Birdscaping With Native Plants

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All right, hello, and welcome everyone to a Better Yard podcast.
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My name is Brad Tabke, honored to be the host here at the podcast.
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We have another great guest for everyone today.
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Uh, we have Marriott Nowak, who is just a wonderful, wonderful author and has a couple different books, but Birdscaping in the Midwest is the one we're going to talk about today: a guide to gardening with native plants to attract birds.
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And so, Mariette, thank you so much for joining us today and talking about native plants and how they affect birds.
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Could you introduce yourself and talk a little bit about what you do?
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Sure.
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I uh well, I'm passionate about native plants.
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I was the director of the Wear Nature Center in Milwaukee County for almost 20 years.
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And after that, I started writing books about native landscaping because I thought it was so important for birds, wildlife, and just to preserve our wonderful native plants themselves.
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And I just did want to mention that the book you mentioned is my first book on birdscaping, birdscaping in the Midwest.
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My second book that just came out last June is Birdscaping for Wisconsin and the Great Lakes region.
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And in that book, I talk about particular plants.
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My first book, I gave a lot of lists of plants for various habitats.
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And in the second book, I uh give a general introduction on birdscaping, but also talk about some of the 50 best plants for birds and all their fascinating aspects and relationships with birds.
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So I'm just delighted to be here to talk about that.
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Beautiful.
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Thanks for being here again.
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And yeah, and we'll put links in the show notes so that everyone can grab your books because looking at right here, it's absolutely wonderful.
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I'm actually looking at the older one.
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I don't know why I have the older one and not the newer one.
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I need to make sure that I uh I fix that right now, don't I?
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Well, they're both great, if I don't mind bragging myself.
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Yeah, it's uh it's beautiful and uh it's got a lot of great pictures and a lot of wonderful, wonderful things.
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So let's start talking about birds and plants.
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And so can you explain to folks what the connection is between birds and plants and making sure that we are supporting birds in our local ecosystems?
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Yes.
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Birds and plants have evolved through millions of years to, in a way, aid each other.
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Plants want to be propagated and their seeds spread and they want to be pollinated.
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And some birds actually do pollination too.
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But of course, birds are very important for uh seed dispersal too, and for keeping down excessive or pest insects too.
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So they the birds have a great service for humans too.
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And then some birds have actually evolved special relationships with plants.
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For example, some hummingbirds have beaks shaped for particular plants that they pollinate, and the plants have gradually through all many, many years evolved to the shapes that are best for particular kinds of hummingbirds.
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And there are other birds that have special relationships with plants too.
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For example, goldfinches really depend on thistles and have a special relationship with thistles.
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And there are, by the way, native thistles.
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And I think we should bring back our native thistles, which are missing in so many landscapes, and so forth.
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So there's a lot of special relationships between birds and plants that have evolved over all these years.
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And how does that lead into the category of birdscaping?
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Like what uh what do you mean uh when you talk about birdscaping in your books?
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Well, well, actually, when we have native plants, they support birds better than any non-native plants.
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Usually they have more nectar, or they produce seeds better, or they actually the birds have evolved to be nourished by these particular plants.
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And uh so by planting these non-native bird plants, which don't, for example, are determined the our native insects can't eat them because they're foreign to them and don't have the the actual digestive systems to digest these foreign plants.
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Um, we actually have been starving our birds.
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I I never thought of it that way previously, but that we're actually starving our birds by not planting the plants that they need, which give them the nutrition that they need.
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So we really should get back to the native plants and we'll be able to help birds survive and through the ages too.
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And we are really losing our birds.
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There's many threats to birds, but one of them, of course, is not having their native landscapes and the native plants that they need.
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As many people know by now, about 3 billion less birds are in our landscapes than there were 50 years ago.
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And a new study that just came out in 2025, just last year, said that we about half of our birds have lost half of their populations over the years, over 50 years, and uh over 100 are called tipping point species because they're not uh because they've lost so much of their population.
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So it's essential that that's one of the easier things that we can do as individuals is plant native plants in our landscapes.
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Even if it's just a if you're renting, you could put a potted plant on your your porch, have a porch prairie, for example.
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So that's where I come in.
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Of course, you have to protect the birds in your landscapes too, uh protect them from window collisions and so forth.
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I can go through that, some of those threats that we have right in our backyards that we should address as we're planting these native plants.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And that's a that's a huge thing.
