncertainty was causing people not to hire and not to expand, particularly in the goods producing sectors. And we had heard anecdotally of layoffs, but this is the first scale of layoff. We're talking about tens of thousands of jobs lost in manufacturing and something like 25,000 jobs lost in retail. So these are not small numbers of the jobs being lost, and that will continue apace.

MG: Which leads to the anxiety that people are feeling, which leads to the questions that they have sent in to us. Shannon, I want to start with a question about the economy broadly. This is one about investments in some ways. It comes from Tess Watt. We are a recently retired couple in our mid-60s. Since Trump has been in power and Trudeau stepped down, we've lost the equivalent of a year's wages through our investments. It took us 40 years to save for retirement. Where do you see the markets going? How do we protect our life savings to ensure we don't continue to lose? It's a bit of a horror movie when people look at where their investments are right now. Shannon, what do you say to Tess?

SHANNON LEE SIMMONS: Right. So it is a nerve wracking thing to have volatility in your investment portfolio, especially when you're in the period of drawdown versus building up, and particularly because it comes down to that time horizon. So what I would say, and this is a blanket sort of comment for everybody, is that money that you sort of need in the next one to two years is maybe money that has too short of a time horizon to be invested in stock markets in the first place. So for example, if you were a young person buying a home, you wouldn't necessarily want your down payment money to be fully invested in the stock market because you might need that money in the next one to two years. And so I would offer the same for people who are retiring. A portion of your portfolio, the sort of minimum payments from your RRIF, the payments that you know you need for your bills that you're going to be planning to pull out of that portfolio to fund your life, that money has an extraordinarily short time horizon, and not the rest of the portfolio, but just that one to two years of planned withdrawals. And so that's the sort of money that if we can make sure that that's sort of maybe in a money market fund or a GIC or something, just the portion that you plan to take out in the next one to two years, then volatility like this can be a little bit less scary because it doesn't force you to withdraw money while things are at a loss position and lock in those losses. You can ride the wave of volatility with the rest of the portfolio, and you know that your sort of grocery money and your bills are secure for the next one to two years. And so I'd offer that as an option to people who might be thinking, what do I do to weather the storm? Make sure the money you need in the short run is safe and protected, and then the volatility is less scary at 3 a.m.

MG: I mean, it's interesting because we got a number of similar questions. And part of this is about in that note, Tess said it took us 40 years to save for retirement. You now have people who have no choice but to cash in their investments. They can't afford to park that money anymore.

SHANNON LEE SIMMONS: Yeah, I remember this. I was working on Bay Street during the 2008-2009 Great Recession, and I remember having very similar conversations and fears and anxiety, and that is accurate. So one of the reasons that even the RRIF payment used to be $69 and got pushed out was because of that. We don't want people to have to cash in at a loss. So I would say In that case, if you're already fully invested and you don't have this sort of one to two years sort of safety cushion in your portfolio that you could draw from in times of extreme volatility, then maybe doing something like dollar cost averaging when you're withdrawing that money so that, you know, this volatility, as the economy is so unpredictable right now, we don't know if it's going to go up, go down, depending on what the tariffs are. We've just had this rollback. Like it’s we're not sure. So maybe spreading those withdrawals out over the course of a period of time instead of taking them on one day can help to take the sting out. Maybe there's things that go up over time, maybe less, but you're sort of hedging your bets with a dollar cost average versus today is the day I'm taking my entire RRIF payment or today is the day I'm making this massive withdrawal. So hopefully you can spread out the risk over a period of time. It is very, very scary. I'm not taking away from that at all in any way. And if there are places where you could reduce that spending, if you're in control of how much is coming out of the portfolio and those positions are in a loss position, then maybe, you know, holding off till next year so you don't lock in that lot, or holding off a little bit wherever you can might be helpful for your own anxiety.

MG: Okay, I got a big bag of questions. I'm going to keep rolling through them. We got out and about in the streets of Vancouver talking to people there. Food prices were on people's minds. Have a listen to this.

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SPEAKER: I don't know if I'm turning into my grandfather. Oftentimes, I'll see prices of things and I'll say, oh my God. Sometimes, wonder if there should be caps that these companies, you know, profits are good, but they're being paid out to people, to investors, but then again, who as an investor, I also want return. So it's, I think there should be something to manage that.

MG: Armine, we have been in this extended affordability crisis, and food prices continue to go up. Are they going to continue to go up, do you think?

ARMINE YALNIZYAN: It depends on where you buy your food from, and it depends on what happens to climate change, and it depends on how much we manage to recreate in our own backyard. And just a quick nod to southwestern Ontario, which has the highest concentration of greenhouses of anywhere in the world. So we are increasingly trying to be self-sufficient, but it is a cold country. So we will be importing our raspberries for January from other sunnier climes for a long time to come, but you don't have to import them from the United States. Of course, the further away they come from, the more they cost. And to the point of, you know, should there be a cap on prices?

MG: Is something like that realistic? I mean, that was floated during the election by the NDP.

ARMINE YALNIZYAN: Yeah. I mean, caps have been put on prices in other countries. Even European countries have created food baskets where there is a certain number of essential foods whose prices cannot be raised in this period of emergency so that people don't go hungry because of huge volatility, as Shannon Lee has mentioned, which is in the cards for the future. I mean, when you take a look at what happened with the China-US deal in the last few hours, we have gone from over double tariffs from both sides to roughly around 10%. And so that is going to cause huge volatility in the stock markets. We've already seen what that has meant has been a surge in many stock market prices and in the indices, whereas we lost trillions of dollars on April the 2nd and 3rd and 4th. So, you know, this volatility ain't going away. And either is the volatility associated with climate change when it comes to fruit and veg and perhaps what happens to, you know, to the extent that we import meats and other things from the United States, their lack of FDA control now, Food and Drug Administration control, means that there is going to be a lot more herd disease, there's going to be a lot more more expensive things coming their way and consequently our way if we're not careful. So we do need to either ring fence what we are buying more effectively and find new supply chains or make more of it ourselves.

MG: If you go beyond food, is your sense that inflation will continue to be, I mean, take a look at what happened in the wake of the pandemic, and that was a driving factor in that cost of living crisis. Is this, is inflation still going to be a growing concern for us here?

