Hello, welcome to the American Burning Podcast from the American Burning Association.

I am your host, Nate Swick.

January and February are typically the coldest months here in the temperate northern hemisphere.

That usually means that we are officially,

officially now, at the end of fall migration. The cold weather finches, raptors and waterfowl,

usually reach their farthest south ebb in January, holding for a couple weeks before the

yo-yo string starts to pull up again, which means naturally that we are only

a couple weeks away from the start of spring migration.

I know it's hard to believe, but along the southern tier of the ABA area, Florida, South

Texas, Southern California, we're going to start seeing signs of some of our earliest spring

migrants any day now.

The most famous and beloved of which is arguably the Purple Martin.

Purple Martins start showing up in the ABA area in February, an arrival that is greatly anticipated among Martin devotees who share a passion that has lasted about as long as

human beings have existed in North America,

at least reportedly.

This is the subject of a paper that was recently published in the journal Conservation and Society

by a group of Oklahoma-based researchers, biologists, anthropologists.

There are some really fascinating revelations in the piece about the legacy of so-called

Purple Martin landlords. Purple Martins, you see, are synanthropes, meaning that they prefer to

dwell in close proximity to humans. In fact, it is exceedingly rare to find any member of the

eastern subspecies of Purple Martin breeding in

anything other than a human provided nesting structure here in the 21st century.

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