This episode of the American Birding podcast is sponsored by the Gray's Harbor Shorebird Festival held May 3rd through 5th, 2019 in Hokwium, Washington.

Come celebrate the spring shorebird migration with the Grace Harbor Audubon Society at one of the great Pacific flyway stopover spots, see hundreds of thousands of plovers, turnstones, sandpipers, dowchers, and more as they rest and feed around hoquiam and the Graze Harbor National Wildlife

Refuge. It is a real spectacle and an amazing natural phenomenon. It's not just about the birds.

Birding Without Borders author Noah Stricker is the keynote speaker this year. For more information,

go to shorebird festival.com or call 360560-8162.

Hello. 50560 8162. Hello and welcome to another episode of the American Burning podcast from the American Burning Association.

I am Nate Swick.

I have a couple things to talk about right up top.

Burst.

Did you hear birding on NPR last week?

Well, it was fantasy birding and it was on the NPR quiz show. Wait, wait, don't tell me. It's part of the bluff the listener game where in the

panelists tell three outlandish stories, one of which is true and the call-in contestant has to guess

which one is the right one. As you probably guess from my

introduction there, the birding one was the right one. In any case, this is how the

game, the fantasy birding game, was characterized by comedian Adam Burke.

Fantasy bird watching involves picking a spot in America frequented by real-life birdwatchers

and then scoring points every time the actual avian enthusiast reports seeing a rare or common species

to an online database. I know, right? Sure you can go bungee jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge

or fly a wingsuit through

the Grand Teton's, but for sheer white knuckle excitement, nothing beats the adrenaline-pounding

thrill of scoring eight points every time some birder in the field spots a red-breasted

nut hatch, blue-footed booby, or hope of hopes as San Clemente Lagerhead Shrike because it's March baby and

...