Ep.235 Bird Nerds Of Dripping Springs (Amanda and Hector Bustillos of WILD BIRDS UNLIMITED)

SPEAKER_09 0:04

Welcome to Malida Michelle. I'm Michelle, where I have reached the age where watching birds on a backyard camera is a perfectly acceptable hobby. And this is Steve, who had a one-eyed chicken. So naturally, today's guest is a bird expensive.

SPEAKER_05 0:19

Or Penny. You're making fun of Penny.

SPEAKER_09 0:22

Well, she had one eye.

SPEAKER_05 0:23

She did have one eye, but she was a she was a beautiful chicken.

SPEAKER_09 0:26

She had one eye. Yes. Today we have wild birds joining us. We have Amanda and Hector Bostillos. Look at that. But first we're going to thank our sponsors today.

SPEAKER_05 0:39

Yeah, I can't do the show without these wonderful sponsors.

SPEAKER_09 0:42

We have, I was like, oh, I have to say them, right? I have to say who that is. The Deep Eddie Vodka tasting room.

SPEAKER_05 0:50

Deep Eddie Vodka has all the flavor you need for a relaxing hill country night watching the sunset. Find it at your on your local shelves now.

SPEAKER_09 0:59

And South Star Bank.

SPEAKER_05 1:02

Found your dream home. Let South Star Bank help you find the perfect loan to make it yours.

SPEAKER_09 1:07

Come on, Mallet. Come on. Am I not? You're just not on the ball this time. Come on.

SPEAKER_05 1:12

It's coming. It's coming.

SPEAKER_09 1:13

Black slate construction and black slate roofing.

SPEAKER_05 1:16

Never panic hire your roofer or your contractor. Reach out to Black Slate Roofing and Black Slate Construction for straight talk about how to do the project right the first time. How's that?

SPEAKER_09 1:27

Okay, well, we're gonna dial it back just a little. And Mallet integrity team.

SPEAKER_05 1:33

I did this one for you for your day yesterday. Helping clients and selling houses the old-fashioned way. We're not afraid to work hard and get a little dirty to get the deal done.

SPEAKER_09 1:43

Michelle accidentally deleted the graphic, so I need to click on it.

SPEAKER_05 1:49

Uh-oh.

SPEAKER_09 1:50

Well, you know. Click, click. You know what it you know what happens. Look, look, yeah, look at my camera now. It's just dead. But yeah, welcome.

SPEAKER_05 1:59

You say the camera, are you talking about YouTube? Is it dead?

SPEAKER_09 2:02

No, my camera or my my uh what is this called? Computer screen.

SPEAKER_05 2:07

Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, we can do that.

SPEAKER_09 2:09

What you get is what you get.

SPEAKER_05 2:10

Hey, our guest in studio today. Super exciting.

SPEAKER_09 2:13

Amanda and Hector. Bostias from Wild Birds Unlimited. Yeah. And so I heard, Amanda, on your bio that people call you the bird girl of dripping springs. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

They're always like, There's that bird seat chick. Especially when we do school programs. All the little kids in town are like, it's that bird lady. It's that bird girl.

SPEAKER_05 2:36

It's a bird girl. There's worse things. You should hear what people call me, Amanda.

SPEAKER_09 2:40

Well, true, true. So you guys, y'all have lived here in Dripping Springs. You've lived here in Dripping Springs your whole life. You born and raised here. Um, you and your brother, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Yes, born and raised here. My parents moved out to Heritage Oaks, I think 43 years ago. Oh, geez. They were one of the first houses even in that area. So it's kind of hard to imagine now. Um, but yeah, I grew up here, went to all grades here in Dripping Springs, graduated, went to Texas State University where I met the love of my life.

SPEAKER_07 3:10

That's me. Where did you grow up?

SPEAKER_01 3:12

That's me.

SPEAKER_07 3:14

I grew up in West Texas, Midland specifically.

SPEAKER_05 3:17

Okay, okay. And how'd you end up here?

SPEAKER_07 3:19

Well, I kind of I went to school in Abilene McMurray right after high school. I got a baseball scholarship. I really wanted to play baseball for a living. I told my counselor that's what I wanted to do. She thought I was crazy. Um it turned out that I wasn't so much into school as I was into baseball. Ended up flanking out, unfortunately. Um but I went to live with my brothers in college station. They were very stubious. Uh I was so glad to and fortunate to have them. Uh, I kind of modeled my study habits after them, brought my grades up, and then eventually transferred to Texas State where I met. And the rest is history.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Yeah, the rest is history. And what's funny is he was a 4.0 student when I met him. He basically lived in the library. So it's hard to imagine that he was ever not a great student because he is still the most studious person that I know.

SPEAKER_05 4:17

That's funny. That was a pretty hard lesson, though, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_07 4:20

It's a it's a very difficult lesson to go through. Um, but you know, I was stronger because of it.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 4:26

Um, and once you get the ball rolling, I know for a lot of folks they pick up on stuff right away. For me, it takes two, three times longer, which is why I have to live at the library uh just to sort of catch up.

SPEAKER_09 4:40

Yeah. Well, that's good. Well, you know, I I was reading that your parents started this um this store, franchise store, as a retirement dream for them. Your father was a police officer, yes, and your mother was a pharmacist.

SPEAKER_03 4:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_09 4:55

And um, it just kind of morphed into something different. I said they built something that's worth more than money. Um, and all of the the whole family, I think the first time you guys, when you opened like 10 years ago, either you had just had a baby or you were pregnant. I can't remember.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

So we had a one-year-old daughter. I opened this the shop with my mom and dad. We kind of were all, I had, you know, quit my job so I could stay home with our daughter. And I was actually pregnant with her when we started to have the dream the dream, I guess, and think about this as an opportunity. And um, so I was kind of at a stopping point. They were both retired. Hector was a school teacher, actually. And we were like, let's do this. So I had just had her, she was one when our doors officially open. Um, but it really started when I was pregnant with her, and now she's 10 years old. She's so grown up.

SPEAKER_09 5:47

I know when Steve said um 10 years, I couldn't believe it. And I'm gonna be just totally transparent with you. When you guys first opened, when I saw that sign go up, I was like, a bird seed store?

SPEAKER_05 6:01

Yeah, well, that's that's what that's my question. What what made you? I'm sure you did a bunch of research. What made you say, yeah, we can open a bird seed store, bird feeder store in dripping springs, and we'll do well. What made you think that?

SPEAKER_01 6:14

I truly believe that, you know, from the start, like especially back 45 years ago when my parents moved out here, that's why everybody came to Dripping Springs was to get that outdoor connected to nature experience. And there's still so many people who have been here for 40 plus years who are still very connected to that here in Dripping Springs. And I think when you grow up here and you you know your community, you know that you share that common passion with, you know, a good number of people. And so we were really hopeful that it would work out and we wanted to connect with people who had never thought about feeding the birds before, never thought about planting wildflower seeds and connecting to nature. And we got that reaction from a lot of people. Like I remember, and it kind of scared me because when we opened the door, we were like, this is a great idea. And the amount of people who came in and were like, I'm I'm hoping the best for you guys, but I really like I can't see a bird seed shop making it here in town. Um, we were like, oh my gosh, what do we do? That little voice in the back of our head, yeah, did we just do something crazy? But thankfully, everything has worked out really well. We um, you know, we're so fortunate to have the best customers on planet earth, like the community here, and the common, you know, goal is to, you know, make dripping springs a bird-friendly community. I mean, we're an official bird city with Texas Parks and Wildlife. It's a huge destination for bird watching. People come from all over the country, all over the world to come watch birds here in Dripping Springs.

SPEAKER_05 7:51

I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Yes, yeah, we have one of the best spots, especially during spring migration. So we are, I mean, a bird-loving hotspot.

SPEAKER_05 8:01

See, I think that's what when you were a little nervous when you were opening up, that's what you guys brought to the table was the education. Because every time I've gone in there and bought something, I leave going, wow, I didn't know all that. But they, you know, that's and you're not gonna get that on Amazon. Yeah, you're not gonna get that from ATB.

