Lili Taylor has changed my opinion on house sparrows forever.

In her first book, "Turning to Birds: The Power and Beauty of Noticing," released on April 29, the Illinois native and longtime New York resident with a lifetime of iconic film roles under her belt — spanning from "Mystic Pizza," "Say Anything," "I Shot Andy Warhol" and "The Conjuring," in addition to TV roles in "Six Feet Under," "Outer Range," and, soon, the second season of "Daredevil: Born Again" — refers to one of the world's most common birds as being not very nice to each other, "always bickering," and particularly disruptive to nesting bluebirds, aggravating her to such a degree that she bought a pellet gun at Dick's Sporting Goods in an attempt to take them down before realizing it would be too difficult to hit such small moving targets.

During a lengthy conversation over Zoom, as she was in Vancouver working on an undisclosed project, I checked in with Taylor as to the status of her sparrow beef, sharing with her that, as they are the dominant visitors at the feeders in my own backyard, I now keep an askance eye on them, having read the chapter in her book where she details boiling a sparrow's eggs in an effort to keep them from multiplying and taking over the nests of gentler birds, only for one to hatch anyway.

"The Terminator Sparrow was born," she writes, describing her horror and, eventually, admiration at the bird's resilience after rejecting its fate as essentially an Easter egg to come to life, at any cost, to further torment Taylor.

"It’s a work in progress, my relationship with sparrows," she said during our conversation, spent primarily focused on her love of birds (although not these particular birds) and her work as a board member for both The National Audubon Society and the New York City Bird Alliance.

Read the rest of our interview — her first for the book — to learn more about when and why Taylor became interested in birds and how an appreciation for them is a switch in all of us, just waiting to be flipped.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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As someone who, over the past few years, also entered their bird era, this book really spoke to me. I can remember being younger and looking at all the bird books and figurines in my gramma’s house, thinking, “What’s this lady’s deal with birds?” And then, flash forward 30 or so years later, I’m like, “Oh wow, listen to those mourning doves!” Why do you think that, for so many people, this switch flips at a certain age, and birds suddenly become a point of fascination?

"Just by even mentioning birds, it sort of opens up a door."

That’s something I think about a lot. I think the switch is there to be flipped . . . our innate wiring to be ready for it. I think it can happen through other people. It’s so wild. Just by even mentioning birds, it sort of opens up a door; it’s really weird. It’s kind of cool—you don’t have to do much. Like, I remember I took these kids out for a walk—my kids’ class. I take them out on little bird walks. This was when they were in the third grade, and it was 20 minutes, and one of the kids’ moms, for the rest of the year, she goes, “Jesus, he can’t stop talking about birds . . . now I gotta put bread out.” And then another mom was like, “Oh my God, every time a bird comes out he says, ‘I like birds now.’” Twenty minutes—that’s all it took. So I guess it’s just letting people know that there are birds around.

Could you ever have........

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