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PODCAST

Buzz Blossom & Squeak — Be a Neighborhood Naturalist

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,

science nature

All Episodes

11:17

Look Closer, Not Farther: See More on Every Walk

Buzz Blossom & Squeak — Be a Neighborhood Naturalist ·

2026/10/01

A few weeks ago, my friend Em and I were scanning the far side of a lake for migrating ducks and shorebirds. When I finally got tired of squinting through binoculars and turned around, there were a dozen American bullfrogs in the little pond right behind us, eyes above the water, watching us. That moment made me admit something: I'm a horizon scanner. And a lot of the best nature is happening within arm's reach. **The Horizon-Scanner Habit** Our attention goes to distance and drama: a soaring hawk,

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14:13

How to Layer Clothes for Winter (Base, Mid, Outer)

Buzz Blossom & Squeak — Be a Neighborhood Naturalist ·

2026/09/24

Winter doesn't have to be a season you disappear from. Most of the time, being cold outside isn't the weather's fault, it's a clothing problem, and it's a solvable one. This episode breaks down the three-layer system that actually works and why it works. THREE PROBLEMS, THREE JOBS Every layer you wear in winter solves one of three problems: warmth (keeping heat in), wind (keeping it from getting stripped away), and wet (keeping moisture out, whether it's snow or your own sweat). BASE LAYER: FIGHTING

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14:11

El Nino Winter: What It Means for Backyard Birds

Buzz Blossom & Squeak — Be a Neighborhood Naturalist ·

2026/09/17

Somewhere out in the middle of the Pacific right now, the ocean is doing something it hasn't done in almost 150 years, and if you keep a feeder in your backyard, that's about to matter more than you'd think. This fall NOAA has put the odds at over 90% that we're headed into a very strong El Nino by winter, with some scientists reaching back to 1877 for a comparable event. I wanted to break down what El Nino actually is in plain terms, and then get into the part I really care about: what a warm, dry

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11:39

Chimney Swifts - Can't Perch, Can't Walk, and Barely...

Buzz Blossom & Squeak — Be a Neighborhood Naturalist ·

2026/09/09

# 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

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16:53

129 - Five Games That Will Change How You Notice Nature

Buzz Blossom & Squeak — Be a Neighborhood Naturalist ·

2026/09/03

I want to start with a confession: there have been entire walks, even hikes, where I got to the end and realized I couldn’t tell you a single thing I’d passed. My legs did the walk. The rest of me wasn’t there at all. I used to think that was just how I was built, ADHD, always a little scattered. Turns out noticing is a skill, and it’s trainable. Here are the tools I use to train it.Why noticing is different from just being outside. There’s a real difference between walking a trail to get your steps

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11:09

128 - Science Behind 4 Smells You Notice Outdoors

Buzz Blossom & Squeak — Be a Neighborhood Naturalist ·

2026/08/27

Ever walked past a bog and wondered why it smells nothing like your backyard after a rainstorm? Or caught that sharp green scent of fresh-cut grass and had no idea it’s actually a plant screaming for help? In this episode I go down a research rabbit hole into the chemistry behind the smells we associate with the outdoors, and it turns out almost none of them mean what we assume they mean.The rain smell has a name, and it’s not what causes it. Petrichor is the word for the scent after rain hits dry

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13:13

127 - Fall Migration Already Started (And You...

Buzz Blossom & Squeak — Be a Neighborhood Naturalist ·

2026/08/20

It’s the end of July, and while the rest of us are still thinking pools and barbecues, the birds have already started leaving. Not in September like most of us assume — right now. Em and I have been noticing shorebirds we hadn’t seen since April, gathering in loose flocks on wires, and it turns out there’s an entire invisible clock that’s been counting down since the moment this year’s babies fledged.The Red-Winged Blackbird TimelineA newly fledged blackbird isn’t ready to migrate for weeks — first

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15:21

126 - Reading a Bird’s Strategy By Where It Stands

Buzz Blossom & Squeak — Be a Neighborhood Naturalist ·

2026/08/13

I promised you a twist at the end of this one, and I’m going to make you wait for it, just like I made myself wait when I first noticed it. Because once you understand why a bird chooses the perch it chooses, you can’t unsee it — every fence wire, dead snag, and mudflat starts telling you a story. This episode grew out of a simple observation from a walk Em and I took a few summers ago, when we spotted two Say’s Phoebes doing two completely different things with two completely different perches

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10:27

125 - Summer Stars and The Best Perseid Meteor Shower...

Buzz Blossom & Squeak — Be a Neighborhood Naturalist ·

2026/08/07

Finding Your Way Around the Summer SkyStep outside tonight and look up — it's not the same sky we talked about in winter. Orion and his belt have slipped below the horizon, and in their place is a whole new cast of characters: a swan flying down a river of stars, a scorpion with a glowing red heart, and a teapot pointed straight at the center of our galaxy. Same backyard, completely different view. Here's how to find your way around it.Start with the Summer TriangleJust like Orion's Belt anchors the

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19:27

124 - The Birds We’ve Wrongly Decided Are Villains

Buzz Blossom & Squeak — Be a Neighborhood Naturalist ·

2026/07/30

A hawk at the feeder gets hate comments. A crow doing something clever gets called creepy. A circling vulture gets treated like an omen. In this episode, I make the case that none of these birds are villains — they’re doing jobs the ecosystem genuinely needs, and the “enemy bird” story we tell ourselves says a lot more about us than it does about them.Cooper’s Hawks: Quality Control, Not CrueltyBuilt for tight turns through backyard clutter, Cooper’s hawks aren’t wiping out songbird populations —

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12:34

123 - How Wildfire Smoke Affects Birds, Insects, and...