SPEAKER_09 8:18

But also, aside from that, we share a parking lot with you. So when our windows are open, I see more than anything. What I see, you talked about your customers. You guys are out there, your I see you all the time loading your customers' cars or your dad out there talking to whomever. You know, I'm like, isn't he supposed to be working? He's out in the parking lot again. That is what is most special, I think, about you guys, the customer service that that you guys kind of put forward.

SPEAKER_05 8:44

You didn't just fill up a store and put a cash register there and go, come on, people, you're out trying to be part of the community.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Absolutely. That's been our goal since day one. Um, having the best customer service is always top of mind for us. And our customers, like I can't even talk about it because I'll start crying, but our customers are family to us. We know almost everybody that walks in the door by name. We know about their families, they know about us. They've watched our kids grow up, so they're family to us, and every single customer experience in our shop is I mean, it's it's everything to us. So we do our best every single time.

SPEAKER_05 9:22

Have birds always been important to you?

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Yes, yeah. Growing up here in grouping, and my parents are still in the very same house, that same window where I grew up watching my dad feed the birds, my mom feed the birds, and that connection to my family through birds. Um, it's and that's what we love is when customers come in, they're like, that reminds me of my grandma. That reminds me of my grandpa when we did the Purple Martin housing together. It's that family connection. And then whenever I was in the fifth grade, I had a teacher named Mr. O, who got to be a speaker at our shop um probably about six or seven years ago. And he took us on the great Texas Birding Classic. And I still see a lot of my classmates in town who also went on that birding competition. And that was a game changer for me.

SPEAKER_04 10:06

What is that? Tell us because most of our listeners may not know what that is.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

So Texas Parks and Wildlife, they have a big competition each year. It just happened um a couple weeks ago called the Great Texas Birding Classic, and they have smaller versions of that called like the Big Sit. So um we had a drip a Wild Birds Unlimited of Dripping Springs Big Sit um team. And so we went out to Ranch Park. It's a 24 hours of birding, and you know, we you count how many species you see and you log them and you send that into Texas Parks and Wildlife. And so people are competing all around the state to see the most species, but the bigger you know, competitions that go down to the coast and the valley.

SPEAKER_09 10:43

I I I'm from the Rio Gran Valley originally, and so I knew that a lot of that it's a huge bird, yes, bird area down there. I wanted to kind of jump back a little bit, and you were talking about being a family business. Um, family business can get a little spicy sometimes, right? Working together all of the time, especially with your mom and dad and you know, with your kids and with your husband, you never kind of really kind of get a break. How do you kind of pull yourself or ground yourself to give yourself some space?

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Yeah, that's a really great question. We've been very fortunate that we all get along really well. I really, the years my mom and dad were in the shop, we purchased it from them a few years ago, and they've kind of, but they're still involved a little bit. But I've always found it really easy and like kind of the top of what I want to do is just spend time with my family. We're lucky that we all get along really well and that we just we love spending time with each other. And I think that's especially challenging for like a married couple, especially while you're raising children and juggling it all, you know.

SPEAKER_05 11:45

Because you guys are 24-7. When you get down to it, you're to get you're together every day, seven days a week.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Yeah, we're partners in business and we're partners in parenting, yeah. Which is kind of a crazy challenge when you think about it in life. But we I can only speak for myself, but we just love spending time together so much. And so thankfully, I think I know you're supposed to say me, me too. Blink if you need help. If you ask our staff, they'll probably say, you know what, we've witnessed a couple crazy moments where we thought maybe we were gonna kill each other. But for the most part, I think even when life, you know, it takes me to the baseball field or it takes him to the baseball fields, and one of us is in store, we miss each other all day. Like I feel like, especially during the summertime when we're juggling, having the kids at home, and one of us is at home and one of us is in store. You know, by the end of the day, I'm like, where are you at?

SPEAKER_00 12:42

I miss you.

SPEAKER_09 12:43

Well, you know, family um is so and so ingrained in the Hispanic culture. And that you guys met in like a Hispanic, uh what was it? The a Hispanic club, um Hispanic Club, that's right on campus. And so you I heard you in another interview, you talked about introducing Latino families to more uh nature and birding. Why is that important to you?

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Because I feel like that's it's something, Hector, you can really speak to that more, but he didn't grow up being connected to nature. Um, and that's it's something that I feel like, you know, down in the Rio Grande Valley, it's kind of a different experience. I'm really amazed that you have roots there. That's where my grandparents are from. So we're I'm gonna eat the Barbie. Yeah. You know, it's just not something that everybody's exposed to or like has the time and you know, sometimes the privilege to have like a bird feeder, you know? And we want to reach as many people as we possibly can. And Hector does Spanish um speaking presentations at different schools here in our community. Oh, really? So it's like, you know, even just having someone who can speak your language to teach you about nature, and it's something really cool. So Hector brings that to the table.

SPEAKER_09 13:59

What are you finding, Hector, when you're when you're going to those schools, um, what those kids, I guess, are getting most amazed about?

SPEAKER_07 14:08

Just nature. You know, just being exposed to the things that we're taught.

SPEAKER_09 14:13

Just getting away from the screen or yeah.

SPEAKER_07 14:15

Yeah, yeah. For me, I think growing up in an immigrant family, you know, all our time and efforts were devoted to, you know, watching our parents like work their tails off and just kind of ensuring that you're, you know, you know, just kind of doing your part, you know, going to school, being kind, being respectful, not making too much of a fuss, uh, ensuring that your parents don't have to deal with issues within the family with kids. So um, I grew up in Litland and our families are from you know, little ranch towns in northern Mexico. Uh, so we got to see our grandparents um out in the fields, you know, attending to the farm and and to the animals. So being connected with nature was part of our growing up. We just didn't get to experience it as much as we would have wanted.

SPEAKER_09 15:08

Modern culture just kind of prevented that. I I was telling Steve, there was a time when I was growing growing up in the valley. My grandfather bought citrus out of the valley, and so I was in the dirt, you know, I would go to the onion field or the cantaloupe field or whatever. And so it I guess I kind of took it for granted in that sense.

SPEAKER_05 15:26

Um you know what's cool about this for me is that some of these kids that you're speaking to might think when they think of nature, they might think, oh, you gotta go to a national park or you gotta go drive out into the country. And with birds, you can go sit out in your backyard, you can go drive a mile and a half to Ranch Park. So, in that competition you did, how many birds did you see? And and what were your favorites?

SPEAKER_01 15:50

You know, we I think it was 56 total species at the end of the day. I can't do we get fourth or fifth place. I think it was fifth place. We had an amazing gentleman named Jacob kind of running the whole show the whole day because we were in the shop for Mother's Day and we got to make it out at the very end of the day, and it was magical. A little fox greeted us as soon as we got off work day. It was under the feeders at Ranch Park, and the sun was starting to go down, and we were like, we finally made it. There was a painted bunting on the feeder, and our kids were just like, Yeah, we're trying to have them be quiet so that it was quiet.

SPEAKER_05 16:23

Those are pretty, those are pretty rare. You don't see those.

SPEAKER_09 16:26

I saw one in my backyard last week. I did, I was very excited. And on my case.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

Is that your favorite? That was my favorite that we saw that evening. I think for me, the painted bunting, just seeing a rainbow-colored bird on your feeder, just never that magic's never lost for me. I've seen them year after year, but it's just miraculous. It makes you emotional when you see them because they're like, wow, how is there this little flying rainbow that I'm able to see here in Dripping Springs, Texas on my feeder? That's magic. And I think whenever kids learn about that, they're just they're amazed too. Yeah. Are able to spot them in the wild.

SPEAKER_05 17:05

They're very elusive. Like they, you know, if they sense any movement, they're gone. And they don't just fly to a branch three feet away, they they're gone.

SPEAKER_09 17:13

Well, I was telling you that I saw that one, and then Todd said it's a scissor tail. Oh, scissor tail like it. Yeah, that was the one that remember I was showing you that you said it looked like a dove in the front, and we oh, yeah. That's what it was. So we looked it up.

SPEAKER_05 17:27

There's a lot we see a lot of cardinals here. What are the most common ones that people see? Sparrows, cardinals, what else?

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Yes, chickadees, black crested tip mouse, oh yeah, little Carolina brand.

