Birds on "Grey's Anatomy"!

On last night's episode of "Grey's Anatomy," birds appeared in a plotline. I didn't catch the entire episode but came into it when Izzie convinced a reluctant cardiac patient to go through with an unusual procedure -- open-heart surgery while awake but numb via an epidural. She did it by blurting "Ivory-billed Woodpecker."

Mr. Arnold, the patient, wanted to see the bird in Arkansas and agreed to the surgery. Izzie even put a picture of the bird on an IV pole next to Mr. Arnold's head.

When he panicked at being the object of attention during the surgery, Izzie encouraged Mr. Arnold to think of the people in the observation platform as birds and to describe them. He characterized one woman as an ibis, Dr. Yang as a Purple Sandpiper, Dr. Shepherd (aka McDreamy) as a Black-headed Nightingale-Thrush, and Dr. Webber as a Great Blue Heron that watches over and sees all... and the patient's anxiety decreased enough for the surgery to continue.

What I'd enjoy learning: Which writer introduced that storyline? Is that writer a birder? How'd that storyline come into play? How were those species chosen to represent the doctors?

Very cool that birds and birding enjoyed some prime-time minutes on a high-ranking show.