Academics have much to gain from talking to the public, but don't expect bird-watchers to behave like your fellow academics, warns Tim Birkhead.

Reaching out to the public is something academics ought to do.

The problem is that public outreach is unrecognised; there are few rewards and certainly none as far as the research assessment exercise is concerned.

In the US, part of the deal of getting a research grant is that you go out and inform, educate and entertain the public. But this is a sure-fire way of screwing things up. You have to want to do it. A reluctant or incompetent speaker is likely to be counterproductive. If public speaking accrues so little credit, why does anyone bother? The costs are substantial; including time spent travelling (although escaping the phone and e-mails for a day or so can be reward in itself), and time preparing an appropriate presentation (it takes much longer to prepare a talk for the public). As far as I am concerned, the main reward is the excitement of the unexpected. Outside the ivory tower anything can happen.

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My own research topic, the reproductive biology and behaviour of birds, provides plenty of scope for public engagement. On one occasion, after I had completed a three-year study of whether the increase in magpies in the UK was responsible for the decrease in songbird numbers, I was invited to talk about the results at a bird-watchers' club "oop north". I'd gone to a lot of trouble because I knew this was a contentious topic. In the talk, I showed as carefully as I could that changes in agriculture were the main cause of songbird declines, not magpies. At the end, an elderly gentleman in a suit with "weskit" and gold chain stood up to give the vote of thanks:

"Thou's told us a great deal about magpies," he said, "But... we don't believe you - do we?" The entire audience nodded in agreement. It was difficult to know how to respond, and even more difficult to know whether to then accept their invitation for a glass of sherry.

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Years later, and with slightly more experience, I agreed to talk to a bird-keepers' club in another northern town. On a dark, wet November evening I arrived at the rather dodgy pub only to be met by an audience best described as "reserved". My host was an hour and half late. I waited, feeling like a lemon as the audience was more interested in supping their pints than engaging in conversation. Eventually the chairman arrived (with no apology), and we prepared to start. Somewhat nervously I got up and stood before the audience waiting to be introduced. Nothing happened until an impatient voiced bellowed across the room: "Well, get on with it!" I did, and by the end of the evening, I felt that I'd rescued what initially had seemed an impossible situation. The difficulty had been largely my own.

As academics we expect a certain protocol that doesn't always apply in other sectors of the real world.

Another rewarding aspect of addressing the public is that it can provide unexpected insights. Non-academics have a very different take on the world and sometimes ask questions you would never have thought of.

Sometimes, though, these are so unexpected they leave you speechless. At a Cafe Scientifique meeting I had given a talk on the mating strategies of different animals, discussing why some birds copulate 100 times a day while others do so only once. At the end, a middle-aged woman put up her hand and asked: "Since you know so much about copulation, perhaps you can tell me why it is my husband falls asleep every time we make love?"

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Tim Birkhead is professor of behavioural ecology at Sheffield University.