SPEAKER_07 17:39

Yes, they're little rands, grands, house finches, okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Yeah, in general, lesser goldfinch are so I mean, they're having their best year ever this past year.

SPEAKER_09 17:49

Down in the valley, we said um we would see wild parrots. I know all the time.

SPEAKER_05 17:54

There's some in Austin. Have you seen the ones in Austin?

SPEAKER_01 17:57

Oh, yeah, the little green mud parrots.

SPEAKER_05 18:00

Have you seen their nests?

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 18:02

They're giant, like like six feet by four feet mud nests. Wow. They they do them up in the power poles. They're giant.

SPEAKER_09 18:11

Oh, I didn't know that's what they were. I didn't so you said and in something, I think it was in the bio, that three billion birds have disappeared since 1970. And honestly, that's a crisis that nobody is talking about. And if birds disappeared tomorrow, what would happen that people just don't really understand about that?

SPEAKER_01 18:32

I think that's a major, just the number of birds that are have have gone missing. That's a major red flag to us, just as people living in an a healthy environment. Like, is it healthy if we're losing that many birds? I think any part of our ecosystem, when it's struggling like that, is a major red flag to us. And so that's what's so neat is we do a lot of education about how can we make the town more bird-friendly, but just more friendly for the environment in general. Because if the birds are struggling, that's that should be a warning to us.

SPEAKER_05 19:05

Why do you think it it is that the birds are possibly dying off? Maybe they're going someplace else. Because I, you know, 1970, the world was not a very clean place. We had acid rain. You couldn't swim in most of the public waterways in the US because there was toxic dumping, you know, we had lead-based paint, all these things. I think the world's a lot here now. So if they're disappearing, why do you think they're disappearing, even though the world is kind of improved?

SPEAKER_01 19:32

I mean, I go through my normal day, like first thing. We live in Kalatera. I was leaving the neighborhood this morning, and the amount of insect spraying companies I saw parked already along the streets.

SPEAKER_06 19:44

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

That was like my first little red flag of the day. Um, if we're poisoning insects, we're poisoning anything that eats insects. It's just all like a chain reaction.

SPEAKER_09 19:56

Um just like the mice, too, right? Like you're poisoning the mice, and then the birds will eat the mice, and then the yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:03

What'd you see on 290?

SPEAKER_01 20:04

I went down 290 and I saw where they made they plowed everything down for the target. And I thought about that happened during peak nesting time. Like how many nests were in those trees when they just came in and plowed everything down in one day? Not just the birds, but how did that affect nature?

SPEAKER_04 20:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

And that's what we see, you know, just cutting across from Rancho Tolb over here to 290 and all the new development. Yeah, it's kind of like how does nature keep up with that? You know, like where do they go? This was this is their home. And how can we be more responsible, I guess? Be more responsible.

SPEAKER_09 20:39

So, what would you if you right now could sit with Target and you could say, okay, what you did was crap. Because Steve and I also talked about it's like they couldn't have saved any of the trees. So if you now this development is coming with the parking lot, what would you say to them to kind of help mitigate that to help to help what they did?

SPEAKER_01 20:58

There was a way to do that without plowing everything down. Yeah, I know that they're gonna come build everything and they're gonna put some little tiny trees out there. There was a way that they could have done that to and saved trees. It's devastating when you think about how many years those heritage oaks out there.

SPEAKER_04 21:14

There were some big ones, too.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

There were some big ones, and they could have response done that in a responsible way to be kind to nature, and they just didn't know.

SPEAKER_06 21:28

My computer just stopped recording. Um I don't know, I was gonna like that. I wasn't paying attention. It just stopped.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

When they're struggling like that, it wasn't gonna do that. Oh, there we go.

SPEAKER_06 21:48

Hang on, let me go back. I hope it doesn't do it again.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

That's something you don't like to ask just as people living in an unhealthy environment. Like is it healthy if we're using that many? I think any part of our ecosystem when it's struggling like that is a need to have red flat to us. Because we do a lot of education.

SPEAKER_05 22:10

Okay. So you you were talking about you do a lot of education.

SPEAKER_09 22:15

Is that where it ended?

SPEAKER_05 22:16

Yeah, but it just stopped. I hope it doesn't do it again. My computer was doing something weird this morning. No.

SPEAKER_03 22:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 22:29

Your energy field.

SPEAKER_03 22:37

Wait, where were we? I think that person was a good idea.

SPEAKER_05 22:40

You asked a question about thirty uh three billion birds are disappearing, and then you started talking about education. Can we play the last 15 seconds again? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:52

If we disappear tomorrow, what would happen that people just don't really understand about that?

SPEAKER_02 22:58

I think that's a major just then the number of birds that are have have gone missing. That's a major red flag to us, just as people living in a healthy environment. Is it healthy if we're losing that many birds? I think any part of our ecosystem when it's struggling like that is a major red flag to us. We do a lot of education.

SPEAKER_06 23:22

Okay, yeah. You ready? I'll give you a cue. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

We do a lot of education within our store, just all the moments we have with customers. How can we be a more bird-friendly and just an ego-friendly community? All the little things and habits and you know, just like how we take care of our yards and little make things throughout the day. How can we be better to nature here in dripping springs? And we do that within our schools. When we go to schools, that's what we're teaching kids. How can we keep the can we how can we help save the songbirds is what we say. And we call them songbird heroes when we go through our programs at school.

SPEAKER_08 24:02

I love that.

SPEAKER_05 24:03

Yeah. So one of the questions I had about that, so the three billion birds that are just have disappeared, the world's a lot cleaner now than it was in 1970, you know, acid rain, and we can swim in the public waterways back then, and uh, you know, bed-based pain. There's a whole bunch of toxic things out in the environment. And so if the birds have disappeared, what with a cleaner, potentially cleaner world, why are they still disappearing?

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Yeah, I think about that from the time I started my my day. You know, we live in Calatera, and I was leaving Calatera this morning. I saw so many companies that are spraying for insects. And I thought to myself, like, the birds need those insects right now. It's incredible how many flies and spiders and caterpillars, just one bird family needs when they're nesting. And then I, you know, I drove down the road to two, you know, down 290, and I saw where they cleared the trees for the new target. And devastating, absolutely devastating to think about how many birds were nesting in those big trees, all the trees and just nature in general in that area and how that was plowed down in one fail swoop, you know. We woke up one day and everything was gone.

SPEAKER_09 25:15

It was almost like it was done in the middle of the night, too. But then on one hand, I feel like for myself, I I care about nature. I love birds. We mentioned, you know, I've got a bird feeder now with a camera on it, but I feel a little hypocritical in the sense that because I live in a master plan community, right? And we granted we have 30-something live oaks on our property, but I know that they took out a lot more when they put my house down 20 years ago. And so, how then do I rectify that? How do I make that wrong a right? It how does Target make that wrong a right?

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Target should have thought they should have thought a lot harder about what they were doing there. The thing is, I don't think they have to. I'm sure they're sitting in an office somewhere far away and they probably not even in Texas, honestly.

SPEAKER_04 26:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

I'm sure they sent in an order. And but for the people who have lived here forever, it's devastating to see that that could have been done more responsibly. But what's really powerful about what we do in our shop is we teach people, like even when you have a tiny yard in a master plan community, how can I make my tiny yard into a place where nature can thrive?

SPEAKER_09 26:24

Like a sanctuary. Yeah. And how do you do that? How do you um guide the average homeowner, Hector, to kind of do that?

SPEAKER_07 26:33

Well, anytime a customer comes into our shop and they're, you know, first timers and they're like, How do I get started? Usually the first things we say are, you need to provide food, water, and shelter for the birds. And so um thinking about what birds eat, whether it's insects, in this case, you'd be coming in to buy birdseed, good quality birdseed. Uh, it helps a lot. And having water is important in Texas. It doesn't usually rain the way it's been raining here in the summer. And so having, you know, clean, fresh water for the birds is super important. And then we talk about, you know, cover. And that can be live oaks or that can be native plants. Native plants are gonna be what is gonna sustain the population of insects that then it's gonna sustain all the other things that that eat those insects insects is what.

