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Hello and welcome to another episode of the American Burning Podcast from the American Burning Association.

I'm your host, Nate Swick, and I don't know about you, but I am getting really anxious for spring, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone.

We're here in the last half of February, and there are little tidbits of spring showing.

I live in the southeast, so I'm probably seeing it more than many.

Trees are starting to bud.

Cardinals and Chitadis are in full song these days,

and my local red shoulder hawks are loud and shameless in their courting and mating.

So this is an exciting time, but it's also a dangerous time for birders,

and I'll explain why I think that I have a theory about this time

of year. And it's informed by my experiences on listservs. And I've been on bird list serves since I was a

young birder. I realize that dates me a little bit. And this theory has only seemed more accurate

as social media becomes an increasingly important part of the way that birders communicate with each other.

I call it the delayed spring theory.

So for much of the continent, late February is a little bit of a burning doldrum.

It generally lasts into March when the first migrants began to slowly make their way up into the southern states.

Real migration, and by that, I mean the big rush of central and

South American migrants is still about six to eight weeks off, but it always feels like you're

ready for it now once those first signs start showing. So I think birders get a little anxious,

they get a little tense, and then on social media and the list serves serves they get a little short with each other.

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