The American Birding Podcast

2026 is officially the year of the Horned Lark!

This dapper little songbird can be found just about everywhere in the ABA Area, and we're excited to put a spotlight on it this year as our Bird of the Year for 2026. As is tradition, the species is featured on the January issue of the ABA's Birding magazine, depicted by Indiana artist Kristina Knowski, who bird art afficianados might know from her work as artist in residence for the Indiana Dunes Birding Festival. 

And it's not just the magazine, we will have a whole range of fun Ho...

Jody Allair, Martha Harbison, and Rebecca Heisman join host Nate Swick for the last American Birding Podcast episode of the year, with a wide-ranging discussion of some of the latest bird and birding news. The panel talks warbler hybrids, vacant lots, and how to best yell at gulls among other things! Thanks for a great year!

Also, don't forget to join the ABA for our 2026 Bird of the Year reveal on January 5, 2026, at 4 PM ET. 

Links to articles discussed in this episode:

Look at those nasty and lovely birds! Assessing preferences and emotional r...

We get one more go-round with the list and the random number generator for 2025 as Ted Floyd joins host Nate Swick to talk about, well, whatever birds we randomly turn up. This Random Birds covers an impressivley random suite of birds with kites, warblers, waders, and flycatchers all on the agenda. 

Also, ABA membership makes a great holiday gift!

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Central America is home to five great tropical forests, whose presence and protection are critical to the conservation of just about every one of our neotropical migrant birds. It is the subject of a recent study from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Wildlife Conservation Society published last month in the journal Biological Conservation. Anna Lello-Smith, bird conservation scientist from the WCS is the lead author and she joins is to talk about what this means for bird conservation. 

Also, it's the first weekend of the Christmas Bird Count. Hope you're ready!

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The Birding Book Club is back again to do our annual Best Bird Books of the Year episode for 2025. There's no better time to give the gift of bird books to the birder in your life. And why not something for yourself while you're at it? Nate Swick is joined by 10,000 Birds book reviewer Donna Schulman and Birding magazine media and book review editor Rebecca Minardi to talk about what we loved this very unique year of birds in books.

Links to all of our choices at the ABA website. 

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Happy Thanksgiving! At the ABA, we're thankful for birders - their passion, their deep knowledge base, and the willingness of some to come on the American Birding Podcast to discuss recent bird science and news. This month we welcome Stephanie Beilke, Tim Healy, and Ryan Mandelbaum to talk corvid mimicry, gator loving grebes, and the best birds to assign to all those other holidays. 

Links to articles discussed in this episode:

Humans outperform Merlin Sound ID in field-based point-count surveys

Vocal mimicry in Corvids

Coordinated movements of multiple pied-billed grebes in a...

What do birding and board games have in common? More than you'd expect! Birder and game designer Elizabeth Hargrave has made it a mission to bring these two things together and her bird-themed game Wingspan does just that. Wingspan has been covered by the New York Times, Smithsonian, and Science magazine among other places and has managed to elicit interest at a time when enthusiasm among the general public for both birding and board games are at an all-time high. She joined host Nate Swick in 2019 me to talk about both.

Also, the Philadelphia Eagles are getting in the...

Smithsonian researcher Roxie Laybourne may be the most influential ornithologist you've never heard of. Over the more than half a century she was a pioneering figure in the fields of forensics and aviation, all through her work with birds, and, more specifically, their feathers. Her incredible life is documented by journalist Chris Sweeney in the book, The Feather Detective: Mystery, Mayhem, and the Magnificent Life of Roxie Laybourne,  released earlier this year. Chris joins us to talk about Laybourne's legacy in fields that go far beyond birds. 

Also, the big eBird update is here and our lists ar...

Can the various mating rituals, displays, and behaviors of birds apply to the lives of humans in the 21st Century, with our own uniue rituals, displays and behaviors? It's a question that birder and writer Bryony Angell asks as she approached her own renewed dating life in an article The Migratory Suiter, published in the most recent issue of BWD. In doing so, she enlists the help of Dr Wenfei Tong. author of Bird Love: The Family Life of Birds, to compare the respective courtship drama of birds and humans.

Also, Nate is back from the ABA's...

The last Thursday of the month means it's time for This Month in Birding, our round table discussion with birding friends about news in birding and ornithology. This week we welcome Jennie Duberstein, Nick Lund, and Brodie Cass Talbott to discuss casual eBirding, hybrid Jays, and what bird to patronize on Halloween night. 

Links to articles discussed in this episode:

The relaxed birder

The Unexpected Profundity of a Movie About Bird-Watching

An Intergeneric Hybrid Between Historically Isolated Temperate and Tropical Jays Following Recent Range Expansion

The hunt for the l...

It's hard to overstate in influence of Cornell's Merlin on the growth of birding over the last few years.  What began as a simple tool for helping people to identify bird photos has become so much more, reaching millions of nature enthusiasts and even some celebrities. Miyoko Chu. Senior Director of Science Communitcations at the Lab, and Alli Smith, Project Coordinator for Merlin, join us to talk about what it's like to be in the middle of one this massive movement for nature lovers. 