ARMINE YALNIZYAN: It appears to be the case because when you have large, you know, we're losing lots of smaller players because they cannot afford to keep going on. After the pandemic, after the inflation spike, after the interest rates spike, now the tariff wars, a lot of smaller players are falling. When you have markets that are more controlled by small numbers of players, you get more ability to set prices and you get what we called sellers’ inflation in the wake of the pandemic. So we are likely to see more prices rise because the fear is that prices are going to rise. So it creates a little bit of leniency in the market to see prices rise. That is a huge problem going forward. And we do need to look at how we can cap inflation in certain things. Food is probably the hardest, but there are other sectors that we can do better on.

MG: Like what?

ARMINE YALNIZYAN: In housing, you can be putting on lots of Ring fences. Basically, you know, we are looking at housing prices fall in places like Toronto and Vancouver because of what is going on. And there are private equity companies with very deep pockets of what's called dry powder cash ready to deploy. And these large asset managers are looking to buy up residential and commercial and particularly multi-residential real estate properties. Well, they're going to buy them. They're going to, you know, zhuzh them up a bit and then jack up the rental prices. That's exactly the opposite of what we need right now. We can't build fast enough. So you could be ring-fencing who can buy the properties that are going to inevitably come up for sale and also work with other, you know, sub-national jurisdictions to put on some kind of rental caps. Otherwise, you're going to see a wave of people who are losing their jobs and losing their homes looking for a place to live, and there is no place cheaper to live.

MG: I want to come back to the issue of real estate in a moment. This is this weird uncertainty and the volatility that people feel. I mean, if you have money, it can lead you to think, should I be spending that money or should I keep it aside and perhaps not buy something big? Neil in Vancouver was wondering about big ticket items. Have a listen.

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NEIL: Personally, like buying a new vehicle, getting a new vehicle, the things of like the economy and wanting to buy like a clean energy vehicle, even an EV. And then you have even things like fueling those vehicles, getting to where you're going with those vehicles, and at the end of the day, even having a job to be able to get your vehicle moving, I guess.

MG: Shannon Lee Simmons, what would you say to someone like Neil who's considering buying a car right now?

SHANNON LEE SIMMONS: That's a big question because we don't know exactly where things are going to go, right? So I think the first thing when you're weighing the pros and cons of a big purchase, and when I say big purchase, I mean something that's like out of the realm of your normal everyday life. Maybe it's going to go on debt, maybe it's going to eat into your savings in a big way. That's what we're talking about. I would say that we don't have a crystal ball. We don't know exactly what's going to happen economically, whether prices will fall on those items or skyrocket on any sort of large items, whether it's trips, travel, car, whatever. So it really comes down to the micro-economics of your household. And you have to think inwardly about what can we sustain, not necessarily economically what's going to go on because we don't know exactly. And so number one, what's your income trajectory like? Are you in one of those industries that is experiencing layoffs, massive volatility? Our future income is our greatest asset. So I would start there, on your ability to sustain and support your day-to-day household even if you eat into your savings or you take on a new payment for something, things like that. If that seems secure as much as one can feel secure about their future income, it's not necessarily experiencing direct volatility right now. Then we go into stage two, which is affordability. How much of your after-tax income on a monthly basis is going to go to fund this thing, whether it's replenishing savings or going to a new debt? What are you giving up in order to sustain that? And is it actually sustainable as the price of food goes up, as the cost of living keeps driving up? Are you putting yourself in a financial situation where day-to-day life is going to become more and more difficult to support and so you might be looking at taking on a high interest rate credit card debt? If that feels okay, so income is good, there's a pocket in your after-tax income to support this, then I would say like, you know, if you need it, go for it. If you don't, then, you know, maybe you can hold off. But if it's something that you need to do or you want to do it, as long as your income is sustainable and you can support it, that's fine. But I really think it's a macroeconomic thing.

MG: Armine, do you worry that if people are pumping the brakes, I mean, that can have an impact on the larger economy, right? We're spending less money, therefore the people who rely on that money flowing through the economy are going to be hurt, that this uncertainty has a personal impact, but it goes beyond that.

ARMINE YALNIZYAN: 100%. It's an uncertainty that clouds everybody's forward-looking decisions, particularly businesses. And that's where the job story comes in. If I was going to not be sure if I had enough business to come in, will I hire that part-timer to pick up what currently looks like too much volume for the existing staff? Will that drive away some of the staff that are there because they're overworked? Everybody is in a pickle right now. We just don't know what the future is. And when you are faced with this degree of uncertainty, the whole economy rushes forward from the business and from the household side to just stop and wait. And stopping is exactly what happened during the pandemic. That's why the economy plunged. That’s why I have been saying for a number of weeks now, recessions are inevitable in both countries, in the United States and in Canada. Because take for example, this supposedly historic deal between the United States and China that just got inked. Well, it's going to last for 90 days. What kind of decision are you going to make in 90 days and not know what's happening on the other side of it if you are doing business with China? Nothing. You're going to stay put and see what happens.

MG: Shannon Lee Simmons, one of the things people are waiting to see what happens with is interest rates. We were talking about real estate just briefly. We've had a number of questions from people. They have variable rate mortgages. There are, what, close to a million mortgages that are up for renewal, I guess, this year in this country alone. They're wondering whether they should switch to a fixed rate mortgage. What is your sense of that and what do you expect interest rates to do?

SHANNON LEE SIMMONS: That's interesting. I definitely think everyone would want to get some custom advice from their, you know, mortgage expert on that while they're renewing, because the timing of that is really interesting over the next like one to two years. I think I would say if we come back to dealing with clients who I have been on the, you know, chatting with over the last few years while interest rates skyrocketed, the decision of fixed versus variable, I also think we need to remember what we can withstand emotionally on that and what's going to cause a lack of sleep. So if you are a person who, during this last stint, was in a variable and it caused so much deep anxiety and so much suffering like from an emotional or like anxiety place point of view, then I don't think that that is something to, you know, weigh the pros and cons of simply just financially what I think is going to happen with interest rates. Maybe a fixed something can help you. If you're a person that went through this and you're like, hey, you know what, in the grand scheme, it worked out and variables really served me over the last 20 years of my mortgage, then that's a person that can maybe roll with more uncertainty. So I think that just like investing, when it comes to trying to guess what interest rates are going to do, really think about what your own risk tolerance is on that and what your finances can handle. So stress testing your own mortgage. We've always done that. And then we had to do it to even get a mortgage. You had to stress test to make sure that you could do a higher layup. But now, we've seen what could happen with very high interest rates. So really making sure that you're stress testing. Like if interest rates were to go up, how much cashflow could like my household stand? As for where I think that it's going to go, I think we're just going to have to watch inflation, right? So I think we're going to go up with inflation as per usual monetary policy. And so just keeping a really close eye on that.

