This article, part of NPR's "When I Grow Up" series in which children interview adults working in their dream careers, follows seven-year-old Khalib Townsend of Philadelphia as he interviews Keith Russell, a conservation biologist at the Audubon Discovery Center. Khalib hopes to become a conservation scientist himself, and the piece highlights how access to mentors in a chosen field can help young people sustain their career ambitions rather than let them fade, since many children lack adult role models who can show them what such jobs actually involve.

Russell explains that his own fascination with birds began in first grade, leading him through a biology degree, museum work and eventually a conservation role at Audubon. He tells Khalib that sharing his love of birds and protecting them from dangers such as window collisions, which kill more than a billion birds a year in the United States, is the most rewarding part of his work, and that birds make cities more pleasant places to live through their songs, colours and behaviour. The interview also touches on the evolutionary link between birds and dinosaurs, which Russell explains using fossil evidence.