If you're interested in taking advantage of the sound recording workshop offered by Co...

Birding magazine editor and random birder Ted Floyd is back for another trip around the bird list. He and host Nate Swick take their list of birds and their random number generator and end up talking longspurs, vireos, and drama plovers in this edition of Random Birds. 

Also, check out the ABA Store for all sorts of fun Bird of the Year and logo wear stuff!

Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!<...

It's not hard to get birders talking about some of the big questions in our hobby. And this time we go back in the archives of Birding magazine to collect some historic hot takes for another edition of Take It or Leave It, the discussion panel for the most opinionated birders. This time we welcome Tim Healy and Martha Harbison to talk about Trumpeter Swan introductions, the proper plural of binoculars, and whether the internet was a good thing for birders. 

Also, don't forget to bid on some great original bird art from our Bird of the Y...

Have you ever had to describe birding to a friend or family member who just doesn't get it? What analogies do you use? Is birding like a religion? A sport? An obsession? In this encore episode from 2018, Guest host Greg Neise brings Birding editor Ted Floyd and young birder liaison Jennie Duberstein to bear on the issue in a rollicking discussion in an attempt to figure it out.

Also, it looks like Nate is going to be at the ABA Community Weekend in Fort Meyers, Florida, next month! 

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The last Thursday of September means that it's time for another This Month in Birding, featuring friends from around the birding world gathering to talk about interesting bird news and science from the last month or so. This time around we welcome Frank Izaguirre, Andres Jimenez, and Sarah Swanson to talk about Barred Owls, baby cowbirds, and our favorite bird conservation success stories.

Links to items discussed in this episode:

Suddenly Birding Is the Hot-Girl Hobby of the Year

Taking Action to Avoid Extinction: Successful Regional-Scale Lethal Control of Barred Owls Supports a...

A Big Year is maybe the ultimate expression of birding obsession, with all the drama inherent to the effort. Brothers Quentin and Owen Reiser's attempt at a Big Year maybe most of all. It's the subject of their documentary, Listers, an attempt to throw themselves into the birding world through perhaps the most extreme expression of the hobby. It's profane, it's funny, it's honest, and it covers all aspects of the birding world, warts and all. Owen joins us to talk about the film and his experience undertaking what he calls a "fully dirtbag Big Year". Plus there's a...

For more than 40 year the National Geographic Field Guide has been an essential text in the library of US and Canadian birders. The venerable series is in its 8th edition now, published as East and West earlier this year and as as guide from coast to coast just recently. Ted Floyd, a regular on this podcast, is the author, but a field guide is only as good as its illustrations. Former Bird of the Year artist Andrew Guttenberg is the art coordinator for this series as it takes a turn into the 21st Century and he joins us to...

Gray-headed Chickadee is certainly one of the most enigmatic species of breeding birds in the ABA Area. Though it is found broadly across northern Eurasian it was, until very recently, also known from an isolated breeding population in northern Alaska and far northwestern Canada. Those bird, long a bucket list objective for ABA Area birders, might be gone, and the reasons for that are unclear. Alaska birder and conservationist Brad Meiklejohn explores their disappearance in the Lost on the Frontier: The Mysterious Disappearance of North America's Rarest Breeding Bird, published in the July 2025 issue of Birding magazine, and he j...

It's This Month in Birding for August 2025 and, as we do at the end of every month, we've got a great panel of birders to discuss the month's birding news and scientific publications. Jason Hall, Mikko Jimenez, and Jordan Rutter join host Nate Swick to talk about grackle behavior, museums, and our very favorite penguins. 

Links to articles discussed in this episode:

The Rodrigues parakeet's last day: What one extinct bird tells us about the role of museums

Exploration and dispersal are key traits involved in rapid range expansion, urban bird study finds Duration: 01:13:08

Every once in a while, Birding editor Ted Floyd drops in for for another episode of Random Birds. The Birding Gods smile on Ted and Nate's random number generator for an eclectic bunch of birds from warblers to gulls, and one incredibly apropos selection.

The AOS Classification Committee decisions are in, and Michael Retter has all the changes to your list laid out at aba.org.  

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Bird tourism is booming, and in many parts of the world we've seen countries invest in conservation and tourism infrastructure to take advantage of it. Certainly birders are drawn by unique species, but  perhaps our choices for bird-watching destinations have as much to do with other factors as they do with the presence of really great birds. It's the subject of a paper to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal People and Nature by Natalia Ocampo-Peñuela and Scott Winton, who join us to talk "bird capital" and birder wants. 

Also, a much loved bir...

Writer Amy Tan is perhaps best known for her many novels including The Joy Luck Club and The Bonesetter's Daughter, exploring themes of identity, family, and the immigrant experience. Her newest book, however, explores something rather different. The Backyard Bird Chronicles is a collection of nature writing and sketching focuses on the many avian visitors to Amy's California backyard over a period of several years. The book was published in 2024, bit more recently Amy is the subject of an upcoming Birding magazine interview and The Backyard Bird Chronicles was recently reviewed in the magazine as well. She joins us...