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It is really important that we recognize not just songbirds and uh and bird populations in general, but also pollinator populations and caterpillar populations and all those things have been collapsing for a variety of reasons.
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And so we'll come back to a couple of those things in a minute here.
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But you have in your in your most recent book, you talk about the 50 best plants for for supporting birds in our home landscape and that kind of thing.
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How did you go about getting that whittling that number down to just 50?
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Well, actually, I chose the 10 best plants for five different kinds of landscapes that birds need.
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Hummingbirds have special needs, as do prairie birds and shrubland birds and wood woodland birds and so forth.
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So, what I did, based on my own research and those that of others, I looked into the plants that I thought were best.
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And one of the reasons I didn't is exactly what you said about your landscaping efforts, is that a lot of people should start small.
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And in this newer book, I thought, well, let's just, if people don't have a lot of room or want to start small, let's choose just a few of the plants that are best, and they can start with those.
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And that's how I approach this.
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I set about to set choose the best plans for hummingbirds and for prairie brewers and so forth.
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And that's how I approach this.
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Got it.
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What are what are your favorite birds that you like to attract?
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Well, I guess my very favorite favorite bird is the scarlet tanager.
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And of course, that's a woodland bird, so but it does come into my yard more readily in spring, and it does like water features too.
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I encourage people to, if they can, have a little bird bath or so so forth in their yard because birds love that dripping, and it should be food with dripping water of some sort that will keep mosquitoes away for one thing, and also that sound of dripping water really attracts them.
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And scarlet tanagers come to water like that too.
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They don't come to feeders.
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And that's another thing I would like to say is that even though many of us, including me, have feeders, that's only about 10% of our American birds actually come to feeders.
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The rest of them we have to support in different ways.
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And even those that come to feeders only get a fraction of their food from feeders, including even hot common birds like chickadees, although they come to feeders, they feed a lot on insects and other things in you know, in the general landscape.
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So my point is we have to go beyond the bird feeder, as they say, and plant native plants that will attract all of our birds.
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Yeah, I couldn't possibly agree more on that.
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And scarlet tanagers are one of my favorites as well.
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We saw them a whole uh group, I don't know.
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It wasn't I I would hesitate to call it a flock, but it was at least four or five of them were at Frontenac State Park, which is here in Minnesota, right along right along the Mississippi River between Wisconsin and Minnesota.
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And the spring we were camping and went on a bird walk with one of the park rangers, and love all of our state parks.
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And they uh I were really, really excited that they were a bunch of scarlet tanagers, and I hadn't ever seen that many together before, and it was a really, really fun thing to to watch.
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And so what kind of what kind of plants, what kind of native plants do you like to plant?
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To let's just talk about scarlet tanagers for a little bit.
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What kind of plants do they like to feed on?
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And what what kinds of things should people try and incorporate into their landscapes for scarlet tannagers and other types of birds that you want to attract?
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Well, for scarlet tanagers, they're basically woodland birds.
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After the in spring, you do see them more readily, even in groups.
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Once I it was just a thrill.
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I had five in my yard too, and last spring I had three, but now I haven't seen them for a while.
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So they must be they then after that they start nesting and they're high in the trees, and you really have to search for them and listen to them too.
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They have a distinctive call, which is somewhat like a robin's call.
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But anyway, the top bird, excuse me, the top trees for birds that produce caterpillars, and this is according to Doug Talamy, whom you mentioned.
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He is just such an expert, and he has uh, with his students, determined which plants support the most caterpillars, particularly because caterpillars are essential for nourishing baby birds because they're fat and juicy and full of protein.
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So the top trees would be oaks, cherries, and willows.
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So those are three that are really important.
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And if you can add one of those to your landscape, that would be terrific.
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And there actually are shrub cherries and shrub willows, too, if you have a smaller yard.
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So I would highly recommend at least one of those species in anybody's yard.
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Yeah, perfect.
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And I and black cherries are just an I think a really underused plant in the Midwest here.
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I think that cherries could absolutely be planted in more places and they will do just a really good job for folks.
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And so that's great.
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So let's talk about hummingbirds.
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People really love to see hummingbirds in their backyards.
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What kinds of things should people be planting for attracting hummingbirds?
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Well, hummingbirds what I like to do is plant something for hummingbirds throughout the year.
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In the beginning of the year, columbines are just very popular with hummingbirds.
