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Hello and welcome to the American Birding Podcast from the American Birding Association. I am

Nate Swick. The breeding bird survey, at least my part of the breeding bird surveys, are finished

for the year. My last 430 wake-up call of the summer was this past week, and I only need to fill out

the forms and update my e-bird checklist, And I can put that responsibility away until 2025.

I do three routes.

You've probably heard me talk about them here before.

Two here in North Carolina and one just across the border in Virginia.

They are fairly pedestrian in terms of what birds I can expect, the 60-odd most common species found here in this part of the southeast.

But the Virginia route is always a little interesting, too, because it's about 500 feet higher in elevation.

And that means I get a lot of cool stuff like breeding American Red Starts and hooded warblers and boatloads of scarlet tanagers where I usually

just get summers on my lower elevation roots. There's only about 30 miles between the different

spots, but in that period, the bird life changes subtly, but perceptively. That's one of the fun

...