MG: Two minutes left. I'm going to try and squeeze this question in, and I would like you both to answer it. It comes from Jeff in Calgary. Understanding that these disruptions and the inconsistency of the US administration cause pain and anxiety for people who are directly and indirectly affected, the economy is a system, and it will achieve a new equilibrium, where are the opportunities in areas of growth where we should be investing, spending our time building resiliency and looking for work? Armine, in the carnage, where do you see, as we say, potential areas for growth in this country?

ARMINE YALNIZYAN: I see two basic areas, building up our own self-sufficiency, particularly in the area of energy in the eastern part of the country, and secondarily, looking at non-market solutions to affordability crises. So doing exactly what this federal government was hired to do is to rebuild supply chains, get going on building more affordable housing, and also advance what we are doing in terms of dental care and pharmacare, removing these items, at least the basics of these items from market control, because that is the new equilibrium. It's going to be, you know, for all of my career as an economist and as a student, the mantra was more market, less government. We are firmly in a more government, less market moment.

MG: Shannon Lee Simmons, the last 30 seconds to you. Is there an area that you think people should look at as, not talking about, you know, green grass in the midst of a burnt field, but do you know what I mean? Something that's going to give people an idea as to where we might go.

SHANNON LEE SIMMONS: I think, again, a lot of this comes down to what's in your control and what's not. And so being on the personal finance front, which is where I live, what can you control on your personal finance front so that you are best sort of protected against uncertainty volatility? I would say one thing that's been really great is diversifying income streams so you're less panicked when things happen in the greater economy that are out of your control. So if you can have a diversified revenue stream or you have backup levels of income, I think that that's something to start thinking about in a real way, even if it's something on the side for now, unfortunately, because I know we're all so busy. And I would bring it back home to a very unexciting emergency account. I think they go along with a blanket of calm in a moment of volatility.

MG: People have questions. You had answers. I'm delighted to be able to connect with you two. Thank you both for being here.

ARMINE YALNIZYAN: Thank you.

SHANNON LEE SIMMONS: Thank you.

MG: Armine Yalnizyan, an economist, Atkinson Fellow on the Future of Workers. Shannon Lee Simmons is a certified financial planner and the founder of the New School of Finance. She has a new book out. It's called “Making Bank: Money Skills for Real Life.” We're going to talk to her about that coming up in the days ahead. Your CBC news is next, and then we will speak with Phil Hanley about dyslexia and how he found strength in what he went through. That's coming up in six minutes here on The Current.

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SPELLBOUND

Guest: Phil Hanley

MG: Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and you're listening to The Current.

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PHIL HANLEY: Third grade was the worst because the teacher was old, and she learned to teach before dyslexia was invented.

[laughter]

PHIL HANLEY: She told my parents I was dumb. My dad overcompensated. He's like, you're probably smarter than her. That's irresponsible parenting, creating a child that's illiterate and overconfident.

[laughter]

PHIL HANLEY: The teacher is like, this is how you spell Antarctica. I'm like, yeah, that's not how I spell it.

[laughter]

MG: That's the Canadian comedian Phil Hanley joking about the dyslexia he has had to deal with since he was a kid. In his new memoir, it is obvious that it wasn't always a laughing matter. Trying to get through school in Oshawa, Ontario involved its fair share of cruel teachers and long evenings at home with his mom slogging through homework. But all that struggle later became a source of inspiration for his very successful comedy act. And now, Phil Hanly has written about it, plus a stint as a high fashion model in Milan and London. That memoir is called “Spellbound: My Life as a Dyslexic Wordsmith”, and Phil Hanley is in our New York City studio. Phil, good morning.

PHIL HANLEY: Good morning. Wow, I'm so excited to speak to you.

MG: I'm really glad to have you on the program. It could sound to some people like a bit of a punchline, dyslexic comedian writes a memoir.

PHIL HANLEY: Yeah.

MG: How difficult was it to write the book? I mean, I want to talk a little bit later on about reading the book, which is fascinating, but writing the book, what was that like for you?

PHIL HANLEY: It was really, really hard because I, you know, I had taken general or basic English all through school. So I didn't even, I jokingly say, and it's like half joking, that my editor taught me that exclamation marks weren't called loud marks. Like I really, but, you know, I'd written for, I'd written jokes and stuff for years. So the book took me like eight years. And in that time, I learned how to write.

MG: Can I ask you, you said something on The Tonight Show that was really interesting in terms of explaining what dyslexia is. You said, tell a dyslexic child to sound out a word, that'd be like if somebody pulled you aside and said, hey, I can't eat this, I'm definitely allergic to peanuts, and you're like, chew slowly. What don't people understand about dyslexia?

PHIL HANLEY: Well, I mean, dyslexia affects people, you know, different. There's like somewhat of a spectrum to how it affects people. But for me, I can't identify a letter with a sound. So that analogy is perfect because they're like, sound it out. I'm like, yeah, that's the part I can’t do. You know, like if, for example, if you saw a word you've never seen before, like a street name or a last name or something like that, you could ballpark it pretty quick. For me, it might as well be like a picture I've never seen before. I don't really have any idea how to say it.

MG: We heard a little bit of that in the clip from your stand-up routine. What was school like and how did teachers treat you?

PHIL HANLEY: School was brutal. Like kindergarten was great, and then it was just the rudest of awakenings when I arrived in the first grade because I thought I was like normal, and my, you know, kindergarten reviews were good, that I was, you know, sociable and I played well with others and all this stuff. And then like the first day of the first grade, all of a sudden, I was in like a Charles Dickens play like where children were just treated terribly. So yeah, they were, they just constantly accused me of being lazy or, you know, stupid. And my mom would come in and advocate for me. Basically, that's how it went all the way through school. And then they would put me in special ed and take me out of special ed. And then special ed, even as a kid, I was like, oh, this is a waste of my time. Like the special ed curriculum would be like weaving and Christmas carols. And I was like, wow, this is not going to prep me for anything.

MG: What just happened when you were talking about your mom? I mean, she tells these stories of how, yeah, she would get these letters saying that you were lazy, that you weren't trying hard enough, and she would have to stand up for you. You were just telling that story, and it took your breath away.