The end of the month means This Month in Birding, and for July 2025 we've got a great panel of fun birders to discuss the month's birding news and scientific publications. Birders know Rebecca Heisman, Nick Lund, and Dexter Patterson for their great work in the birding world, and they join host Nate Swick to talk about hummingbird bills, drinking birds, and the best bird tribute to Ozzy Osbourne. 

Links to articles discussed in this episode:

AvianLexiconAtlas: A database of descriptive categories of English-language bird names around the world

A new study knocks down a...

The ABA's 2025 Bird of the Year Common Loon is beloved across the United States and Canada, and though we at the ABA will only celebrate it for a short time, there are other organizations that have made protection and awareness of Common Loons their reason for being. The National Loon Center in Crosslake, Minnesota, is one such organization. They aim to restore and protect loon habitat, enhance responsible recreation, and promote research and education of not only Common Loon, but the habitats they enjoy. Natasha Bartolotta is the Science and Stewardship Manager for the National Loon Center, and she...

The search for the perfect mnemonic is the bane of any field guide author, from Roger Tory Peterson to your podcast host. It's the part of writing about birds and birding that requires the most creativity, ans Nova Scotia author and artist Becca Rowland, The Girl in White Glasses, has come up with an entire book devoted to the weird and wonderful sounds birds make, and the weirdest and cleverest ways to describe those sounds. It's called Bird Talk: Hilariously Accurate Ways to Identify Birds by the Sounds they Make from Storey Publishing. She joins us to talk bird...

The state of Hawaii's birds is a topic that is frequently front of mind to those of us who care about bird conservation, and on every island there are bird researchers and conservationists on the ground putting any number of conservation efforts into practice. Dr Hannah Mounce is the program manager of the Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project, and she joins us to talk about some of the most pressing efforts on the island. 

Also, Nate finished his Breeding Bird Surveys and hopes that this isn't the last year for the venerable conservation project.

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The story of the Florida Scrub-Jay is one that encompasses many modern conservation angles and concerns. Local government, bedrock federal legislation, development, climate change, eBird, and at the center of it, a remarkable and friendly endemic bird species. Recent challenges to conservation efforts in Florida have prompted the public interest group Earthjustice to intervene to help defend protections for the Florida Scrub Jay and lead attorney Aaron Bloom joins us to to lay out the threats to the jays and to all endangered species, and how birders have helped to make his case. 

Also, the 2026 Young Birder o...

It's our 350th episode! And to celebrate, we've brought you a super-sized This Month in Birding, and not only because the panel of Jody Allair, Jennie Duberstein, and Martha Harbison had so much to say about truck-riding gulls, prehistoric birds, and the state of same-sex bird science. We hope you enjoy this summer-solstice sized episode. 

Links to articles mentioned in the episode:

The First GPS Observation of a Western Gull (Larus occidentalis) Riding in a Long-Haul Garbage Transfer Truck

Study Reveals Birds Nested in the Arctic During the Age of Dinosaurs

S...

You don't have to be a birder for a long time to appreciate that birds are capable of producing an astonishing array of colors and patterns, even those beyond what our weak human eyes can discern. Hidden in that avian rainbow are clues to bird taxonomy and evolution, which is the work of our guest Whitney Tsai Nakashima, a researcher at Occidental College's Moore Lab of Zoology.

Also, great news for one of south Texas's best birding sites. 

Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a ra...

Break out your checklists and get ready for another summer of splits and lumps from the AOS North American Classification Committee. It's time for our annual look at the proposed changes to the bird lists, the longest running segment on this podcast. And for every single one of those episodes, we've turned to biologist and birder Dr Nick Block of Stonehill College in Massachusetts. It's an interesting set of proposals this year, with Warbling Vireo splits, titmouse lumps, and lots of genetic mayhem. 

Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and...

An interesting study discussed on the monthly This Month in Birding segment led us to Miranda Zammarelli, a PhD student at Dartmouth who has taken 50 years of hand drawn paper maps of bird territories at a New Hampshire forest, collected over many years by Dartmouth students, and brought those maps into the modern era to learn about how bird territories ebb and flow over the seasons. It's a great story of how the path of discovery winds its way from one researcher to the next. Miranda joins us to talk about her work. If you'd like to see what...

The end of May means, for many of us, the end of spring. But before this magical month is over we bring a great panel of birdy friends together to talk about some of the interesting bird news that has come across our vitual desks. Welcome Stephanie Beilke, Tim Healy, and Brodie Cass Talbott to talk birding without tech, warbler foraging strategies and the birds and bees, literally. 

Links to items discussed in this episode:

The Wonders of Bird-Watching without Tech

Crows understand shapes and use geometry in everyday life

Foraging o...