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They blossom early and they have these, as you many people know, hummingbirds need tube-shaped flowers, so they the hummingbirds come to those tubes in the plant structure.
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And uh then later at the end of the year, it's one of the top plants would be the uh uh jewelweed.
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Because I have a lot of jewelweed now.
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I have a little kettle like in my yard, so they there's a lot of jewelweed in there, and the hummingbirds do love that jewelweed, which also has like tube-like flowers.
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Then during the middle of the year, there's all kinds of them.
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Many people love blazing stars, and so do the hummingbirds, Michigan lily, for example, cardinal flowers, wild bergamot.
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Wild bergamot is a fairly easy plant to grow and does attract hummingbirds, so I would highly recommend that one as a starter plant.
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And so, yeah, there's a lot of them.
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I can mention others too.
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And oh, by the way, hummingbirds not only need nectar, as most people do know, of course, but they also about 30% of their diet are insects.
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So in my book, for example, I include two small shrubs that attract small insects for hummingbirds.
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And willows are one like pussy willow is a fairly smaller shrub, it's not a big tall willow.
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That would be that uh has attracts small insects for hummingbirds, as does a plant called New Jersey tea.
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And that's a smaller shrub that only gets maybe about two, three feet high.
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But that will, so then if you have the nectar plants and at least one or two uh plants that attract insects for the hummingbirds, you're set.
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You have a good landscape for the hummingbirds.
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And if you're lucky, maybe they'll leave a nest.
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Yeah, I they're just so much fun to to watch and to interact with.
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We talked a little bit about bird feeders earlier in the conversation.
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Do you what do you do you have any thoughts or opinions on hummingbird feeders?
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Yes, I have a hummingbird feeder too.
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And of course, at this time of year, they're migrating south uh into Wisconsin, probably maybe in in your area too, in Minnesota, because you're fairly close to us.
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But anyway, I have more hummingbirds now in the fall than even earlier.
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So it is fun to watch them.
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And you'll have more females and males and even young too at this time.
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And this is about the last month, as you know, and many people do know, they do migrate.
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And so usually we're here in Wisconsin up until through September.
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So I'm still getting quite a few now.
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And uh sooner or later, though, they'll be gone, and we'll just have to wait for next year.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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It will not will not be long, that is for sure.
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So let's talk about other areas.
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So you've got the five different areas where you have the your 10 favorite plants for those spots.
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What are the other couple areas where you like to focus on?
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You said prairie plantings and what else?
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Prairies and shrublands.
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Uh, we we really need to support our shrub.
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Good shrubs, not so much of us, so many of us just have buckthorn and honeysuckle, but there's uh there's problems with with both of those shrubs that are so invasive and prevalent, but we have wonderful other shrubs and some of my favorite shrub shrubs.
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We talked about cherries and how good they are.
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Well, there's actually a shrub cherry called choke cherry, which is very excellent too, offers berries and insects for for birds in in more open areas.
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Oh, I'm talking about the shrubs now.
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But anyway, the other I should just go on and mention that the last habitat and plants that I recommend are for woodlands.
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But I can go into each of those.
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Yeah, that would be great.
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I let's especially talk about shrubs because I think that like in this world of making sure that we're supporting, you know, pollinators and songbirds and local ecosystems, especially here in Minnesota, our our shrubs get really overlooked.
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And there are a lot of really great native shrubs to the area.
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So I'm I'm glad that you're addressing that.
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Yeah, I I agree.
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And even sometimes when they're restoring areas, I think they neglect shrubs or shrub and areas, at least in our area.
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I I really uh regret that to some extent.
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But actually, once you get that, though, and I imagine you have lots of buckthorn and honeysuckle invasive too in your area.
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Am I right about that?
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Oh, absolutely.
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Yep, definitely.
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Besides, I mentioned the choke cherry as one of my favorites, and I have that, and I have all of these well, dogwoods are great too, and shrub willows.
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But dogwoods are particularly good, especially at this time of year.
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They have a lot of fats and proteins in their berries, especially fats, and that's what humming, that's what shrubland birds and all birds actually need at this time of year to fuel their migration south.
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So dogwoods are really excellent, and there's about six or seven different kinds of dogwoods, different species that are great for our areas, and according to your, you know, soil and sunlight and so forth, you could choose one or more of them.
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And uh, I have several species in my yard, and then there are shrub willows, and that would be, of course, the pussy willow.