SPEAKER_05 27:29

How do you guys compete with somebody walks in your store and goes, uh, well, you know, I can buy bird feed on Amazon. Oh, you know, I saw a bird feeder on Amazon, it's $12. How do you guys compete with that?

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Or bird food and H E B. Yeah. Our food is free of fillers. So a lot of what you'll buy at other stores as far as bird seed is red Milo, the little red little ball. That's not even consumable to the birds. Really? Yeah. So there's a ton of filler seed. Our food is free of all of that, it's all good bird seeds. Why do they put that in there? Just to fill it in, little pieces of corn and and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_05 28:07

So that you buy whatever 10 pounds of bird feed, you go, I'm getting 10 pounds of bird feed. What you don't see though is that only three pounds of it is actually edible to the bird, right?

SPEAKER_01 28:16

Yeah, so it's actually an edible, good, healthy food for the birds. And as far as our feeders go, the majority of them are made to last a lifetime. We have fixed feeders time and time again. If a raccoon comes and breaks your feeder, or a squirrel comes and cords a part off, like those squirrels.

SPEAKER_09 28:36

I know those squirrels. They will sit there for like two hours and empty your bird feeder. I've seen it on my camera. We actually got one of those, what is it, like a cone or something? A hood. And I sat there and I watched him in the backyard. He was run, he was like stepping back and his tail's wagging, and he's like making a run and jump, trying to see.

SPEAKER_05 28:56

They sit there and they look at that and they go, How can I get up there? How can I solve this problem?

SPEAKER_01 29:00

We're really like problem solvers at our shop because I feel like people come in and they're like, I've tried this bird feeding thing, but I have these obstacles, whether it's raccoons overnight or squirrels during the day. Then we're like, we can fix this. We got this. We can we know how to make it an enjoyable experience. And you know that whatever you're purchasing at our shop is made to last. It's a good quality product, whether it's seed or feeders. And um, we, I mean, we have the whole picture, like even Native American seed we sell at our shop. So Hector is he, when we moved into our house, we had a green, little, little green lawn. He ripped that out and put some native seeds in there. And we have just so many flowers are like everyone who comes over to our house is so amazed at like what Hector has done. We learned a lot from Doug Talony, um Homegrown National Park, okay, about how to make your little yard into a thriving ecosystem. And so our backyard is small, but it's amazing like what we attract in the backyard. And so um we tell our customers not just like the bird feeding part, but like really the whole picture, like even just starting with planting native seeds.

SPEAKER_09 30:06

So yesterday, craziest thing happened to me. I was um loading the car of my staging stuff because I I stage also, and I had it all in there, and I'm about to close the door. And this bird, I was at the Holly House, and this bird is in my car sitting on the staging stuff. Just look at the prettiest little tiny.

SPEAKER_05 30:25

It wanted that french fry that was under the side. That probably did. It's not healthy, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 30:31

It's not good for the I thought he flew out, and I was like, please, I hope he blew out because here I'm gonna go down 290.

SPEAKER_05 30:38

You know what I noticed? Uh I I got my wife a bird feeder. I'm sorry, I got it on Amazon, and I feel bad now, but I'll come over and get another one because she's gonna have another birthday. Yeah, I know. But I got bird seed from you, and I I don't know, it was a 10-pound bag or something. And I talked to one of your employees and she told me about it, and it didn't have the fillers, and it didn't have the stuff that was gonna get on the ground and then ruin my lawn because I didn't have a lawn. And uh I can tell you it's lasted way longer because, like you said, with the filler, I could fill up the bird feeder, but then it's gone because the birds are throwing all that junk out, they don't eat it and they're looking for the right food.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

Yes, that makes a big difference. I bet you've got the no mess blend. That's another one.

SPEAKER_05 31:18

That was what it was, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

Yeah, it's twice the food, too, is because you don't have the shelves in there, so you have a ton of seed. So that's a good choice.

SPEAKER_05 31:26

It's worked out real well.

SPEAKER_09 31:27

When you're when you're talking to a customer and you're saying, okay, what birds do you mostly see? Like I see tons of cardinals, and they yell at me if my bird feeder is out. They will tell me, and they love the black sunflower seeds. So is it something that you say, okay, what kind of birds are you normally seeing, or what kind of birds are you normally trying to attract? And then the food will draw.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

Yes, and then we make the recommendation. And also just by you know, being seasonally savvy, like what's happening right now? They're molting. So cardinals are gonna look really funny right now. They're losing their feathers and they're looking mangy, and and everyone's calling our shop, like, are they sick? Why do they look so horrible? But they're just molting right now, they're getting new feathers. So we I you know, we'll suggest a food that's gonna help them get their beautiful feathers back protein and good fat.

SPEAKER_05 32:16

So, do you change that like when you go into winter? Do you change the routines? What do you how do you change that?

SPEAKER_01 32:22

So we'll offer, we'll suggest foods that are great for being, you know, seasonally savvy in the wintertime. What's gonna help them get through the long cold nights? And that's gonna be high fat, high protein, usually suet, you know, food like seed that doesn't have a shell on it because you're helping them save the energy of you know, having to take the shell off of the seed. So just little things like that. And it's always changing throughout the season. So it's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_05 32:49

See, I never thought of that. I figured you buy bird seed, you just put it in there all year long. I never thought about the different needs of the birds throughout the season. That makes a big that that makes a lot of sense to me.

SPEAKER_09 33:00

I was wondering about when we had that big snowmageddon, that big ice storm. What could we have done to help the birds? Hopefully they were battened down the hatches somewhere. I mean, if you look at the birds in my neighborhood, they all go in my neighbor's dryer vent and we keep trying to tell them that they're like they're always going in and out of the dryer vent. But where are these birds going when something like that kind of catastrophic help happens to us where we're all snuggled inside, you know, in our PJs? Where are these birds going?

SPEAKER_01 33:30

As soon as you said that, like the PTSD that like hit me like 5,000 tons of bricks. I mean, we remember that time. It was a very interesting period of time leading up to that because we had a pine ciskin like eruption. I was gonna say explosion, pine cystic eruption right before that. And they're very much like they eat in trays and they roost on top of each other. So there was kind of a little PTSD going on before that because they were giving each other an illness that you know was was encouraging people to stop bird feeding for a little while. And so some folks were already kind of taking a pause on feeding the birds, and then that happened, and a lot of people were out of food and they were realizing like the the way that like a bird feeder can save birds during a time like that. I mean, we had birds lining up at the windows to stay warm along the windows. Wow. And I mean, Hector was out there throughout the whole storm, like feeding them, keeping the water, like because you don't even think about the water, the water freezes, you know, they need water during that time. Wow. So Hector was out there the entire time refreshing and giving them suet and seed and all the things, trying to keep the feeders from freezing solid. And that was a time and people were panicking. We were like, what do I have in my house now that I can feed them? Because we had videos from that time, and the amount of birds we had at our feeders during that time was seriously.

SPEAKER_09 34:56

Oh, I didn't even I wouldn't even think about that. You mentioned disease and stuff. Let's talk about bird flu and how people are stole my question.

SPEAKER_05 35:05

Oh I I could let me ask that one because I have a real life I have a real life scenario for that. So we have we had a couple chickens, we have one now, but um in our backyard, and I was gonna set this bird feeder up for my wife that I got for for her birthday. And she said, I don't want you to set it up in the backyard because it attracts the birds. And then her understanding was the birds poop on the ground, and then that could carry bird flu. So she didn't want me to put it in the backyard. We ended up finding another place, but is that true?

SPEAKER_01 35:32

You know, there's certain times throughout years where it becomes a concern. So Texas Parks and Wildlife will put out alerts. Thankfully, we haven't had any moments like that recently, but it's typically waterfowl and like poultry that you know, okay, like that you have to be concerned with that.

SPEAKER_05 35:50

Um really it could be to be attracting birds and the chickens could infect.

SPEAKER_01 35:55

So, really, like, especially those times when you have chickens, like having shoes that you take into their, you know, when you're working with chickens and then leaving them outside, like those types of things. But um, as far as like your backyard birds, they're not as commonly affected by bird flu.