The 2025 Biggest Week in American Birding is in the books and the American Birding Podcast was there to host a fun little game with a few friends. Test your luck with our birdy quiz featuring a quartet of Biggest Week birders and guides along with special guests Wendell Troutner and Tyler Ficker! We've got modified anagrams, Star Wars crossovers, and more!

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Nate is in Ohio for the Biggest Week, but hew had time to grab Birding editor Ted Floyd for another Random Birds before he headed off. Ted and Nate trust the random number generator to turn up some exciting birds for discussion including jaegers, pelicans, and shorebirds. 

Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!

When a person gets into birding they are not only confronted with a wide variety of wonderful and weird organisms but an equally wide variety of wonderful and weird terminology and jargon. It's enough to confuse even the most enthusiastic novice, but hankfully, bird cartoonist Rosemary Mosco of Bird and Moon is on the case with a new book called The Birding Dictionary. This very funny addition to the birding lexicon features definitions for everything from adorbler to zygodactyl illustrated with Rosemary's wonderful illustrations and she joins us to chat about the language of birders. 

Plus, let u...

It's time for another This Month in Birding, this time for April, despite the fact that this episode technically comes out in May. That's bonus for May rather than a loss for April. Which is all the more appropriate because this is the time of year that we've all been waiting for. This tim around, we welcome Gabriel Foley, Frank Izaguirre, and Purbita Saha to talk bird study bias, hummingbird hives, and whether or not birds "sit". 

Links to articles discussed in this episode:

Six-decade research bias towards fancy and familiar bird species

H...

Regular listeners to this podcast certainly know science writer Ryan Mandelbaum from their regular appearances on This Month in Birding. Those listeners who enjoy Ryan's wit and passion for wildlife will no doubt be exited to learn that Ryan has a new book, Wild NYC, a guidebook to nature observation in the United State's largest city. While birds are this podcast's focus, the city's nature bona fides cannot be denied, and Ryan chats about the incredible geology, botany, and subway ferns that can be found in The Big Apple. 

Also, the ABA is heading to the Biggest W...

A warmer and drier world means, unfortunately, a world in which wildfire becomes a greater risk. We know, all too well, the risk these fires pose to wild places, but there is surprisingly little we know about the risk to wildlife. That is the work of Dr. Olivia Sanderfoot, a researcher at UCLA looking at the impacts of wildfire smoke on wild birds and trying to answer a few of those increasingly relevant questions.

Also, Nate is out of town and hoping to see Mississippi Kites. 

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A deeply felt love of birds is something that can wind its way into all aspects of our lives. It is a journey that writer and pastor Courtney Ellis weaves into her most recent book, Looking Up: A Birder's Guide to Hope Through Grief, published last year and now available in audiobook. She is also the host of The Thing with Feathers podcast, available in a lot of the same places you can find this one.

Also, the recent news about the "de-extinction" of an extinct wolf poses lots of questions for conservation. 

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Migrating warblers are heading back to our backyards and patches, and included among that wonderful diversity come the weirdo "winged" warblers, Golden and Blue, whose intermixed genetics have long been fascinating and confusing. We welcome Nick Block, professor of biology at Stonehill College in Massachusetts, as well as Matt Hale, professor of biology at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, the authors of an article covering the current state of winged warblers, published in the most recent issue of North American Birds to talk about them. 

Also, a Cuban dove is now the poster-bird for ancient biogeography. 

March 2025 brings another This Month in Birding featuring a panel of birding friends here to talk about the month's new bird news and get ready for spring. This time around we welcome Jennie Duberstein, Bird Joy Pod's Jason Hall, and Nicole Jackson to talk plastics in seabirds, new eyes on old maps, and the best bird to party with.

Links to articles discussed in this episode:

Fifty years of songbird maps take flight in new hands

Plastic pollution leaves seabirds with brain damage similar to Alzheimer's, study shows

How a hummingbird...

The State of the Birds is a report put out by a veritable who's who of bird-related non-profit organizations, with the goal of sharing the current state, both positive and negative, of bird populations and bird conservation intiatives in the United States. The 2025 report builds on on the last incationation of the SOTB, but unfortunately finds many of the same issues vexing birds and bird conservation. In a podcast crossover episode with Mike Braesher of Ducks Unlimited and the Ducks Unlimited Podcast, the ABA welcomes Mike, Amanda Rodewald of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Bradley Wilkinson of the...

Birding editor Ted Floyd is back for another edition of Random Birds. Ted and Nate talk about avocets, sparrows, and more with the help of a random number generator and a big list of birds. Plus, some talk about the brand-new National Geographic guides written by Ted

Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!

Birders know about Big Data. We're all familiar with eBird and the Avian Knowledge Network, but the Christmas Bird Count or the Breeding Bird Survey are giant pools of data that inform everything from conservation decisions to where to spend time tomorrow morning. But how can we use that data to encourage new birders or convince policy-makers to care about birds. It's something data artist Jer Thorp likes to think about. He is among other things, the New York Time's first Data Artist in residence, and the creator of Bincoulars and Binomials and the author of the upcoming We W...