Buzz Blossom & Squeak — Be a Neighborhood Naturalist ·

2026/07/23

This week’s episode started with something small and annoying: my air purifier kept kicking on every time I walked across my living room. Turns out my floor wasn’t dirty — it was covered in wildfire smoke particles from Canadian and Boundary Waters fires, and every footstep was stirring them back into the air. That one observation turned into a much bigger question I couldn’t shake all week: where does all this smoke actually go, and what happens to everything living outside that doesn’t have an air

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19:33

122 - The Hidden Logic of Beaks, Snouts, and Faces

Buzz Blossom & Squeak — Be a Neighborhood Naturalist ·

2026/07/16

Can you identify a critter without ever opening a field guide? I think you can — if you just look at its face first. I stumbled on a chart lineup of bird beaks recently, and it hit me: sometimes the whole story of an animal is sitting right there in its face, before you even check the color or the size.Seed Eaters: A Nutcracker Built Into the FaceCardinals, finches, and sparrows have short, thick, conical beaks that work like a pair of pliers, not tweezers. The shorter the beak, the more crushing

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12:26

121 - Yard Work Is a Dinner Bell for Birds

Buzz Blossom & Squeak — Be a Neighborhood Naturalist ·

2026/07/09

The second I start mowing, trimming, or dragging branches around my yard, I get company — robins, sparrows, cardinals, all showing up like they’ve been waiting for me to start. There’s a genuinely fun explanation for why, and it turns out I’ve been running a temporary buffet this whole time without fully realizing it.Disturb the Ground, Feed the Birds. Mowing, raking, and digging expose the hidden world living just under the grass — earthworms, beetles, grubs, spiders, ants — turning what was tucked

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11:24

120 - Let Somebody Else Raise Your Kids — A Bird...

Buzz Blossom & Squeak — Be a Neighborhood Naturalist ·

2026/07/02

My friend and I were out at our local federal marsh when we spotted brown-headed cowbirds, a black-billed cuckoo, and a yellow-billed cuckoo — all in the same outing. Three birds with three very different levels of commitment to the same strategy: letting someone else raise your kids. That’s the whole episode right there.The Spectrum of Commitment. Not all brood parasites operate the same way. The brown-headed cowbird is all-in — she never builds a nest, never incubates an egg, never raises a chick

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19:20

119 - What Are Birds Actually Fighting About?

Buzz Blossom & Squeak — Be a Neighborhood Naturalist ·

2026/06/25

That bird that acts like it owns your entire backyard? It probably does — and it has good reasons for the attitude. While camping last month, I watched a string of bird fights break out around my campsite, and it got me wondering: what are they actually fighting about? It turns out bird aggression isn’t random at all. It follows rules, and once you know what to look for, you’ll start seeing the logic everywhere.Fighting is expensive, so it’s never random. Conflict costs energy and risks injury, and

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18:31

118 - Nobody Loves the Possum. Here’s Why They Should.

Buzz Blossom & Squeak — Be a Neighborhood Naturalist ·

2026/06/18

Nobody loves the possum. That’s kind of the point.The hissing, the drooling, the naked scaly tail, the teeth — all fifty of them — and the dramatic habit of passing out and smelling like death when startled. None of this is doing the possum any favors in the public opinion department. But here’s what most people don’t know: that possumwandering through your backyard at night may be one of the best things for your family’s health that you’re never going to think to thank.I’m making the case for the

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38:51

117 - From the Rockies to Alaska: Why the West Is So...

Buzz Blossom & Squeak — Be a Neighborhood Naturalist ·

2026/06/11

If the Appalachians are ancient, rounded, and quiet — worn down by hundreds of millions of years — then what are the Rockies? The answer is: still under construction. This episode picks up where the eastern geography series left off, and heads west into some of the most dramatic, geologically active, and ecologically distinct landscapes on the continent.Young Mountains and the Rain Shadow That Made the WestThe Rocky Mountains are young by geological standards — sharp, dramatic, still rising. Unlike

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20:14

116 - The Ancient Forces That Made North America

Buzz Blossom & Squeak — Be a Neighborhood Naturalist ·

2026/06/04

North America doesn't just look remarkable — it is remarkable, and not in a flag-waving way. In this episode of Buzz, Blossom & Squeak, I want to take you on a deep-time journey across the continent and show you how the landscape beneath your feet was shaped by forces that most of us never think about. This is the older history, written in rock, ice, and river — and you can read it in everything from the Great Lakes to the path of a migrating shorebird.The Canadian Shield: The Continent's

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21:41

115 - How Baby Birds Learn Everything

Buzz Blossom & Squeak — Be a Neighborhood Naturalist ·

2026/05/28

Last week on a camping trip, I had three moments that made me laugh out loud — and then sent me down a rabbit hole about one of nature's most entertaining and overlooked stories. A young downy woodpecker was earnestly pecking a metal pole. A juvenile blue jay locked eyes with me and immediately fled in apparent horror. And on a snag in the woods, a baby barred owl stood hollering for its mother like a very indignant toddler. None of them knew what they were doing yet. And that, it turns out, is

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21:44

114 - Why Birds Get Lost: The Science of Vagrancy and...

Buzz Blossom & Squeak — Be a Neighborhood Naturalist ·

2026/05/21

In July 2023, a volunteer doing routine piping plover counts at a Wisconsin wildlife area saw a flash of pink out of the corner of his eye. He stopped. He looked again. He started making phone calls. What he was looking at was a roseate spoonbill — a large, flamingo-pink wading bird with a spatula-shaped bill — last confirmed in the state in 1845. Within days, birders were driving from hundreds of miles away, fifty people showing up on a Saturday just to stand at the edge of a wetland and look at a

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