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And there are some prairie shrub willows too that we have.
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They're not as common, and I primarily have seen them in uh, you know, restored prairies or actual remnant prairies more than have been planted by people, but those would be another great option because both all three of those species have not only berries and seeds and so forth for birds, but they also harbor, as I mentioned with Doug Tal and me's research, lots and lots of caterpillars, which are so important for birds.
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So those would be my top shrubs, but I do have about seven others, of course, in my book.
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And so there's a lot of them.
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Hawthurns are great, junipers are wonderful too.
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And of course, the cedar wax wings depend on junipers and there's shrub junipers too, besides the big red cedar.
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Right.
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And roses, and there's some grasses too.
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And we should have, as far as herbaceous species that offer a lot of seeds and so forth, that would be like short grasses, like blue stem grass, and there's elmie goldenrods, kind of one that uh goldenrod that does one well in some shade, and asters.
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Again, there's uh goldenrods and asters for almost every habitat you want.
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There's some that are great for prairies, some that are great for shady areas, and so forth.
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So we have a lot of variety in our native plants, and that's what's so great about using them rather than the standard uh, you know, non-native ones that everybody uses and don't offer the best for birds.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And I think that that's really back to shrubs a little bit.
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I think it's really important that we we talk about shrubs because so many home landscapes, they plant a some hydrangea and some boxwood and some spirea, and that's where they call it, but that doesn't really, that doesn't really provide much at all for food, if anything, uh, via caterpillars and seeds and those kinds of things and berries for any sort of songbirds and pollinators.
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Right.
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And I might mention that we have some beautiful shrubland birds if everyone uh the indigo bunting is just gorgeous.
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And then there are some other ones like the uh that are kind of classy looking, like the eastern toe.
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And so we have some wonderful shrub and birds that we should be supporting and hopefully see more often.
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Yeah, that's that's the goal, right?
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So we'll we'll work on that for sure.
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So you talked uh a little bit earlier, and we're gonna bump up against the end time here in just a couple minutes, but uh I want to make sure to talk about a couple other things here with you as you talked about that it's really easy to have a container with some native plants on it or something like that.
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So even if you have really small spaces, how you can support songbirds and and birds and pollinators and those kinds of things.
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Like how how would you recommend people going about that?
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Well, I uh if you want to have a container on your porch or balcony or anything, I'd suggest like a five, a rather large five-gallon container with good drainage, holes in the bottom, maybe put a few stones in and then use potting soil, of course.
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But some some then I would choose about five different plants for that area.
00:20:04.880 --> 00:20:12.000
And again, you could choose plants for each time of year, you know, spring, summer, and fall, for example.
00:20:12.559 --> 00:20:28.799
One example would be if you have a kind of a sunny area, you could have Heath Aster, which is a small aster, Lansley Coriopsis, which is um not too tall choriopsis, and butterfly weed, which is just gorgeous.
00:20:28.960 --> 00:20:32.240
So then you'd have things for uh all seasons.
00:20:32.400 --> 00:20:38.799
And you could add a few short plant short grasses like prairie drop seed or little blue stem.
00:20:38.960 --> 00:20:42.640
That would make a great pot, porch prairie, you might call it.
00:20:42.960 --> 00:20:43.599
I love that.
00:20:44.000 --> 00:21:01.119
If you have shadier area, you could use something like wild geranium, columbine, and zigzag goldenrod, all a little on the shorter side, then those would all again do well in a potting, you know, porch prairie.
00:21:01.839 --> 00:21:02.480
Beautiful.
00:21:03.039 --> 00:21:05.440
Anyway, those are things I would recommend.
00:21:05.599 --> 00:21:06.640
And choose the plants.
00:21:06.880 --> 00:21:12.559
Whenever you're choosing plants, you need as with all plants, choose the right plant for the right place.
00:21:12.799 --> 00:21:17.039
If you have a lot of sun, it would be more like a prairie plant if it's shade, shade plant.
00:21:17.119 --> 00:21:20.720
And I go, I I give examples of all that in my books.
00:21:21.119 --> 00:21:21.759
Yeah, absolutely.
00:21:21.839 --> 00:21:34.240
And again, you can find in the show notes, you can find the links to uh Marriott's wonderful books, and as well, I'll put the couple we have a couple interviews with Doug Talamy also, so I'll put those in the show notes so people can get more from him as well.