SPEAKER_07 36:14

No, we always tell people if you're around the body of water and you feed the birds, but you also have poultry, for example, you're gonna have some ducks around there, some geese that come through. Definitely, you know, be cautious, you know, ensure that your feeders are clean. Kind of just go through the normal gambit of how do we keep our birds healthy, happy and healthy. And that's cleaning your feeders, cleaning your bird bath. And that's kind of on a regular basis, whether there's bird flu going around or not. That's just a good common practice. It's just exactly. Um, but it usually doesn't affect the songbirds that that we enjoy seeing in our birds.

SPEAKER_05 36:53

Uh Amanda, if if birds could leave Yelp reviews for people about the stupid things they do, uh, what what kind of thing things do you think that the birds would complain about?

SPEAKER_01 37:04

Oh my gosh, that might be the greatest question anyone has ever asked me. I love that. I think the hummingbirds would say, Hey, you gotta change this nectar every day. Every day, every day.

SPEAKER_09 37:16

I heard you say that on Instagram or something, and I was like, I didn't know that because you can actually get the bird sick by not doing that.

SPEAKER_01 37:24

I didn't know that. Yes, like, and I see that just a lot when I'm driving down the street, and I'm like, that nectar looks like it's been in there for weeks. Like, you can't just put nectar out and leave it there forever. It'll ferment and it'll get the bird sick and potentially kill them. Oh.

SPEAKER_05 37:41

So I think the hummingbirds would be like one star, that nectar has been there for a month. Yes, and I'm drunk.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

Yes. I think other birds would say, Hey, this was really good food, but you should have cleaned your feeders. Like you can't never clean feeders. That's like eating off of a dirty plate that you've you've eaten off of.

SPEAKER_09 37:59

How are we supposed to clean them? That's with what? Good.

SPEAKER_07 38:03

Yeah, so my my routine is getting the feeders um and putting them in a tub.

SPEAKER_00 38:09

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_07 38:09

Fill it with water and dish soap and just let them soak for some time. Get your scrubber brush after 15-20 minutes, scrub it, and then rinse it off.

SPEAKER_09 38:19

So just with water.

SPEAKER_07 38:20

Water. Water and then let it dry.

SPEAKER_09 38:22

But I have I have an electric bird feeder, right? So how am I supposed to do that with the camera? Maybe I have like one of those kiwi bits or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

Okay, that's a good question. We are probably like the only bird feeding folks that don't have camera feeders. I know that there's probably parts that you can take out where you actually put your camera out.

SPEAKER_09 38:41

I get it, I get alerts on my watch.

SPEAKER_05 38:43

Okay, and I'm like, ooh, you know what? It's funny. We have one, and I was thrilled with it for a couple weeks, but I had to put it in a place, kind of a way where we meet I can't see it sitting on my back porch. Um, because we wanted it, you know, to be to be able to see more birds on the camera. And I actually have found myself going, damn, I wish I could just sit on the porch. See, I can coffee and watch the birds in person.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

That's what I do. That's why we've been so resistant. We have so many notifications on our phone, as it is. We love the the camera feeders because it's it's really gotten so many more people interested in watching the birds. It's attracted a whole new demographic of folks who are now feeding the birds when they weren't before. But for us in our lives, we're like, we're so we're on our phones all the time. We're like having to be content creators as but I'm here at work. And so that's the big thing for me.

SPEAKER_09 39:37

But wait a minute. If I'm here at work, right? On the weekends, it's one thing. So I put my bird feed and I have several bird feeders. So I don't I only have one. It was a birthday gift from my son, and I was like, this is the best gift you ever gave me. Because when I'm at work, literally I can just turn my phone on sometimes and turn just the live feed on and just watch the little birds come in and out. So here I'm stuck in these boring four walls, but then I can still see the bird.

SPEAKER_05 40:02

So for me, that's and and it remake I could see doing that more than what I've been doing, which is I get a notice and it says there's a bird, and I'm like, Oh, I wonder what it is. Oh, it's that cardinal again. And then I get another, oh, it's that cardinal again.

SPEAKER_09 40:15

Well, it reminds me, like, oh, that's you know, my son gave me that gift. So it's like a little bit. You know, it's like every time, like, oh, that was nice.

SPEAKER_05 40:22

Yeah, I love that a lot. So maybe the key is to have both.

SPEAKER_01 40:25

You know what I would do? I would open the curtains and I'd put a bird feeder right out inside your window here.

SPEAKER_09 40:31

Well, watch them. We did have that, and then we had a little mice problem in the building. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

So pepper foods are the way to go. Is that right? So birds don't have taste receptors for spice, that's why they'll go into your garden and eat your little chili peppers. But mammals like us don't like the hot, spicy, the super spicy food.

SPEAKER_05 40:52

I have learned so much today. Well, I like spicy too. You and you both, Hector.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

Not the painfully spicy guy. Well, sometimes you do.

SPEAKER_05 41:00

Is there food that that comes with the spice on it?

SPEAKER_01 41:03

Yes, there's even hot pepper nomads food. There you go.

SPEAKER_09 41:07

Well, see, yeah, Gary, Gary next door. Gary was when you guys opened, Gary had all these bird feeders. And then I was sitting at my desk one time and I had a little piece of chocolate. And I don't eat that much candy on much chocolate. And I was like, Well, that's weird. Why is the package like that? And it had little nibbles. I was like, oh no. And we started discovering that we had little mice, and then we discovered ground zero was Gary's office where his bird food was.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

Man, I was wondering why he wasn't feeding the bird. Because I yelled at him.

SPEAKER_09 41:40

Because I yelled at him.

SPEAKER_05 41:41

We actually took the feeder down.

SPEAKER_09 41:43

We had to, we had to take the bird. So is there a right way and a wrong way to feed birds besides just bad food?

SPEAKER_07 41:50

I think I think putting feeders in a certain location is important. Like feeder location makes all the difference. Like for me, when you asked the question about if birds could leave a yelp of you about you, a lot of times it's like, could you move that feeder a little bit further away from that bush? Or can you move it a little higher so I don't have to worry about the neighborhood cats? Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_05 42:12

So they don't want it to be, they they're not comfortable if there's a place close to it where there could be a potential predator. Exactly. I've never thought of that.

SPEAKER_07 42:19

Yeah, they're always looking over their shoulders to ensure that they're not gonna be prey to hawk cats. Um, and so yeah, that would that would definitely be something.

SPEAKER_09 42:29

Yeah, my cat has brought me a couple of presents. Yeah, at the back door. Look, here's a liver and some kidneys. And I ate the rest of it. It was delicious.

SPEAKER_05 42:40

So if somebody comes in the store, they've never done anything with with bird feeders, they're they're thinking, you know, they just bought a house here in Drip, and they're like, you know, we we want our kids to see some birds. What should we do? What do you tell?

SPEAKER_01 42:52

We usually say the first thing would be water. Even birds that are migrating through that aren't going to go to your feeder will go to water, especially this time of year. It is so hot out there and they desperately need water. So just having a clean, preferably moving water source is a really great way to start attracting birds.

SPEAKER_09 43:12

I have my pool. They float, they they fly in and out of my fountain or the the waterfall. They fly in and out of it.

SPEAKER_05 43:17

So, what does that look like? Is that a uh like a bird bath with a with a pump on it or something? A little water wiggler, a fountain, just some sort of so the water wiggler lets them know that there's water there, otherwise it's still, they can't see it.

SPEAKER_01 43:31

And then you'll probably get mosquitoes and stuff like that, right? That's another reason to have the water moving and not sitting stagnant. Okay. But also just they like the moving water and just keeping it fresh every day. That's a really like simple but effective and great thing that you can do for the birds that'll start attracting birds. And then just like a simple foundational feeder, like a hopper feeder, the ones that look like little houses or a scene tube feeder, just starting with a feeder, but we will warn you get hooked. Oh, I'm suddenly on 50 feeters. And a lot of times.

SPEAKER_09 44:03

And my my birds are they're noisy. They know when they are out of food for sure. I want to talk a little bit about your three-acre property that you were kind of developing. And and you guys, you and your dad, you're you're kind of clearing this. What is your vision for this three-acre property that you have?