February brings an all-star lineup to This Month in Birding, with long-time friends Jody Allair, Nick Lund, and Jordan Rutter joining us to talk about all manner of birdy topics. The panel discuss the latest birding news including bird communication, low-impact journals, snakeskin in bird nests, and our favorite signs of spring, even if the season itself seems far off. 

Also, our 2025 slate of ABA Community Weekends is up. Come join us this year!

LInks to items discussed this month:

Evaluating biotic and abiotic drivers of avian community mobbing responses along urban gradients i...

The broader birding community was first introduced to Christian Cooper though the documentary The Central Park Effect, where he featured as one of eclectic crew of Central Park birders. Since then, his memoir, Better Living Through Birding and his Emmy-winning NatGeo program Extraordinary Birder, have seen his star only rise. His most recent project is a children's book, once again focusing on Central Park called The Urban Owls: How Flaco and Friends Made the City Their Home, written by Cooper and illustrated by Kristen Adam. He joins me today to talk books, television, and what Central Park means to...

It's time to talk 2024 ABA Area Rarities! This episode is our annual attempt to look back on all the exciting rare bird observations and trends of the previous year. It ended up being a very good year for rarities and North American Birds editor Amy Davis and educator and writer at The Nemesis Bird Tim Healy are here to share their favorites. 

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We love a good field guide around these parts. The more unique, the better.  Phil Chaon and Iain Campbell have certainly done that with their new book, Habitats of North America; A Field Guide for Birders, Naturalists, and Ecologists. It's a spin-off of sorts, from their 2021 book Habitats of the World and is a deep and detailed look at some of the place that we love to bird and experience nature. They join us to talk about why birders should pay attention to habitats, but also why birds are the perfect proxy for learning about habitats. 

Also, US...

Welcome to the new year! For this month's This Month in Birding, we welcome an all star panel of naturalists and writers to talk about the month's bird news. Rebecca Heisman, Dexter Patterson, and Sarah Swanson join host Nate Swick to talk about loons, mosquito killing birds, cold weather birding tips, and much more!

Links to items discussed in this episode:

A focus on females can improve science and conservation

Coated seeds turn birds into mosquito-killing machines 

Drivers of agricultural producers' tolerance towards less-charismatic avian species

Subscribe to the p...

For many of us, an interest in birds and nature started with an interest in dinosaurs. Which is approriate since that's the path modern birds took when they became birds. We still don't know a lot about how dinosaurs looked and lived, but it stands to reason that if one were looking to recreate things that came before and are no longer with us that you would want to look at their closest living relatives. That is, in fact what my guest Christopher DiPiazza, of Prehistoric Beast of the Week, is all about. He is a middle school teacher an...

It's cold outside and that calls for some hot birding takes. We've collected some for another edition of Take It or Leave It, the discussion panel for the most opinionated birders. This time we welcome Chris Sloan and Martha Harbison to talk about mentorship in the internet age, whether birders underappreciate Canada, and what would it take to get back to the old rarity phone trees. 

Also, the ABA is not the only organization with a Bird of the Year in 2025. Let's celebrate some more!

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Modern optics give birders the opportunities to feel as though they are up close and personal with the bird we watch, but nothing we experience through binoculars compares to the experience with birds that wildlife rehabbers get to enjoy. Rehabilitators not only get to know birds on the individual level, but they get broader insight into the impacts of humans on bird populations as well. Tim Jasinski is a Wildlife Rehabilitation Specialist at the Lake Erie Nature and Science Center in Bay Village, Ohio. He oins us to talk about his experiences working with birds near Cleveland.

...

2025 is the year of the Common Loon here at the American Birding Association! Our 2025 Bird of the Year artist, Sam Zimmerman, gets to appreciate these birds frequently from his home in northern Minnesota. He is an artist, author and educator whose work explores the landscapes and creatures of the western Great Lakes, with an eye towards capturing and preserving stories from his Ojibwe heritage. His Common Loon art is featured on the cover of an upcoming issue of Birding magazine. He joins us to launch the Year of the Loon with stories about his own experiences and insight into...

Thanks for another great year here at the American Birding Podcast. To close out 2024 we host another This Month in Birding panel featuring Jennie Duberstein, Mikko Jimenez, and Brodie Cass Talbott who join Nate to talk about bird brains, CBC memories, and old albatrosses. Plus, we make our predictions for what to look forward to in the bird world in 2025. 

Links to items discussed in this episode:

World's oldest known wild bird is expecting again, aged 74

Experiments show backyard birds learn from their new neighbors when moving house

Study suggests there's n...

Roughly a quarter of chocolate sales in the US and the UK occur around the holidays at the end of the year. And if you are listening to this podcast, you are statistically almost certain to be participating. What does that have to do with birds? Well, like coffee before it, chocolate now comes in a bird friendly version. It's the subject of a recent article in Birdwatcher's Digest by Bryony Angell a Washington based birder and writer on birding culture. She joins us to talk about what that certification means for birds and chocolate-lovers alike. 

Also, co...

