Bird watchers flocking to Brown's new perch
Most radio listeners know Ray Brown through WCRB-FM (102.5). A fixture of the classical music station for the past 13 years, Brown has hosted weekdays, 2-7 p.m., for the last decade, and also oversees the Saturday ''Kids Classical Hour," 9-10 a.m. But even as WCRB moves into an uncertain future, with its sale to Greater Media expected to be finalized May 1, Brown has been spreading his radio wings. Over at the tiny independent WATD-FM (95.9) in Marshfield, the Pawtucket native has launched a weekly program from 9:30-10 on Sunday mornings called ''Ray Brown's Talkin' Birds."
''I've been a casual birder for 20 years," says Brown, who now lives in Boston and reports once seeing a wild turkey near Symphony Hall. ''They're beautiful, their behaviors and adaptations are fascinating, and they're mysterious in many ways."
The show has its roots, he explains, in his pre-WCRB career. In the early '90s, Brown hosted a weekend talk show on WBZ-AM (1030) that covered a variety of topics. ''One day the topic of birds came up, and the call volume was unbelievable," he says. ''There were more calls on this than on anything we'd brought up. I thought, 'I should do something with this.' "
That thought gestated for 14 years, but a little more than a year ago he was given the Sunday morning slot at WATD. ''We put together a couple of features and asked people to call in," recalls Brown. Call in they did.
The show recently celebrated its first anniversary. In that one year, Brown has ''created a loyal and growing community of fellow bird-brained people who call in every week," according to John Galluzzo, public program coordinator for the Massachusetts Audubon South Shore Sanctuaries, who counts himself among those frequent callers.
The show features interviews with such guests as Tim Gallagher, one of the birders who may have rediscovered the ivory-billed woodpecker, a bird long thought extinct. ''Talkin' Birds" has also addressed the controversy of that sighting, one in which Brown believes.
''These guys are experts," says Brown. Although skeptics say the so-called ivory-billed woodpecker was actually the more common pileated woodpecker, Brown disagrees. ''They've probably seen 5,000 pileated woodpeckers. When they saw this bird they almost fell out of their canoe. They were crying afterward."
Most of Brown's callers, however, are not so dedicated. ''The core listener is somebody who feeds birds in the backyard," says Brown. ''Someone who doesn't necessarily know a lot about them, but is fascinated by them. My aim is to get people who watch birds that way to become more active in the field."
As the show enters its second year, he'd like to reach even more of these casual birders. ''Talkin' Birds" began podcasting in February (www.talkinbirds.com), and Brown hopes to expand to a full hour soon.
''The thing about looking at birds," he says, ''is once you start looking at birds you can't help looking at other things. It's a window into nature."