00:21:34.400 --> 00:21:36.880
And so, two last questions for you, Mariette.
00:21:37.039 --> 00:21:49.839
One is that I often think that winter season is neglected in just landscapes in general and that kind of thing, but it's especially important for birds to have winter seeds and things like that available.
00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:59.759
And so I don't want to get into maintenance practices and a ton of stuff like that, but what do you uh what do you suggest for plant material that people can have for overwintering birds here in the cold climate?
00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:01.039
Upper Midwest.
00:22:01.279 --> 00:22:03.519
Well, you want to plant shelter too.
00:22:03.599 --> 00:22:06.400
And a lot of the shelter plants would also have seeds.
00:22:06.559 --> 00:22:09.440
So I always like to have at least some evergreens.
00:22:09.599 --> 00:22:10.640
Down here, we don't have it.
00:22:10.720 --> 00:22:15.839
You probably have more a few more that do well in your general landscapes up there.
00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:18.160
Um, here I do love my cedars.
00:22:18.240 --> 00:22:20.720
I have red cedar, and the birds just love that.
00:22:20.799 --> 00:22:29.759
And of course, the cedar wax wing, which is named after it, loves those berries on the cedar wax on the red cedars.
00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:36.000
So that that I would suggest at least some evergreen or of that sort.
00:22:36.160 --> 00:22:38.640
There's also shrub evergreens, too.
00:22:38.799 --> 00:22:42.000
There's shrubs junipers, for example.
00:22:42.240 --> 00:22:49.759
And then viburnums are shrubs that do keep their berries longer than dogwoods.
00:22:49.839 --> 00:22:57.680
And I do like viburnums, but they are some of them are more vulnerable to a vulnerable an invasive beetle.
00:22:57.839 --> 00:23:02.160
But there are several viburnums that are not attacked by that.
00:23:02.240 --> 00:23:04.240
And I have the what is that one?
00:23:04.319 --> 00:23:07.519
The black, I can't think of that one right now, and I love it.
00:23:07.599 --> 00:23:11.279
It's uh uh one there are two viburnums that are less susceptible.
00:23:11.440 --> 00:23:18.960
One is viburnum lentego, you know that one, and the other one is oh, black haw viburnum.
00:23:19.200 --> 00:23:19.839
Oh, yeah.
00:23:20.079 --> 00:23:23.519
And especially my black haw viburnum hasn't been attacked at all.
00:23:23.680 --> 00:23:29.359
So there are several native species that are more resistant to this viburnum.
00:23:29.519 --> 00:23:38.480
So they have, but but the point is that they would keep their fruits longer than dogwoods because they don't have as much fat and they don't decay as quickly as dogwood berries.
00:23:38.559 --> 00:23:44.559
So viburnums would be a good choice for a kind of late fall into winter berry for the birds.
00:23:44.720 --> 00:23:59.279
And of course, a lot of plants have seeds for the birds later on in the year, including your uh, you know, um prairie grasses or even woodland clip grasses and so forth would retain their seeds or drop their seeds on the ground for the birds.
00:23:59.359 --> 00:24:01.119
So those would be good choices too.
00:24:01.200 --> 00:24:05.200
And and some trees have, you know, retained their seeds for a while and so forth.
00:24:05.279 --> 00:24:07.200
So those would be good choices.
00:24:07.519 --> 00:24:07.839
Right.
00:24:08.079 --> 00:24:08.559
Perfect.
00:24:08.720 --> 00:24:13.759
And with viburnums, I just want to make sure everybody realizes that there are a lot of viburnums out there.
00:24:13.920 --> 00:24:18.960
There are viburnum is it spreads all across the country and all across the world.
00:24:19.039 --> 00:24:28.480
So make sure when you're getting a viburnum, it is one that's native to your your area through things, because it's it's really easy to get ones that don't that don't live in our zone and all that kind of stuff.
00:24:28.559 --> 00:24:32.160
But viburnum, I agree, is a wonderful, wonderful plant for people to be putting in.
00:24:32.319 --> 00:24:38.079
So if you could, Mariette, put five plants in a home landscape.
00:24:38.240 --> 00:24:46.079
Let's say somebody is converting from a lawn that is unnecessary and unused, and you can you've got a very small space and can put five different plants in there.
00:24:46.160 --> 00:24:47.599
What five plants would you put in?
00:24:47.920 --> 00:24:51.519
Well, an oak might be too big for a small plant.