PHIL HANLEY: Oh, yeah, I, it's so crazy that I get really emotional because I joke about it. And I didn't realize how kind of painful it was because I kind of got through it and, you know, finished school and was like, okay, I'm just never going to read or write again, which obviously that that's not what happened, but… So when I revisit it and I've been, you know, I sold the book, I promoted the book. I work with an organization here in the States called Eye to Eye, which advocates for kids with neurodiversity. And I cannot talk about my experiences in school without being emotional. And I've done it in front of, you know, 300 people or 400 people or 500, like, you know, or I've done it like one-on-one pitching the book or talking to you. Yeah, the pain is, it’s still there. And I guess what really breaks my heart is that I got through school because of my, like my mom advocated for me. So it just, it just like stops me in my tracks when I think of a kid who doesn't have that.

MG: You write in the book about how, you say you used to pray that you'd wake up smart.

PHIL HANLEY: Yeah.

MG: I can't imagine what that would be like, because there's all sorts of things that you did to try to compensate and to try to hide your dyslexia. But as you're in school, one of the things that you want is just like to be a normal kid. And as you said, you had to kind of go to bed thinking, maybe if I do this, maybe if I put the right intention to it, I can wake up smart.

PHIL HANLEY: Yeah, my sister, who was also, you know, really helpful as a kid and to this day, she told me, you know, you'd see something on a television show about a kid who's like graduating school when they were like, you know, nine, like a Doogie Howser type situation. And my sister told me about, yeah, like some kids are just smart and they, you know, they blow through school. So I would always pray that that would be the case when I woke up in the morning. It never came true.

MG: What happened in grade 12, though?

PHIL HANLEY: Yeah, great. So I went all the way through school, and then in grade twelve, just like a fluke luck, for some reason, the Durham school board Had the funds and the means, and I was given Exactly what I needed to get through school. And that was I would do a period of school, I'd go to geography, then I would have one on one time with a special ed teacher, Mr. Armstrong. And because of that, I excelled in school. I got like, I think my average was like 86% or something like that.

MG: That's amazing.

PHIL HANLEY: But it was so crazy because it's like, and of course, my mom is, you know, not as outspoken as I am, but it was like, so exactly what she said the whole time was true. If I was given what I needed, then I would excel.

MG: When you finished high school, I said this in the introduction, one of the things that you ended up doing was going to Italy, and you went to Italy to become a model. Have a listen to this.

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PHIL HANLEY: I became a model. I was a model, and people don't believe me. That's fine. But there was a fashion trend. It was a long time ago. It was called heroin chic.

[laughter]

PHIL HANLEY: And I remember hearing about it when I was a kid. They were like, we want guys that look like they do drugs. And I'm like, look like you do drugs, I'm going to do you one better.

[laughter]

MG: So how did the guy from Oshawa end up in Milan modelling for Dolce & Gabbana? You're in London, you're doing shoots for GQ. You were called, what, a sick chicken By Giorgio Armani?

PHIL HANLEY: yeah, by Giorgio Armani, yeah. Well, so I grew up in Oshawa. Shalom Harlow, who is a huge supermodel and a dear, dear friend of mine, she kind of, you know, just blew up instantly, like, you know, left high school to become a supermodel. And after high school, I was visiting her, and she just was like, why don't you try modelling? And it was the first, like I had like within a week of her saying that had swam with a t-shirt on at a pool party. Like I was not, that was not on the horizon for me at all. And I wanted to, I knew there was more to the world than Oshawa, and I wanted to get, you know, travel and get out of Oshawa. And so I took her up on this opportunity.

MG: What did you learn about yourself in doing that? One of the things you write about in the book is you say, as a model, I could hide my dyslexia and be viewed as the smart person my parents always said I was.

PHIL HANLEY: Yeah, it was great to not have to face those challenges, but it was also a lesson in how all-encompassing dyslexia is because I was in Milan and all of a sudden, I had to get around Milan to go to castings, or if I booked a job, to get to the job. And my reading was such that I couldn't identify where the name of the street ended and then the beginning. Like, you know, it's not just like, you know, street or Avenue there. It's like Piazza and all this stuff. And it was I realized that dyslexia wasn't just going to be a problem in school.

MG: that it was going to be something that you had to deal with in real life, if I can put it that way, as well.

PHIL HANLEY: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But it was great to not, you know, I could hide it, and no one knew, no one knew that I was dyslexic. And it's funny, I talk about it with such pride now, it completely changed, but I was very, I felt a lot of shame and I just didn't want people to know for so many years. And now, it's like, you know, I bring it up when I'm, I'll be ordering lunch after this interview, and it'll come up with the waiter type thing. I just bring, talk about it all the time.

MG: It's interesting, you said you wanted to get away from Oshawa, but one of the things that comes out in the book is you learned a lot from your home. I spent a lot of time there, and we were just there, you know, during the election and what have you talking to folks there. You learned about hard work from there.

PHIL HANLEY: You know what, I learned about hard work and I learned about comedy. I love my friends so much that I grew up with. And I was so, I was made to feel so bad in school and the Schwa Boys where I was just so celebrated for my humour, you know? So they were my first audience, and I'm so grateful to them, and I talk to them every single day. I mean, now we're talking about the playoffs or whatever, but yeah, I talk to someone from Oshawa every single day.

MG: When did you realize or when did they realize that you were funny?

PHIL HANLEY: It's so funny because with my dyslexia, I wasn't good at anything that you could, you know, my skills didn't appear in a report card or a scoreboard or anything, but I knew what modelling did for me. Sorry, I'm answering your question in a roundabout way, but what modelling did to me was I met people like a photographer that was like, yeah, I got a camera when I was six and I knew that's what I wanted to do. And I'd meet a stylist who had gone to art school and knew that fashion was the direction they wanted to go. And I was, you know, wearing a pair of dockers being like, yeah, this was not my dream. And I was like, well, what is it that I'm really good at? And what is it that I, you know, want to do? And I had booked a commercial for Pontiac, and it felt like a huge deal to me. And Sylvester Stallone did the voiceover. Like it was like, whoa, this is, you know, big. And so I was like, well, maybe acting, maybe something like that. And I did an improv class in a church basement in King's Cross in London. And if anyone who's listening has ever done an improv class, it is a mixed bag of society. And it was, you know, and I did it. And in the first scene, I had a line, and I got a pop from these, you know, cross section of humanity. And I realized, I was like, whoa, making these people laugh in the church basement makes me feel as good as making, you know, the Schwa Boys laugh in a basement in Oshawa. And it was this crazy eureka moment where I was like, oh, this is what I want to do. So I didn't know it was stand-up. I thought initially it was improv. So kind of that moment, I like wrapped up a relationship that I was in in England, and I, you know, gave my friends a hug and headed to, my parents had in that time retired and moved from Oshawa to Vancouver. And I moved to Vancouver with just kind of an inkling that I wanted to do something comedy related.

