Spring "Bursts" Forth
Air Date: May 22, 2026
Springtime in the northern hemisphere brings many migrating birds returning from their winter havens, in a series of slowly breaking waves that sweep up from the south to the north. BirdNote’s Mary McCann reports.
Transcript
CURWOOD: Springtime in the northern hemisphere brings many migrating birds returning from their winter havens. BirdNote’s Mary McCann reports.
BirdNote®
Spring Bursts Forth
Written by Bob Sundstrom
McCANN: We often hear it said that spring “bursts” forth. As if winter’s leafless trees suddenly shimmer with green. Flowers pop. Birds start singing with all their hearts.
But this seasonal change isn't instantaneous. It's a series of waves, slowly breaking waves that sweep up from the south to the north right over the continent.
Early spring migrants like robins and bluebirds return north in March, some even in February. Across the whole of April week after week, new songbird migrants work north from the tropics adding bit by bit to spring’s ever-growing soundtrack.
By May, birds continue flooding into northerly states and Canada. And even as late as June, birds like Willow Flycatchers [song of Willow Flycatcher, http://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/106793] and Mourning Warblers are just completing the trek to northern breeding sites from South America. [Mourning Warbler, http://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/191054, 0.15-.17]
By this time, those early robins… [American Robin song, http://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/168300, 0.7-.11]
…may already be hard at work feeding their second brood. For them, spring has been bursting for over three months.
I’m Mary McCann.
CURWOOD: For pictures, fly on over to the Living on Earth website, LoE.org.
