{"podcast":{"title":"Buzz Blossom & Squeak — Be a Neighborhood Naturalist","slug":"buzz-blossom-squeak-6817827","podcast_index_feed_id":6817827,"rss_url":"https://feeds.captivate.fm/buzz-blossom-squeak/","website_url":"https://buzzblossomandsqueak.com/","image_url":"https://artwork.captivate.fm/6bf1b4ca-8682-42ea-b3f5-b4caa5685cb9/bbslogo2.jpg","author":"Jill McKinley","episode_count":131,"summary":"Buzz, Blossom & Squeak is a quiet, curious walk into the natural world right outside your door. You don’t need to be a scientist, a hardcore birder, or someone who hikes miles into the wilderness. This podcast is for anyone who has ever paused to notice a bird call, wondered about a plant growing along a sidewalk, watched insects move through a garden, or felt the seasons shifting without quite knowing why. Each episode focuses on small, approachable pieces of nature—birds, bugs, plants, weather, ecosystems, and natural patterns—explained in a way that’s calm, curious, and grounded in observation. Instead of rushing toward big conclusions, Buzz, Blossom & Squeak invites you to slow down and really notice what’s happening in the living world around you. You’ll hear about things like: How birds use different layers of trees and sky Why certain plants grow where they do What insects are actually doing when they buzz past How seasons quietly reshape landscapes The hidden systems that connect soil, water, plants, and animals The goal isn’t mastery—it’s familiarity. Nature becomes less overwhelming when you take it one small step at a time. This podcast is especially for people who: Wan…","last_synced_at":"2026-09-09T16:20:47.434969+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/buzz-blossom-squeak-6817827"},"episode":{"title":"Chimney Swifts - Can't Perch, Can't Walk, and Barely Lands","slug":"chimney-swifts-can-t-perch-can-t-walk-and-barely-lands","published_at":"2026-09-09T08:58:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/buzz-blossom-squeak-6817827/chimney-swifts-can-t-perch-can-t-walk-and-barely-lands","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/buzz-blossom-squeak-6817827","url":"https://buzzblossomandsqueak.com/episode/chimney-swifts-cant-perch-cant-walk-and-barely-lands","audio_url":"https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/04dbb911-68db-448c-8def-db60f8958347.mp3","summary":"# The Bird That Never Perches: A Chimney Swift Roost at Dusk This week I stood on a picnic table with a few hundred strangers, watching what looked like a tornado of birds pour into a school chimney. It took almost three hours, and by the end I understood exactly why people show up for this every single year. **A Bird Built Only for the Air** Chimney swifts eat, drink, bathe, and even mate in flight. Their feet are built for one thing: clinging to a rough vertical wall. They can't perch on a wire or hop around on the ground like a robin. If they aren't flying, they're clinging to something. **The Long Wait at the Roost** The show doesn't happen all at once. Birds circle and chatter overhead for hours before a few scouts peel off and test the chimney. As the light fades, the funnel tightens until the bulk of the flock finally pours in together, more like water going down a drain than anything organized by a leader. **Packed In Like Shingles** Inside, the swifts cling to the rough brick with their tail feathers, the same trick woodpeckers use on a tree trunk, and stack in tight, overlapping rows. Their combined body heat helps keep the whole roost warm overnight. **The Century-Old Mystery of Where They Go** For decades, nobody knew where chimney swifts disappeared to every winter. Banding studies eventually traced them to the upper Amazon basin in Peru, and more recent tracking shows them drifting on through Venezuela and Brazil before the long flight back north each spring. **A Vanishing Kind of Chimney** Swifts once nested in old hollow trees, then adapted to brick chimneys once those trees disappeared. Now schools and old buildings are being torn down or capped, and the chimneys that host these massive roosts are getting harder to find, which is why the school in my t…","meta_description":"# The Bird That Never Perches: A Chimney Swift Roost at Dusk This week I stood on a picnic table with a few hundred strangers, watching what looked like a…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":699,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/buzz-blossom-squeak-6817827/episodes/chimney-swifts-can-t-perch-can-t-walk-and-barely-lands/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/buzz-blossom-squeak-6817827/chimney-swifts-can-t-perch-can-t-walk-and-barely-lands.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}