MG: But you knew, you knew in that moment that that was what you wanted to do for the rest of your life.

PHIL HANLEY: Well, I knew that that was the direction I should be going. And then after my first time doing stand-up, I did this open mic in a room that it was so Unconducive with doing an open mic in in Vancouver just off Davey Street. And I remember walking back to see my sister. She was at the, you know, sitting in the back of the room to see My first set. And as I was walking back, I knew That was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. It was just so wild. It was like one of those things where, you know, people talk about like love at first sight and all that stuff. I knew, okay, that this is, it just fit. And it had been so many years of trying to find the thing. And stand-up is the first thing that the more I put into it, the more I get out of it. And I'd never experienced that.

MG: You talked about moving to Vancouver. That's where your parents were living, and you moved from New York to Vancouver. And I mean, you're going through a bunch of difficult things at that time, trying to work through some stuff, including some personal issues and OCD and what have you. What was, tell me a little bit about, it's easy to be derailed in life, and you have this ability, it seems, like of figuring out methods and practices to smash through that. How did you get through that?

PHIL HANLEY: You know what, that is 100% because of dyslexia. It's so interesting that it was such a hurdle and such a painful thing. And it made me be able to face these challenges. And yeah, I suffered from some mental illness. And I say that to, you know, people will approach me, they'll reach out to me online or come to me after a show or, you know, people that I grew up with or, you know, have kids now and will tell me that their kid has been diagnosed with dyslexia. And I'm always like, and I wish I could just like, I'd like to scream this from the top of a Skyscraper in New York city. It's like if your kid is dyslexic, if you can maintain their self-esteem, and that's what my parents did, then once they get out of school, they can face these challenges that most people aren't prepared for. Because you're nine years old and you're dyslexic and you go to school every day, you have the grit of someone that's been divorced twice and a recovering alcoholic. Like you've been through it at a really young age.

MG: You do a lot of your performances in front of kids who also have dyslexia, and you've said that, I mean, in some ways, that's like being Bob Hope performing in front of the troops. What does that do for you when you do that?

PHIL HANLEY: Yeah, this, this will make me emotional for sure. This is what is so tough, is so I do a version of my act when I get an opportunity to to talk to kids that are dyslexic. And what breaks my heart is after, you know, I'll do stand-up, they'll do like a Q and A, and instead of being like, hey, do you know Amy Schumer? What's Kevin Hart like? Their questions are always, how are you not ashamed to be dyslexic? Because, you know, I talk about it. And it just breaks my heart because it's like, it's such nothing to be ashamed of because it’s, when do people feel shame about facing adversity? Like it's, these kids are, and they talk to me about their studying methods and they're like, they figure it out themselves. They're like, well, I can learn how to, I can learn to spell a word if I sit down with like a giant piece of like Bristol board or cardboard and write it out really big and then I like, you know, memorize it. And they just work so hard to just do okay. And they feel so much shame, and it just breaks my heart. And so I always, you know, try to challenge them. Like I have no shame. I go to a post office where I know the woman is really cool, and I can show her the screenshot of the address on my phone where I need to send a letter, and she writes it out, and I have no shame. But it took a long, long, long time to get there.

MG: This is the challenge that you ask them. You say, go a whole week without hesitating to ask for help.

PHIL HANLEY: Yes, that's what I say because I know. I know this. If you struggle in spelling, you're going to excel in something else. So it's like you're going, the person that's helping you spell, you're better than them in something else. And maybe it's being personable. And maybe it’s you're kinder than that person or better with building things. I just know that that's how it works. So I mean, talk about being emotional. I could get very emotional thinking of these kids that face these challenges every day. It's a real struggle to go to school every day. And when they do that, they're very brave people that should be filled with pride.

MG: Tell me about the bravery that is required for someone with dyslexia to go into a recording booth and record the audio version of your book.

PHIL HANLEY: Oh man, that was… So I wrote the book and, you know, from the beginning of the concept to when it was, you know, came out, it was it was eight years. And I was aware that there was going to be an audiobook coming in, and I just didn't allow myself to kind of think about it. And then once the book was done, it was time to do the audiobook. And there was an option to get an actor to do it, but I knew I'm really a perfectionist and very hell bent on things being the way that I want them to be if it's part of, you know, something that I've created. And so I just knew it would kill me to have an actor not land my jokes. So I decided to go in and do the audio book, but it was harder than writing the book because I can, you know, write on my own time, but the audio book, you have to read it, and it has to be conversational. And I've never read anything conversational in my life. I had a great guy whose name is Guy, who worked with me from my publisher, and he was just phenomenal and directed me and patiently. You know, normally, someone does an audio book in a couple of days. It took me 72 hours, which meant for three hours of recording, I could do three hours at a time. I would prep for three hours. So I would read, I would highlight, I would mark where commas were. And yeah, it was a wild, wild, wild process.

MG: What do you feel like you learned about yourself in doing it?

PHIL HANLEY: I mean, I learned that I could do it. And I learned a lesson that I've learned so many times, that I can do these things that seemed impossible, and it just takes time. But I have time. Like, you know, and I'm so grateful that I did do the audiobook. Because for me, it seems so hypocritical to write the book and then to be pleading with kids not to feel ashamed about dyslexia and, you know, begging parents to maintain their kid’s self-esteem and guaranteeing that if they do that, that their kid will be, you know, successful and find something that they love to do and stuff like that, or doing my best to guarantee that, and then be like, yeah, but not audio books. So I thought it was really important that I record the audiobook, and I'm really grateful that I had the right support cast to allow me to do that.

MG: Throughout this conversation, you have been really open and emotional and you get busted up about things. It’s just that's uncommon for a lot of guys to be that raw in speaking about something in this vulnerable sort of way. And I just wonder where you think that comes from.

PHIL HANLEY: It's funny because I, you know, I've talked about the book so much. I was in my cab on the way to the studio today to talk to you, and again, I was so excited to do some Canadian press for the book. I was like, I don't think I'll be emotional this time, but of course I was. I have no shame. I mean, I'm proud that I'm- able to speak about it now and, you know, I'm really proud of the book and that it's done. And yeah, I feel those things, and I think it's, I don't think there's any shame in that. But also, I really want people to know what people who are neurodiverse, what we go through. And I mean, I think me getting emotional is kind of exhibit of what that is, because this is all stuff that happened to me many, many years ago. Now, you know, I, I have people to help me and stuff like that, but yeah, it was really painful for a long, long period of time.