It's the Birding Book Club's biggest meeting of the year!. We're back again to do our annual Best Bird Books of the Year episode for 2024. There's no better time to give the gift of bird books to the birder in your life. And why not something for yourself while you're at it? Nate Swick is joined by 10,000 Birds book reviewer Donna Schulman and Birding magazine media and book review editor Rebecca Minardi to talk about what we loved this exceptional year in bird books.

Links to out lists can be found on the ABA Podcast website.

Su...

The humble Rock Pigeon can provide some interesting insights into how natural selection is impacted by the urban environment. That is the work of Elizabeth Carlen, a former PhD candidate at Fordham University in New York City and the lead author of a recent article in Evolutionary Applications that looks at genetic connectivity of Rock Pigeons populations in various cities in the Northeast United States. She joins host Nate Swick to talk about the unique issues with studying urban Rock Pigeons.   

Also, how geotagged gulls are like Thanksgiving celebrations. 

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Birding editor Ted Floyd is back for another episode of Random Birds. Ted and Nate talk turkey, and lots of other birds, with the help of a random number generator and a big list of birds. 

Also, Slender-billed Curlew has been declared extinct. What does it tell us about bird conservation?

Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it! And don't forget to join the ABA to support this podcast and the many thing...

On Veteran's Day, here in the United States, we commemorate military veterans of the US Armed Forces, and this Veteran's Day we at the American Birding Podcast commemorate the work done by the Department of Defense to protect and conserve out national natural heritage. People might not realize that the US Department of Defense is one of the largest land-owners in the country, and on that land live a number of birds of conservation concern that are monitored and protected by US military personnel. Dr Rich Fischer is the national coordinator of the Department of Defense Partners in Flight...

The friendly and familiar chickadees are endearing yard birds in nearly all parts of the ABA Area, but there is more than meets the eye for these feeder friends, especially in places where two species interact. Chickadees and chickadee hybrids are allowing researchers to ask some fascinating questions about hybrid fitness, evolution, and climate change. Drs Amber Rice of Lehigh University and Scott Taylor of the University of Colorado-Boulder are exploring some of these questions with Carolina, Black-capped, and Mountain Chickadees and they join us to talk about their findings and the program they've developed for secondary students. 

It's spooky season for birders and for this month's TMIB panel we've assembled a most terrifying group of birders to discuss this month's birding and ornithology news. Jason Hall, Nick Lund, and Purbita Saha join host Nate Swick to talk Canad Geese, vagrancy science, and couples costumes for birders. 

Links to items discussed in this episode:

Offshore vagrancy in passerines is predicted by season, wind-drift, and species characteristics

Love island: Bird's refusal to leave resort life leads to genetic change

Get to Know the Misunderstood Canada Goose

Subscribe to t...

There's probably no group of birds on the planet that an ilicit such a wide range of reactions than gulls, and no other group of birds that some birders won't even try to identify. Amar Ayyash, who has, through his writing and photography, established himself as one of the continent's top gull guys, wants everyone to appreciate these fascinating birds and his new book, The Gull Guide, is a one-stop shop for gull love. 

Also, two more North American species get the de-extinction treatment, but is it right to bring them into the 21st Century?

S...

The reintroduction of the Bald Eagle in North America is justifiably counted among the world's great conservation success stories. Ravaged by DDT, the Bald Eagle was on the brink of extirpation in the United States by the 60s. As a young college student, Tina Morris played a large role in bringing this impressive bird back to the eastern United States, nursing young birds in upstate New York. Her memoir Return to the Sky: The Surprising Story of How One Woman and Seven Eaglets Helped Restore the Bald Eagle, documents these efforts. She joins us to talk about it.

David Sibley hardly needs an introduction to birders in North America, and his Sibley Guide to Birds is on the shelves of nearly every bird-curious person on the continent. He's also a frequent collaborator with the Dean of Cape May, Pete Dunne, and their latest project, The Courage of Birds, written by Pete and illustrated by David, is out at the end of October. He joins us to talk about winter birding, Cape May in the old days, and how art has changed in the age of photographs. 

Also, California Condors are moving north, and that's pretty exc...

Last month saw the passage of Sandy Komito, perhaps the ultimate Big Year birder. Not only did he set records twice, but his second attempt, along with Al Levantin and Greg Miller, was the subject of Mark Obmascik's book, The Big Year. That book because a movie of the same name, where an exagerated version of Komito was played by Owen Wilson. While a great deal of artistic license was taken in the underhanded behavior of Wilson's character, the drive, passion, and charisma was recognized by those who befriended Sandy over the years. In light of his passage, we br...

It's the last Thursday of the month and that means it's time for This Month in Birding, our monthly roundtable discussion on birderly and ornithological topics. For September 2024, we welcome Jennie Duberstein, Gabriel Foley, and Ryan Mandelbaum (check out their newsletter) to talk about chickadee hybridization, lost birds, and what's so great about birding in fall. 

Links to topics discussed in this episode: 

Scientists Made a List of Lost Birds and Now They Want Us to Find Them

Chickadees Show How Species Boundaries Can Shift and Blur

When birds build nests, th...