SPEAKER_01 44:19

So this is kind of a secret in town. This is kind of the first time we've actually like spoken about this out loud. Our customers have like, we've heard rumors. Uh what's going on in the house? We've heard it here. We've heard it here. So we're really excited about it. We've been cleaning it up. If y'all have ever seen the property that's next door to the post office, it was, I mean, there was all kinds of stuff dumped on that property, tires, refrigerators, yeah, trailers, cars. I mean, it was a massive um, you know, undertaking over the past year to clean that up. And um our hope for it is that it will be our new home for Wild Birds Unlimited of Jerping Springs one day. Um, we are realizing that, you know, it is definitely a bigger undertaking. You're like, I'm gonna get a piece of property, I'm gonna pop up a little building, and it's not that easy.

SPEAKER_09 45:07

So your hope is to move the store from here to over there and then have almost like a sanctuary where you can walk the property. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 45:17

So are you are you finding that just building a building is not as easy as you thought? Is that what you is that what you started to say?

SPEAKER_01 45:24

Yeah, it's my dad who's really like taken this on as has um, and my mom who have taken this on as a project. And you know, it's in like just re-platting and just working with the city and knowing the proper ways, you know, do you need an engineer to do this? Like things aren't really just let me get a piece of property, let me clean it up and put a building on there. There's so much more to know. How far are you from a fire hydrant? You know, so but we're really, we're really just inspired by the piece of property. It's thriving with nature. There's a grotto on the property.

SPEAKER_05 45:57

I've heard about that property. It's that grotto is really pretty, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 46:01

It's really cool. And when we got a ton of rain a week ago, Hector got to run out there and take a video. It was the first time we saw water go through the creek and into the grotto. But we're really hopeful that it can be just knowing that it's like a three-acre property that won't be plowed down the way that we've seen other spots plow down, like the target, the spot for the target, knowing that it'll be a place where nature can thrive and hopefully folks can come out and enjoy it.

SPEAKER_09 46:26

And that's your vision to offer like education and to kind of incorporate that grotto into this master design plan as well.

SPEAKER_01 46:34

Yeah, we're really hopeful that it'll be a learning center for folks of all ages to come and learn, for us to have speakers, for us to have our shop there, and hopefully some native plants and some bats. We want to put a bat box up there, and that's something that we're all so very passionate about, um, aside from the birds. And so we're hopeful, we're really hopeful we're we're all kind of like in dreaming mode again, but this seems like the next phase. And um, we really love all the outreach we do with schools, and we have the hope that they'll be able to come out there and actually see it. Yeah, and building new customers.

SPEAKER_09 47:08

You guys are a franchise owner, right? So um would you guys consider going outside of that franchise and starting your own, or just all depends on a business question?

SPEAKER_01 47:20

Yeah, yeah. No, we'll we have um we'll say Wild Birds Unlimited. Wild Birds Unlimited is a really like I feel like I hate the word franchise because I feel like when people hear that, they're like, oh, they're not a family business.

SPEAKER_09 47:31

Well, when I started looking, but you are a family business, yeah. Because I always thought you were, but when I started looking at the map of where they are, I guess it's like up here on the website. Yes, um, I was really shocked that there was there's McAllen and up near Dallas.

SPEAKER_01 47:45

McAllen's a new store. Yeah. They're a wonderful shout out to McAllen. But we're all family-owned stores across the US and Canada, and I believe there's about 350 stores, but the majority are all locally owned and operated by families, and they all have things that are local to their area.

SPEAKER_05 48:04

Is that more like their instead of the traditional franchise? They're more like your supplier that you buy all the supplies from there.

SPEAKER_01 48:10

We all share common suppliers, but we're all under the the franchise, but we are like a locally owned.

SPEAKER_09 48:16

But you can run, you kind of run your business based on your locals, like what you're saying. And so as a franchise owner, though, are you able to collaborate with some of the others? Do you guys have like some big conference or meme that you go and you learn from each other?

SPEAKER_01 48:32

Yes, we were just in Pittsburgh. Is it called the Bird Nerd Conference? We have we love that. We love to go and collaborate and learn together and just try to find ways together to make our, you know, our communities more friendly for the birds. How can we make our customer experience that much better for our customers? And so we got to go to Pittsburgh a couple of weeks ago to our conference there, and it was really nice.

SPEAKER_09 48:58

I would feel like certain areas would have a little bit or more challenges, especially in this than this area, because we are a dark sky community, because we seem to have a lot of nature-minded people in this in this state. And you mentioned Pittsburgh. That's not the first thing that pops in my mind that birds are. So I was gonna ask it's always in a different spot, so it'll move around each year.

SPEAKER_05 49:20

So you mentioned early on about people coming here to to bird to see birds. So if somebody walks in your store and says, Hey, I'm here from Pittsburgh and I want to see some birds, where do you send them?

SPEAKER_01 49:30

Oh my gosh, I'm like, we have the best local parks here. You can go over to Ranch Park and sit at the birdblind and see some. There's a bird blind. There's a bird blind after the park.

SPEAKER_05 49:40

And they just part of Ranch Park is it at?

SPEAKER_01 49:42

So when you enter Ranch Park, if you kind of veer off to the right and you keep going past, you'll see all the horses and everything on your left, there'll be a sign that says bird blindness. Okay. So you'll kind of off-road a little bit. But I think it was about seven or eight years ago that everyone came together to fundraise for that birdblind and the master naturalist and every the Dripping Springs Birding Club, and everybody came together and that was built, and it is incredible.

SPEAKER_05 50:08

So if you haven't been out there already, so is it just like a uh I'm kind of imagining like a camouflaged little shelter? Is that what it is?

SPEAKER_01 50:17

Sort of like that, yeah. A deer blind, like a deer wooden shelter that you can see two different aerial setups with feeders and bird food, and it overlooks a body of water, actually, which makes the birding even better. And you can go out to Charo Ranch Park and go to the bird blind out there. I also always tell people to go out to West Cave Preserve or West Cave out Discovery Center, I believe that's what it's called online. But that is super magical. I don't know if y'all have done that hike down to West Cave Preserve, but you have got to go on that tour. Um, Megan Whitehouse or whoever takes you on a tour out there, they're just phenomenal. They'll tell you about all the birds all the way. And I swear when you get down into the grotto, you're like, where am I? Am I in like Costa Rica? Like I have to do that. What? Like, you know, it's just it's it's just pure magic down there. And so you can go down to Pertinella State Park. Once you're here, you can there's just so many different spots where you can go and enjoy the birds.

SPEAKER_05 51:15

Would you see different, potentially see different birds at each of those?

SPEAKER_01 51:19

Yeah. I mean, there will, and that's what's really cool if you jump on any birding groups on Facebook, like the Dripping Springs Birding Club or Central Texas birds, like everyone's just like talking about what they saw where. And that's what's cool about Merlin Bird ID is you can kind of see what folks are hearing and seeing in different spots too. So what is that? Oh my, you don't have the Merlin Bird ID.

SPEAKER_09 51:40

No, I have I have like some star app that I just got that I like pointed up at the sky, but now I'm making okay. You gotta get that. Yes, Merlin Bird ID. Okay, I'm writing it down.

SPEAKER_01 51:55

It is amazing. That can help you to start, you know, identifying birds by sound. And it's just really helpful when you're especially when you're first getting into bird watching.

SPEAKER_09 52:04

Who's yelling at me for food? I know you're like, what is that beautiful song? You're like, oh my gosh, that's a good one. It's usually the cardinals, and as soon as I put it out there, they they like tag team. They fly. And then I like to on the camera, it's kind of really fun to watch them right up close. And how I remember there was two cardinals sitting there, and then this other bird, I couldn't identify this other bird kind of came around, and they it was funny, these birds just kind of like cock-eyed look at them, like, excuse me, this is my feeder.

SPEAKER_01 52:33

What are you what are you doing here? Do they get territorial? I think they definitely do, yeah, especially like mocking birds certain times of year. They'll they will I've seen some crazy stuff, especially in the winter time. They're like, this is my pole system. Not only like this is my feeder, this is my whole system. Yeah, go find your own.