MG: And now, it's not something that you need to hide anymore.

PHIL HANLEY: Not only do I not need to hide it, it’s I'm celebrated talking about it. Like it's remarkable. I was just, I played Tampa last weekend, and, you know, the late show on Saturday, I went on, I went on stage at probably quarter after 11. It was the day of the Kentucky Derby. A lot of people had been drinking since the afternoon, and somehow, they're engaged when I'm telling jokes about being dyslexic. And, you know, they say one in 10 people in society are dyslexic. So maybe a portion of the crowd was, you know, struggled with dyslexia or a learning disability of some sort. But for some reason, it's interesting and engaging. So not only do I not feel shame in it, it's something that's, you know, celebrated with laughter every time that I get on stage and talk about it.

MG: It's a real pleasure to talk to you. The book is fascinating, your story is great, but just also who you are and what you're doing with who you are and what you’ve been through is really quite something. So congratulations on that.

PHIL HANLEY: Thank you so much. I was so excited to speak to a Canadian and to do some Canadian press. And I'm here in New York City, you know, a little bit homesick after we spoke, but yeah, thank you so much for having me on the show. It was really an honour.

MG: Your story is going to mean a lot to a lot of kids who are listening, so thanks again.

PHIL HANLEY: Thank you.

MG: Phil Hanley is a Canadian comedian based in New York. His new book is called “Spellbound: My Life as a Dyslexic Wordsmith.” Well, coming up after your regional update.

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[birds]

MG: It’s a sound that’s synonymous with springtime, the dawn chorus, birds chirping to ring in the day. The science writer, Ed Yong, never really gave a lot of thought to the sound of birds until recently. We'll hear from Ed Yong about how birding changed his life. One of the ways it did that is through an app. It's kind of like Shazam, but for birds. You can hold it up and it picks up the sounds of birds. That app will not be picking up as many sounds as it has in past because a new study out of Cornell University, the place that makes that app, reveals that the North American bird population is down by almost three billion birds since 1970. What is happening with our avian friends and what can we do to reverse that trend? We will find out coming up in 90 seconds here on The Current. I'm Matt Galloway. Stay with us. We're back in just a minute and a half.

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BIRD STUDY

Guest: Amanda Rodewald

MG: Hello again. I'm Matt Galloway, and you're listening to The Current.

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[birds]

MG: That's the call of the red-winged blackbird. If you feel like you're hearing its song a little less these days, you might be right. The numbers of red-winged blackbirds are in decline across North America. Just one of nearly 500 birds that Cornell University's ornithology lab looked at in a new study. The findings in that study paint a dire picture. 75% of all bird species in North America are in decline. The drops in population also happening fastest in areas where birds were usually most abundant. Amanda Rodewald is an author of the study, senior director of the Centre for Avian Population Studies at Cornell University's Lab of Ornithology. Amanda, good morning.

AMANDA RODEWALD: Good morning, Matt. It's great to be here.

MG: It's great to have you here. This is the time of the year when, I mean, as I said, people are waking up to the sounds of the dawn chorus of birds that are chirping in the morning. The spring migration is underway. Birds should be arriving. And yet, these numbers, as I say, 75% of bird species in decline sound bad. How bad is it?

AMANDA RODEWALD: Yeah, it is something that we need to really focus on. So over the last five or six years, we've seen a series of reports that have alerted us to these widespread and, as you say, oftentimes steep population declines across North America. So this recent paper in Science, it really uses a different and sharper lens because we're taking data from eBird that allow us to really pinpoint in fine detail precisely where these population declines have been occurring recently, so since 2007. And so yeah, we're finding that these range-wide declines occur, but that we are able to detect now, for the first time, those pockets where we can really focus our conservation efforts. So it's actually giving us some power.

MG: You mentioned eBird. I mean, this is citizen science, right? A lot of the findings that you're pulling here are from data that was gathered by the sightings of birds that people themselves found and then put through this app.

AMANDA RODEWALD: Yeah, it's wonderful. As you say, global, this is really a global participatory science project that's fundamentally a partnership with bird organizations around the world. Birds Canada and Quebec Oiseaux have been partners from the start. And so since 2002, volunteers have submitted almost two billion observations from every country in the world. And so those one million contributors to eBird are actually helping to fuel science, wildlife and environmental management and help decision-makers make choices better that really help support both people and the planet.

MG: Where are you seeing the steepest decline in bird populations?

AMANDA RODEWALD: Well, we see them, if you look across species groups, grassland birds and shorebirds have declined most severely. When we look across, you know, across the ranges of these different species, what's really most striking and frankly most alarming is that most of these declines are steepest in the species strongholds. So these are the places where they're most abundant and where we generally expect them to thrive. So although there are many different reasons that might contribute to this pattern, what it does tell us is that we need to be aware that environmental conditions seem to be deteriorating. And obviously, we care about that for birds, but we share those same environments with those birds.

MG: One of the birds that people have pointed to that is in precipitous decline is the great blue heron, which is a majestic bird. What in particular is happening with the herons?

AMANDA RODEWALD: Yeah, so great blue herons with many other species that are dependent upon wetlands and waters, like the red-winged blackbird that you featured at the start of this story, we're losing wetlands. We continue to convert them to agriculture or development. You know, they also can be degraded by soil erosion, you know, sedimentation, chemicals that flow into those areas. So. And climate change, things like droughts, you know, that are more severe these days. So many different factors tend to contribute to the declines we see.

MG: What's happening with avian influenza? That seems to be, I mean, we talk about that in terms of how it's impacting bird populations in, you know, flocks of chickens and turkeys and what have you, but it also is impacting migratory patterns as well, right?

AMANDA RODEWALD: Well, so this study did not focus on avian influenza in particular. We're more describing these patterns of declines. However, there are many scientists who are studying avian influenza. We know that it does disproportionately affect some groups of really strong conservation importance like seabirds, for example. So that is a situation that is continuing to be studied that we do have to worry about both for human health and for certain bird populations.

MG: But if you're talking about, so in the populations of shorebirds or in grassland birds and in birds around marshlands, how much of this is our fault, I mean, if you’re talking about, you know, the impact of development or the degradation of those environments?