The enigmatic and nomadic finches are among the most beloved groups of birds on the continent. From the widespread and familiar American Goldfinch to the bizarre honeycreepers of Hawaii, these birds can teach you just about anything you'd want to know about taxonomy, evolution, and ecology. Prolific natural history author Lillian Stokes and Matthew Young of the Finch Research Network have joined forced to celebrate these birds in their new Stokes Guide to FInches of the United States and Canada, and they join us to talk about them. 

Also, the Lost Bird Project hopes to elist birders to...

It's hard to find a more dramatic groups of birds than cranes with their massive size, spectacular breeding dances, and impressive migrations celebrated by human civilization for millennia. But even with the advantage of awareness 10 of the world's 15 species of crane are threatened with extinction including one, famously, in North America. The International Crane Foundation has been on the forefront of efforts to protect these birds all around the world, and its President Dr. Rich Beilfuss, has been involved at almost all levels in doing do. He joins host Nate Swick to talk about the work they do and...

Birding editor Ted Floyd joins us for another random number inspired trip down birding memory lane with Random Birds. This time around Ted and host Nate Swick discuss the least of these, flycatchers and sandpiper, along with bitterns, warblers, and whatever else pops up.

Thanks to our friends at FeatherSnap for sponsoring this episode. Feathersnap is a smart bird feeder with AI bird identification capabilities that send photos of the birds visiting your yard. Capture every moment with FeatherSnap.

Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leav...

It's the end of the month and time for This Month in Birding, our monthly panel with birding friends discussing the month's birding and ornithology news. For August 2024, we have a panel of Jody Allair, Tim Healy, and Sarah Swanson talking vultures, bustards, and the winners of the birding Olympic games.

Links to articles discussed in this episode:

How do birds communicate? Network science models are opening up new possibilities for experts

The COVID19 confinement revealed negative anthropogenic effects of unsustainable tourism on endangered birds

Loss of India's vultures may have...

The flamingo phenomenon last summer was one of the more exciting birding events in recent memory, but American Flamingo has long been an intriguing species in the ABA Area. Amy Davis and José Ramirez-Garafalo are the authors of an article in the most recent issue of the ABA's North American Birds that looks at the past, present, and future of these incredible pink birds in the ABA Area. 

Also, some new insights into Dodos from old sources. 

Thanks to our friends at FeatherSnap for sponsoring this episode. Feathersnap is a smart bird feeder with AI bir...

Break out the oven mitts because it's time to welcome a panel of birders to tackle the hottest birding takes we can find in Take It or Leave It. This time around we welcome ABA colleagues Michael Retter, editor of Birding special editions and North American Birds, and Jennie Duberstein, wildlife biologist and ABA Young Birder liaison to offer opinions on the scope of bird banding, eBird's tightrope between bird science and listing repository, and whether or not having multiple bird taxonomies is a good thing.

Also, a major bird mortality event leads to real changes on Ch...

Birders and books are inseparable. And so from time to time we like to welcome some auspicious bird book enthusiasts for we call the Birding Book Club. This time around a panel consisting of Birding magazine editor Frank Izaguirre and 10,000 Birds book reviewer Donna Schulman tackle the most bird rich continent, which ironically seems to the most bird book depauperate continent, at least until realtively recently. We cover guides to South America and all the tagential discussions that they inspire. 

You can find a list of all the books we discussed at the American Birding Podcast website. 

Dr. Kaeli Swift knows crows. And she's watched them do some pretty extraordinary things. In fact all corvids-the family that includes crows, jays, magpies, and others-have a well deserved reputation for intelligence and fascinating social behaviors. Dr. Swift's research has provided insights into how crows interact with us, with their dead, and with each other. She joined host Nate Swick from Denali National Park where she is working with Canada Jays to talk about corvid culture and cognition.

Also, some spectacular, if slightly wrong, bird art in Corpus Christi, Texas. 

Thanks to our friends the Ri...

It's This Month in Birding for July 2024 with Stephanie Beilke, Martha Harbison, and Mikko Jimenez the aeroecologist! The panel discusses recent bird news including AOS splits and lumps, bird intelligence, and bird regalia, but that's hardly all. Join us for another great conversation about birds, science, and, for some reason, the Insane Clown Posse. 

Links to articles discussed in this episode:

AOS Checklist Redux 2024

Birds barcode food to map stashes

These crows have counting skills previously only seen in people

Do Magnetic murmurs guide birds? A directional statistical investigation f...

The incredibly diverse and unbelievably photogenic landscape of British Columbia is on display in photographer and birder Melissa Hafting's new book, Dare to Bird, and with it, the birds that make this part of the continent so special and inspire Hafting's effort to spread the joy of birding and photography around the province, across Canada, and beyond. She joins host Nate Swick to talk about it, along with rare bird recordkeeping, young birders, and more. 

Also, new hope for Hawaiian birds in the form of mosquito air drops. 

Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spot...