00:24:51.599 --> 00:24:53.519
So I guess I'd put it in a cherry.
00:24:53.759 --> 00:24:59.920
A cherry and maybe a pussy willow, if it it would be a good habitat for that.
00:25:00.160 --> 00:25:14.400
And then I would put in dogwoods and one dogwood, and maybe even a viburnal, a little shrubby area, and then some that I would say the top herbaceous plants are sunflowers, goldenrods, and asters.
00:25:14.720 --> 00:25:19.839
So I would choose native ones of each of those and add those to the sunny areas.
00:25:20.160 --> 00:25:20.799
Perfect.
00:25:21.039 --> 00:25:21.440
Good.
00:25:21.599 --> 00:25:29.359
Well, thank you so much for joining us and talking through and sharing your knowledge and just your wonderful books with all of our listeners.
00:25:29.440 --> 00:25:30.720
So I really appreciate that.
00:25:30.880 --> 00:25:34.640
Is there anything that I didn't ask you about that you want to make sure that people know?
00:25:34.960 --> 00:25:38.960
Well, I guess I would suggest that you protect your windows from the birds.
00:25:39.039 --> 00:25:45.200
You know, about I guess the latest is like almost 3.5 billion birds die from windows.
00:25:45.359 --> 00:25:57.920
And although we hear about those big skyscrapers, the statistics show that even our lower homes, there's because there's so many, there's more collisions with those than the skyscrapers.
00:25:58.079 --> 00:26:02.480
And it would also protect your birds from cats.
00:26:02.720 --> 00:26:03.759
We I love cats.
00:26:03.920 --> 00:26:14.480
We had two cats for many years, but when we knew that they were, when we found that they were getting birds and small mammals, our native ones outside, we kept them indoors or put them on a leash.
00:26:14.720 --> 00:26:18.720
And then chemicals, try to avoid chemicals as much as you can.
00:26:19.039 --> 00:26:26.720
Us natural elasticers sometimes use chemicals just to start the process, like to kill an invasive shrub.
00:26:26.799 --> 00:26:38.480
We might paint the stump of the shrub to kill it, but otherwise minimize chemicals completely and avoid, and there's so many terrible ones, like the neonicodoys.
00:26:38.640 --> 00:26:40.000
So look into that.
00:26:40.160 --> 00:26:45.279
There's so much online now about how they kill birds and uh bees and so forth.
00:26:45.359 --> 00:26:54.240
So those are three more just things to try to avoid so that you're not killing the birds you're attracting with all these great native plants.
00:26:54.640 --> 00:26:54.960
Right.
00:26:55.200 --> 00:26:55.759
Exactly.
00:26:55.920 --> 00:26:56.240
Perfect.
00:26:56.319 --> 00:26:59.519
Well, Mary Anno, thank you so much for joining us.
00:26:59.680 --> 00:27:05.039
Where can people find your books and where can people find you if they want to learn more?
00:27:06.079 --> 00:27:08.319
First of all, you can go through Wild Ones.
00:27:08.559 --> 00:27:14.079
I I'm in the Tetalmoraine chapter of Wild Ones, so that's would be a way to get hold of me.
00:27:14.240 --> 00:27:19.359
And you can email that website for our chapter and they'll get hold of me.
00:27:19.599 --> 00:27:27.039
And as far as my books, they're in on Amazon and a lot of them are in libraries and bookstores.
00:27:27.119 --> 00:27:28.400
Oh, and then the UW Press.
00:27:28.480 --> 00:27:31.359
They were both published by UW Press.
00:27:31.599 --> 00:27:34.960
So you would be able to go right to their website and get it.
00:27:35.279 --> 00:27:36.000
Perfect.
00:27:36.160 --> 00:27:36.720
Thank you.
00:27:36.960 --> 00:27:37.279
All right.
00:27:37.359 --> 00:27:40.000
Well, thank you so much for being with us here today.
00:27:40.160 --> 00:27:41.359
I really, really appreciate it.
00:27:41.440 --> 00:27:48.559
And thank you for just all your work that you're doing to make sure to promote and uh and help folks learn about healthy landscapes.
00:27:48.640 --> 00:27:49.599
So thank you, Mariette.
00:27:49.759 --> 00:27:50.640
And thank you, Brad.
00:27:50.720 --> 00:27:52.000
I have it was a pleasure.