AMANDA RODEWALD: I mean, ultimately, most of the changes we're seeing, so whether it's due to habitat loss and degradation, which is the biggest driver of decline, or even indirectly through climate change, we are, human activities are the biggest factor that's affecting species. But I will say, like, I mean, of course, we need some of these activities to persist, and that's why programs like eBird that are providing more information than ever about birds and the environments we share with them are really game changers, because they're empowering us to be more precise in our actions, act more quickly, be more proactive, and ultimately, that means we'll be less restrictive to a lot of the activities that sustain livelihoods and communities and strong economies.

MG: What is it that we can do, if we are responsible for this, what is it that we can do to help turn those numbers around?

AMANDA RODEWALD: I think looking at, you know, a very strategic early look at where we can, for example, cite some of these human activities, where we're citing renewable energy projects. You know, there are ways to accommodate where we’re avoiding the most important places for biodiversity that many times are actually also supporting the ecosystem services that safeguard human health and well-being. So again, with information, we can make better choices. Much more broadly, from a sort of civics perspective, we need to always be supporting conservation organizations, government agencies who are charged with protecting these systems and express that, whether at the ballot box or with donations or with just supporting and participating in projects like eBird.

MG: Is your sense that people are paying more attention to this now? We're going to hear a conversation with Ed Yong coming up in a moment, who never paid much attention. He's fascinated with the natural world, but didn't pay a lot of attention to birds until after the pandemic. And in part, his introduction was through the Merlin Bird Identification app that Cornell is so deeply responsible for. Is your sense that people are paying more attention to this issue now, that that might help lead the change that you're talking about?

AMANDA RODEWALD: Absolutely, Matt. Yeah, when we look at it right now, there was a study at least done in the US showing half of American adults watch or feed birds. And so, you know, I know in Canada, there are, of course, lots of really passionate birders as well. And so that engagement is important. That engagement, for one, also sends strong economic signals because these birds are generating a lot of activity, economic activity. So even people who don't care about birds matter. But I think that the interest in birds also helps to make people generally more aware that the same actions we need to take to conserve birds are in fact the same ones we should be taking to protect human health and well-being. And so we're seeing more and more that it's not a question of do we help birds or do we help people, but really, it's how best do we serve both groups? And thanks to birders who generously contribute their observations to programs like eBird, we have more and better information to do that than ever.

MG: Amanda, thank you very much for this.

AMANDA RODEWALD: Thank you, Matt.

MG: Amanda Rodewald is a senior director of the Centre for Avian Population Studies at Cornell University's Lab of Ornithology. Ed Yong also has a passion for birds. He's a science writer and birder. His new book is a young readers edition of his best-selling book, “An Immense World.” It's about the natural world that surrounds us, and he won a number of prizes and received great acclaim for this book. I spoke with Ed Yong last spring about his new love for birding. Here's our conversation.

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MG: Have you seen any birds of note today?

ED YONG: I can see some house finches feeding off the bird feeder in my backyard. And I was woken up at 3 a.m. by our local, very loud mockingbird.

MG: You've been recording the number of birds that you are seeing. How many are you up to now? What's the number at?

ED YONG: Hang on, let me get you an actual number. I do have a list. So it's about 450 roughly.

MG: That's amazing.

ED YONG: Thank you. Yeah, it's a lot, right? I think that keeping a tally of the number is, of course, one way to go about it. But I think what I really enjoy about birding is everything beyond just the numbers and the list keeping. It's been phenomenal for my mental health. It has tripled the time I spend outdoors. It has completely changed the way I interact with and appreciate the natural world. It really has been a completely transformative hobby that makes nature feel so much more accessible, so much more poignant, and just so much closer to my daily life than it has ever been before. And I'm a science writer who's written about the animal kingdom for as long as I've written about anything. And yet, you know, this has just radically changed how I interact with it.

MG: How did you fall into this?

ED YONG: So I moved from DC to California to the Bay area in May, and then a bunch of things happened in quick succession. You know, I walked into my house for the first time and saw an Anna's hummingbird perched on a tree in the backyard. One of my good friends, Jenny Odell, who's an incredible author, lent me a copy of her field guide. She had so generously and thoughtfully annotated it with all of her favourite birds, like which ones I would be most likely to see. I downloaded an app called Merlin, which identifies the songs of birds in real time. And I would take it for walks around my neighbourhood while I was walking my dog or on hikes and, you know, marvelled at just being able to know who was around. Knowing bird song I think gives you this glorious feeling of extending the scope of your senses and your awareness. And all of these factors together just created this little itch that I then had to scratch by going out to places specifically with the intent of looking at birds. And that's the moment where I think I really became a birder.

MG: Can you describe that moment? You write about going out to a wetland near your home.

ED YONG: Yeah. There's a site called Arrowhead Marsh. It's mainly a wetland, but it has lots of different habitats as well. You know, currently, I can go out there and with not too much effort, over about an hour and a half, see maybe 50, 60 species. But, you know, on that day, I went to the site and walked out onto a pier and sat on this boardwalk looking over this grassy marshland. I saw a great blue heron. I heard marsh wrens calling in the reeds. I saw a red necked phalarope. It's a type of wetland bird that sits in the water and spins in circles to stir up insects, which it then eats. And, you know, I had this incredible sense of charm and, you know, tranquillity. It's been a rough several years for I think all of us. You know, my head is almost always swarming with thoughts, concerns, ideas, anxieties. And just in that moment, I felt still and entirely focused on everything around me with my ears, with my eyes. It was just such an intensely meditative experience. You know, I tried meditating before with varying degrees of success, but this felt like more meditative than meditating. And all the clamour in my head just dropped out and I just felt there. And that is the sensation that I still get all the time in birding. The world falls away. And it's possible to see that as an escape from reality, but I actually think of it as an immersion in the true reality. Here’s the natural world. It is all around us. One gets so caught up in all the ridiculous minutia of everyday life, and you sort of forget that this incredible expanse of nature exists. And I think being able to really pay attention to it is wonderful and really life changing. If I think of things like birding, the things that give me joy and expand my world as just a sidebar to my work, which is how I judge my worth, then I will always be at breaking point. It made me realize that I needed to create time for these activities that actually are not the side bar for a fulfilled life, but their very essence.

MG: And creating a contrast between that that brings you joy and what you refer to as kind of ceaseless production.

