The grosbeak squawks. She seems mad.

She clamps her beak onto the thumb of the man who holds her. He winces and pulls the bird until she finally lets go.

"Did that hurt?" one of the people at the picnic table asks.

"Ya," the man says. He has a Czech accent.

He presents his injured hand to the people and smiles. They laugh.

The bird pecks him again. He winces again.

She pecks him again.

He clamps a metal band on the bird's leg, to track migration. He measures the bird and slips her headfirst into a clear plastic envelope, dangling the bird in the air on a spring scale to weigh her.

She is one of about 40 birds Dr. Josef Kren will band this day. He has banded about 60,000 birds in his life.

Fog blankets the prairie, making it perfect bird-catching weather because the birds can't see the nets he's set in one of the prairie's ditches.

Dewdrops are diamonds on the prairie's native flowers. Spiderwebs shimmer like necklaces on the walking bridge, the trees, the tall grass.

Spring Creek Prairie is an oasis of native prairie just 20 minutes southwest of town.

"It's a beautiful morning," he says, in his Czech accent.

But inside, Dr. Kren is torn - it's also a beautiful morning for another passion, photographing the birds. His insticts tell him to take his camera out in the prairie grass and capture birds in photos, instead of in nets.

A morning like this for photography is magical.

Dr. Kren is a professor of physiology at BryanLGH Medical Center's College of Health Sciences. He researches birds. Right now, he's particularly interested in the physiology of how they sing.

Pollution has changed some of their songs.

He fell in love with birds as a kid in Czechloslovakia. Almost every morning, his grandfather took him for walks in the woods near their village. His grandfather taught him about birds.

How many people know at age 4 what they want to do with their life?

He came to Nebraska in 1991, invited by the university to work on his second Ph.D.

A few years back, he had a job offer in New York. But on a magical morning in May 2003, he walked this prairie with friends, trying to count as many bird species as they could. Something about that morning and the people he was with and the land. Maybe it was how the birds were singing that day.

I'm staying, he announced that morning to his friends.

How many life decisions are made in one moment?

This morning, he pulls another grosbeak out of a netted bag. He turns the bird to show the people the breast, and the apron of rose-colored feathers.

"It's a male," he says.

The humans ooooh and aaaaah.

"Look! Look!" a human squawks. "That's beautiful!"

As much as Dr. Kren would love to be alone in the grass this morning, with just his camera and the birds and the silence, he realizes that he loves this even more - introducing people to the wonder of birds.

And that, he said later, made this yet another magical morning for him at Spring Creek Prairie.

Reach Colleen Kenney at 473-2655 or ckenney@journalstar.com.