SPEAKER_05 52:52

Have you have you ever had somebody come into the store and tell you guys a story about a bird? And you thought, no, that's just not plausible. That didn't happen. And you found out it was true. Totally. Like, well, give us an example. Give us an example.

SPEAKER_01 53:04

I mean, I think what's funny is we get just descriptions of birds, and sometimes we're like, hmm, like most of the time, easily we can kind of solve the mystery and tell them what bird. And there's just been a few sightings where we're like, Are you sure? Because that's not super common. And then they'll send us a we'll be like, if you can prove by sending a photo, and they'll send it to our email and we'll be like, Well, by golly, that is, and sometimes we have to, you know, send it to our biologist friends and be like, Can you tell us what we're seeing here?

SPEAKER_05 53:35

Do you remember what at least one example of that? A bird that you thought, wow, I that would never be seen here. And it true and then it's a good thing.

SPEAKER_07 53:41

Well, mainly it comes from folks that like have the Merlin app. Now, the Merlin app is like pretty effective in and letting you know what kind of birds are around, but sometimes it gets it wrong. Oh, okay. And so we'll get, you know, someone saying that they you know saw a bird that's usually in South America year-round. Oh, okay. You know, in their backyard, at which point, you know, we have to question it a little bit. Yeah. It's always a good idea if you're using your Merlin app and it brings a a questionable bird up to to kind of ask somebody. Yeah. You know, and so coming to us.

SPEAKER_05 54:15

Hey, my Merlin app said there's an ostrich in my backyard. No, I don't think that's gonna be true.

SPEAKER_01 54:20

I feel like typically it's like a leucistic bird, you know. So it'll be a bird that we're like like albino, but not albino, but leucistic. And so it'll be a bird, like a hummingbird that is all white. Oh, and so then we'll be like that, okay. Now it makes sense when we see a photo. We're like, that's a leucistic, you know. It's a common bird, but it's yeah, colorway is a way you don't often see exactly. It's just like kind of a one-off sort of rare occurrence where we're like, okay.

SPEAKER_09 54:47

What do you think is the dumbest thing or the dumbest thing you've heard that people believe about birds?

SPEAKER_01 54:52

That's a good thing. Oh, that birds aren't real.

SPEAKER_09 54:54

Oh, birds are robots. Birds are I I did a story. I did a story about that. Remember that birds are just really robots and they're spying on you. Look, I have a tinfoil hat down here when I when I talk about stories like that.

SPEAKER_05 55:07

Have you heard just one person say that or has there been more? Should we throw them under the bus?

SPEAKER_07 55:13

It's been multiple people out there walking around. We wear our bird shirts uh uh throughout town. And occasionally you'll have someone, you know, ask, you know, just just come up and tell you, you know, did you know the bird terrorists are not real?

SPEAKER_05 55:28

Well, Kai, what do you mean? It's the government spying. That little hummingbird right there is from the CIA right now. Did you did you hear that story?

SPEAKER_09 55:37

Disagrees with you.

SPEAKER_05 55:38

Oh, yeah. There's a story, it was in the Wall Street Journal last week about a guy, I don't remember what state it was in. He's been he lives in a town, in a dense town. He's been feeding the vultures. And the vultures come and they stink and they poop on everything. And so the people are trying to get him to stop, but there's no ordinances that prevents this guy from feeding the vultures.

SPEAKER_01 56:00

Man, what is he feeding them? Dead animals.

SPEAKER_05 56:01

He's feeding them like steak and meat and hamburger and stuff to attract them. And they're poop. I guess their poop is really like if you get it on your car, if you don't wash it off right away, it'll eat the paint.

SPEAKER_09 56:12

Oh, who right now is who right now, who, which bird is the biggest jerk that we have living in dripping springs?

SPEAKER_01 56:20

It's usually the little cute ones that no one suspects. It's usually the hummingbirds. Really? Why is I mean, oh, jerk like how they act to other birds? Yeah. Or they just chase each other away from feeders will be like dive bombing each other, and everyone's like, they're the little cute bird. I'm like, they're the feistiest of the birds. They will claim like a whole hummingbird feeder feeder for themselves. They will dive bomb each other and not share, but they're so cute, they can do what they want.

SPEAKER_09 56:45

I know they are cute. I like I've seen those videos where the guys are wearing like the hat or the feeder on them and they'll come right up to them and and feed right at their face.

SPEAKER_01 56:53

I know a Hector's looking at me like that.

SPEAKER_07 56:55

There's also like for me, it's house sparrows. Oh, yeah, parasitic ums the birds that that go in and destroy, you know, native birds' nests. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 57:03

You know, for me, that they're those the ones that get in the drivers.

SPEAKER_07 57:08

I wasn't thinking like parasitic, but if we're talking parasitic, they're okay.

SPEAKER_01 57:11

Go ahead. Talk about parasitic birds.

SPEAKER_07 57:13

I mean European starlings, brown headed cowbirds, house sparrows, those go bullying.

SPEAKER_01 57:17

Taking the eggs out of another nest, laying their eggs, and having other birds raise their babies. Like that's about I mean, I was thinking like cute vice. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 57:26

Like is that sometimes when you see a couple of broken eggs on the ground, maybe another bird scooped them out and dropped them on the ground and then laid it? It's possible.

SPEAKER_07 57:36

Yes, it could be a number of different predators.

SPEAKER_09 57:38

Yeah, but that that's definitely what about the birds that we see this a lot in in real estate.

SPEAKER_05 57:43

The ones You were stealing all my damn questions, Michelle. I love it. Go right ahead. Go right ahead.

SPEAKER_09 57:48

What about the birds that build their nest right at the front door and they stink the barn swallows and tell us about how to get rid of those and to not have those come up?

SPEAKER_05 58:00

No, we don't want to get rid of them.

SPEAKER_01 58:03

I don't know if y'all saw my little voice.

SPEAKER_05 58:05

There's a question. There's the title of the show. Hoop hooped on the porch.

SPEAKER_01 58:08

Whooped on hooped on my porch. One day I'm gonna write that children's book. Um, but never tear them down. That's actually illegal to tear them down. They are protected by the state and we need them. They fly, those are the barn swallows. They will fly, fly around your front porch area and catch bugs on the fly. So if you want natural, you know, bug repellent. Yeah, that's that's gonna be it for you. They are so cute. I know that they're messy, but you can always um don't do like I did in my little viral post that I did of my little uh cute barn swallows. You can you can let them poop all over your porch, but you can also put a box there to catch everything. They nest really quickly.

SPEAKER_09 58:49

And then you can remove the nest once they're done.

SPEAKER_07 58:52

You can. They're artificial nests that you can buy, say, from our store and then go put up in a location where it would be less annoying for you. Okay. So if they tend to nest like somewhere right above your front door, come in and get this artificial nest and then put it in a location that's not gonna be in your way.

SPEAKER_09 59:10

I've seen um with Stephen, I've also seen like uh um what are the little strings.

SPEAKER_05 59:16

What I've done in a couple of my properties, and of course they're not gonna allow the birds to nest there, but you get like survey tape, the you know, that you buy at Home Depot, and you just tape it in the corner and it blows in the wind, and they just won't they won't build a nest there. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:30

We encourage it though. We feel like it's so lucky when they choose your front porch, and I know it's messy for the summer months, but if you can if you can just be friends to the birds and if you're selling a $1.2 million property, I know you don't want the porch to smell like poo. You know, the poop doesn't smell. There's a lot of poop on my porch right now, and it doesn't smell, but I do get that it doesn't look super cute. Aesthetic, yeah. Even when somebody moves into that $1.2 million home, there's going to be birds nesting on that porch.

SPEAKER_05 59:59

What about uh the purple Martin houses? Do you guys sell those?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:02

Oh my gosh, yes. That's like our family favorite. Um, we my dad's having the best purple martin summer that I think he's ever had. He has two different setups, Gords and a Purple Martin condo. We sell the best quality purple martin house there is out there and setups. They're Amish made. And um we get them from Mel in Ohio. Shout out to Mel. Shout out to Mel. And um he they're just the best, and they are so wonderful to have around.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:29

We have they eat all mosquitoes, right? Don't they eat a lot of flying bugs?