ED YONG: Yeah. You know, I sort of for the longest time defined myself according to how much I was writing. During the height of the pandemic, I was writing, you know, a 3 to 5000 word feature every couple of weeks. You know, and I'm proud of that work. But it, you know, it burned me to a crisp. And I think that all of that got me to a place where I wanted to re-evaluate how I thought about what makes me whole and what gives my life meaning. Birding gives me a lot of that. It gives me a connection to nature. It gives me a sense of community. And in Oakland, a local birder found a Cassin's sparrow at a local site. Now, this is a bird that's found in the southwest. It had to that date never been recorded in the East Bay before. It is even by sparrow standards a drab bird. It is a grey and brown bird. It has a beautiful voice, but it's very rare in these parts. And dozens of local birders flocked to the site to look at this bird, and many of whom, even people who'd been birding for like decades, were seeing this species for the first time. And I think just to be part of that communal sense of joy to find so much wonder in an animal that looks, you know, so innocuous and so mundane to the average eye was an incredible experience. You know, I think it's sort of easy to roll one's eyes at people, you know, losing their minds over a tiny grey, brown sparrow, but I've spent a long chunk of my professional life scrolling endlessly through tapes and thoughts on Twitter and what have you. And I can tell you which of those two activities feels more ludicrous to me. And it's definitely not the one with the sparrow.

MG: I think a lot of us have had that idea that we're squeezing the joy and wonder into the remaining parts of our life, and that we wish we could find more moments for joy and wonder. When you were able to do that, when you were intentional about carving out that time, what did you find about yourself?

ED YONG: Yeah, I found that I was happy. Christ, like I was, you know, became less anxious. I sleep better. There's so much about birding we can talk about, right? I think so much of the world around us contracts our experience, and I think birding is exactly the opposite. Birding is expansive. It makes me look into treetops. It makes me, it allows me to hear and work out who is there over large distances. You know, it connects me to millions of years of evolutionary time. And there's something just actually quietly radical about the simple act of spending a lot of your day just looking up. You know, I spend hours of every day outside in the sun gazing into treetops or into the distance, and I cannot tell you how transformative that feels. It feels like such an antidote to, you know, a lot of the things that are ailing us right now. You know, I don't know about you, but I certainly feel like almost all of my close friends are struggling right now, or at least at the very least, going through a period of serious introspection. Like what is my place in the world? How do I navigate this society whose institutions fail us at every turn? Like how do I make meaning amidst the chaos? And my answer is not just, well, go birding, right? But that's part of it. It's about feeling connected to the natural world, taking time for yourself, looking up, listening. It's about all of that. You know, I want to note that this is a pretty privileged reality, right? Like I am now a freelancer, basically. I have complete control of my hours. So I can go birding if I want to. I think most people don't have that freedom and that opportunity. But I would say that despite that, being intentional about this stuff is still very possible. Sometimes friends ask me like, when do you go birding? And the answer is kind of all the time, right? Like I am birding right now while we're having this talk. I can see house finches in my feeder. I can see an Anna's hummingbird doing courtship displays in the yard across the street. I can see California towhee foraging in my garden. And it's very easy to think that nature is largely inaccessible to us. You know, I've just listed a bunch of backyard birds which are very easy to spot here in Oakland. And I remember when Jenny first gave me her field guide, looking through it and thinking, there's no way I'll see like a golden eagle or, you know, a white-winged scoter. These are birds that are in the field guide for completion sake. There's no chance like a random guy who lives in the city is going to see these, but I've seen golden eagles, loggerhead shrike, sandhill cranes. I've been sat in a forest that's like 10 minutes from my house in the dead of night, listening to four species of owls hooting at each other. So much of what I thought would never be accessible to me is actually like easily accessible. It's just about creating time and finding those opportunities. And I think it is easier than ever to do that because of tools like Merlin and because of sites like eBird. EBird is a place where I and most other serious birders log their sightings. It's about two things. Like firstly, creating the time and the space for it in your life, and also getting over this sort of mental block that this is silly or hard. I think we internalize this idea that nature is distant from us. But no, the natural world is it's everywhere. And I think understanding that and being able to tap into it has just changed my life. And I hope it can do that for other people who are trying to work out, you know, what to do with the moment.

MG: What are you looking for in the spring migration?

ED YONG: Yeah. You know, I had a really great day yesterday. I saw my first bullock's oriole, the lazuli buntings, western tanagers will be back. Calliope hummingbirds with their beautiful, streaked throats. I hope to see all of them. Many of the species I'm very familiar with now are busting out these songs that I've never heard before. I got to hear a ruby-crowned kinglet do its courtship song for the first time. I was just blown away. They have a breeding plumage that I've never seen. A lot of the shorebirds, the loons, the grebes, are just now like decked out in fancy colours when they were mostly greys and browns for most of the winter. And I think that's part of it too, right? Like birding is a reminder that of the very granular change in the world like as the seasons go past. Previously, I would have noted the trees getting their leaves or losing their leaves. I would note the lengthening or the shortening of the days. But I now have the sense that, oh, you know, this is the week when ash-throated flycatchers are going to start showing up again. You know, this is the week when the ruddy ducks get their bright blue bills. And that's part of appreciating nature on just a much finer scale than before.

MG: I'm delighted to talk to somebody who is also suffering from, as you said, birder derangement syndrome. It feels like a pretty good place to be. Ed Yong, what a pleasure. Thank you very much.

ED YONG: Yeah, thanks for having me. Always a pleasure.

MG: Ed Yong is a Pulitzer Prize winning science writer and bestselling author. The young readers edition of his award-winning bestselling book, “An Immense World”, is coming out this week. That idea of how looking up is a quietly radical act is something that's really powerful, I think. We heard about the popular eBird site from our guests this morning. Over the weekend, eBird did a Global Big Day. This is where thousands of birders around the world logged the species they saw over the course of the day. In North America, on Saturday alone, 1664 species were logged as part of the Global Big Day. My contribution to that was the hermit thrush that I saw in the forest on Saturday morning. The best sounding bird, maybe. If you took part in the Global Big Day or if that idea of what Ed was talking about, looking up as a radical act or just the fact that nature is all around you, if that spoke to you, you can let us know. What have you seen while you've been looking up? You can email us, thecurrent@cbc.ca. That is The Current for this Monday, the 12th of May. Q is up next on CBC Radio One. We're going to leave you with some music from Leif Vollebekk. This is “Big Sky Country.” I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current, and we'll see you tomorrow.

[Song: “Big Sky Country” by Leif Vollebekk]

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Monday, May 12, 2025 Episode Transcript

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