SPEAKER_07 1:00:33

They actually forage high up in the air, so they're catching bugs on the fly 200 feet up. Oh, really? Okay. Um, so bats are usually the ones that people would want to have around to take care of mosquitoes. Also planting native plants to attract uh dragonflies. They eat a ton of mosquitoes. I know that.

SPEAKER_09 1:00:52

Oh, yeah. Interesting.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:53

I've learned so much here.

SPEAKER_09 1:00:55

Yeah, so if birds disappeared tomorrow, what would happen to the ecosystem here in the world? I would probably think that we weren't far behind. Really?

SPEAKER_05 1:01:05

Well, there would be a reason for it, uh it would be something probably very catastrophic.

SPEAKER_09 1:01:09

Yeah, we had that, oh gosh, it was probably 20 years ago in downtown Austin. For some reason, all the birds, I don't know, you probably remember this. The birds were just dropping out of the sky and they were trying to figure out what was going on, and they were just mass, mass death, mass deaths all the way around uh downtown Austin. Oh my god. Yeah, it was crazy. It was like, what is going on?

SPEAKER_07 1:01:30

Did they ever figure it out?

SPEAKER_09 1:01:31

I you know, I can't remember. I'll have to I'll have to look it up.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:34

Did it have anything to do with window strikes?

SPEAKER_05 1:01:37

Oh, yeah. Oh, wait, you know what? May have there's been some buildings that were built, and the whatever coating they had, the birds couldn't see it and they were running.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:46

That could probably be it. That's a big thing that we educate on here.

SPEAKER_09 1:01:51

When you've heard that thud of a bird hitting your windows, our windows, our windows, they fly in here all the time, and it's and that's because it breaks my heart.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:02

They see the reflection of the sky and they they think they can get it.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:06

How do you prevent that? We have reflective window stickers that we can put on the outside of windows, and we're actually um we went to our yearly conference. We learned about a supplier that actually can do bigger projects. They've done stadiums and and so we're looking into how we can do that for huge windows and huge homes.

SPEAKER_09 1:02:24

I'm gonna go get us a reflective window sticker for a year. Window gems are amazing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:30

You you mentioned, Amanda, you mentioned uh social media. How big a part of your business is social media?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:37

I think that that was probably what helped us find all our customers from the very beginning was social media.

SPEAKER_09 1:02:45

You're really good at it though. I I really enjoy watching, and you're very educational. So I like to just kind of spy and see what what you're doing, especially when you have school visits or so much. Whatever.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:56

So you try is your focus on the social media, it's not the image, it's not all that it's educating people that are interested in birds.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:03

It's a mixture. I think it's educating about the birds, it's connecting the human side of being a business owner to your customers.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:12

That's cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:13

We, you know, that's a huge part for us, is just we do a lot of posts that are vulnerable. Like, how are we feeling as business owners that day? That gratitude that you can't always express to people when you're seeing them. But like in the moment that you're sitting in your car crying because you're so grateful for everyone, those are real moments that we try to share. Um, and so we do a mixture of things, like it'll be telling people about promotions, but also just that human side, the educational side, and not just about the birds, but about plants and everything else, just small ways that you can inspire someone to make an impact. That's cool.

SPEAKER_09 1:03:49

Hector, you come from a teaching background and you come from a broadcasting background, and you are continuing to teach now all of the Tripping Springs residents. But what has Amanda taught you about how she is running or helping run the business?

SPEAKER_07 1:04:06

Amanda's taught me so much. She's fearless. Um, it's just the education part's really important to us. I think it helps that we're very mission aligned. Uh, I think it's important for us to continue to grow and learn and be present in our community and want to build connection. And she's a master at that. And I get to see it every day. Uh, she's a social butterfly, and I'm kind of in the shadows a little bit, you know. So uh I do a lot of the you know work that you don't see, you know, in the shop or doing installations. But what she's taught me is just the you know, just the power of connection, I think is what's most uh uh elucidated just being next to her.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:51

You guys have taught me so much about I mean I kind of thought, oh yeah, it's cool, we'll learn some stuff about birds, but I've learned so much from you guys. I can imagine being like at a class where you guys come to talk and all the things we've learned. It's really amazing. My last question for you is you're sitting out on the back porch with uh cup coffee, just enjoying the morning. What bird, when you see it, brings a smile to your face?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:14

Well, when I'm done swatting the mosquitoes, I know. That's really killed my bible.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:20

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:21

This is my favorite time of the day.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:23

Well, you know, the the wet spring brings out the mosquitoes. Typically, we don't have mosquitoes, but it's already been dry for three months.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:29

So a golden-fronted woodpecker for the past year. This past year's been kind of like a crazy emotional year for me. I lost my grandfather, and um, he was one of my favorite people. And when I went down to Mission, the valley, down in the valley where he was from. We were there for his funeral, his rosary and his funeral, and this golden fronted woodpecker was following me around and singing at the top of its lungs every morning that we were there, even at The very end when we were at the burial, that golden-fronted woodpecker. And in all the special moments in the past year, all the big moments, like the days that are like big days where I like wish I could talk to him. A golden-fronted woodpecker is always there.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:15

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:15

And it's, you know, I never had that connection of my grandpa and a golden-fronted woodpecker before he passed. But I swear, and my my my family feels the same way. My mom's like, that grandpa's out in the front yard, you know.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:28

Oh, geez.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:29

Like it really like I feel that connection to him through the golden-fronted woodpecker. And I know a lot of folks feel that way when they see cardinals. They feel like it's, you know, a loved one coming to visit them. And when I hear a golden-fronted woodpecker and I see one, it just it I get really emotional about it because I miss my grandpa so much.

SPEAKER_09 1:06:50

Aw. Well, you know, I have to say Hector's got what's your bird?

SPEAKER_05 1:06:54

What's your bird that you see that brings us a mile?

SPEAKER_07 1:06:56

For me, it's an Eastern bluebird. We don't get it too often in our backyard. Um, but it has the beautiful song and call. And so, and it's blue. It's got like a copper chest as well. And so just wait, what is it called? The Eastern blue bird.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:12

Do you see those here in around Drip sometimes? Yes. You do. I don't know if I've ever seen one. Huh?

SPEAKER_07 1:07:17

Yeah, they're beautiful.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:18

Oh, they're so pretty.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:21

They're gorgeous. And you know, just that flash of blue that comes through. And you know, they're they're not small, they're sort of the same size as cardinals. Okay. And so, you know, it's just beautiful to see them come in feeding their young during the nesting season. So you want to make sure you have, you know, the the mill worms out there for them. They really do love it. And you know, these are one of the birds that were, you know, endangered back in the 60s and 70s when they were spraying neighborhoods with, you know, chemicals out there. Um, and so uh there's been an effort, national effort to bring these guys back over the last few decades. And sure enough, their populations are increasing. So that's just kind of a sign for me that that tells me, you know, this there's something that we can do, not just for the eastern bluebird, but for all birds. All the birds, yeah. Uh-huh. Just to increase their numbers, help help them rebound. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:14

There's a way to now I'm excited. I want to go set up a bird feeder in my backyard and see if I can see an eastern bluebird.

SPEAKER_09 1:08:19

Don't let your chicken, don't let your chicken contaminate.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:23

Now I know that it's not a problem. So we can have a bird feeder.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:25

If it is a problem, we will keep you posted.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:27

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:08:29

Absolutely. Well, I I didn't get a chance to say this at the very beginning, but I want to say um right now, I am so glad that I was proven wrong about like, what is a bird food place doing here? But I want to say, Amanda and Hector, you aren't just selling bird seed. You're trying to save a disappearing piece of Texas. You care about legacy, conservation, your family business, Hispanic entrepreneurship, and preserving what we love about dripping springs. And we are so grateful that you guys joined us today and just told us a little piece of your story and also educated us. So we really appreciate seeing that.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:05

That means a lot to me. I've really enjoyed the time with you. You guys are a really special part of dripping, and I'm glad that you were able to spend this hour with us.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:13

Thank you guys so much.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:14

That means the world to us.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:15

We really appreciate y'all.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:17

Thank you.