Birding with Benefits, a new book by author Sarah T Dubb, is a unique new addition to the birding canon. While we shouldn't be too surprised that all the new attention paid to birding has seen it turn up in surprising places, but the pages of a romance novel certainly seemed like a stretch. To help discuss birding's introduction into the romance genre, host Nate Swick turns to his own birding adjacent relationship and beach read enthusiast to talk about this unlikely intersection. 

Also, SpaceX turns out to be a bad neighbor to birds in South Texas, a...

Birders around North America look forward to midsummer every year for the publication of the AOS North American Classification Committee's Taxonomic Supplement, the splits and lumps that affect our life lists. And for this conversation we turn, as we have since the very beginning of this podcast, to our own taxonomy guru Dr Nick Block of Stonehill College to talk shearwater splits, gull confusion, redpoll DNA, and everything else in the 2024 list of proposals. 

Don't forget to donate to the ABA's Nesting Season Appeal, which raises money for our excellent young birder programs. And check out our upc...

The summer solstice marks another turn of the seasons to nesting and post-breeding dispersal, and, in some cases southward migration once again. And the end of the month means turn to This Month in Birding, our roundtable discussion with some birding friends. We welcome back Nick Lund, Jordan Rutter, and Brodie Cass Talbott for a wide-ranging discussion that includes polyamorous shorebirds, Giga-geese, and birder "would you rathers". 

Links to articles discussed in this episode:

Tiny New Zealand bird delivers a lesson in birdsong evolution

Polyandrous birds evolve faster than monogamous ones, new study f...

When birders talk about the importance of a bird-friendly yard, they often mean insects even if they don't mention them explicitely. And so people that want to attract birds need to get comfortable with bugs. Colorado birder David Leatherman is a fan of bug-bird interactions and in his piece The Importance of Native Plants and Insects Amid the Reality of Modern Bird Habitats, in the April 2024 issue of Birding magazine, he encourages birders to familiarize themselves with living bird food. He joins host Nate Swick to discuss it. 

Also, it's 2024 Young Birder of the Year Season! Meet o...

What better way to spend a random Thursday in June than with a random number generator and a random list of birds? As he does from time to time, the ABA's Birding magazine editor Ted Floyd joins host Nate Swick for another round of Random Birds. This time the list has a strongly cosmopolitan bent, and Nate and Ted discuss birds that can be enjoyed, for the most part, not just around the continent, but in some cases around the world. 

Don't forget to donate to the ABA's Nesting Season Appeal, which raises money for our excellent youn...

Last week saw the fourth year of Black Birders Week, which continues to be a wonderful opportunity to celebrate diversity in the birding and nature communities. To help mark the occassion, we hand over the podcast to the host of Your Bird Story, Georgia Silvera Seamans, who brings our 2024 ABA Bird of the Year artist Natasza Fontaine, a working biologist in addition to being a science illustrator, to talk about her experiences with birds, botany, and whatever other natural "B's" she loves to encounter. 

Don't forget to donate to the ABA's Nesting Season Appeal, which raises money fo...

Spring turns to summer in much of the ABA Area this week, and we celebrate spring 2024 with a birding podcast crossover event for this month's This Month in Birding. We welcome Mollee Brown, one of the hosts of the Life List podcast and Jason Hall and Dexter Patterson, hosts of the brand new, and very fun, Bird Joy podcast to talk about the mathematics of bird flocks, how birding makes you happy, and our favorite moments of spring 2024, among other things. 

Links to articles discussed in this episode:

The federal government plans to kill half a...

Newfoundland lies on the eastern extremes of the North American continent, and every spring it hosts an always fascinating and ocasionally extraordinary array of European vagrant birds. The phenomenon that brings European Golden-Plovers and Whooper Swans and Garganeys to North America is fairly well known now, and Newfoundland birders increasingly welcome bird enthusiasts from all over the continent to enjoy it. Guest host Jody Allair of Birds Canada hosts Newfoundlander Jared Clarke from Bird the Rock Tours to talk about why it happens and what it means to be on the leading edge of continental vagrancy. 

Don't fo...

A couple weeks ago the ABA staff convened in Chicago, Illinois, for our first in-person staff retreat in more than a decade. We discussed a lot of organizational issues and, of course, we went birding at two of Chicago's most famous lakeshore birding hotspots, Montrose Point and Jarvis Bird Sanctuary. Usually host Nate Swick and Birding magazine editor Ted Floyd discuss separate checklists, but this time they get to discuss a checklist that they both contributed to, along with a dozen or so ABA colleagues.

Also, we get some movement on the AOS English Bird Name Project.  Duration: 00:46:24

The ambitions, egos, and adventure surrounding 18th and 19th century American ornithology affect birding and bird study to this day. We welcome author, artist, and naturalist Kenn Kaufman, who has tackled this fascinating period in a new book The Birds that Audubon Missed: Discovery and Desire in the American Wilderness, looking at John James Audubon, Alexander Wilson, and their peers through the lens of the common and widespread birds they did not find and describe, rather than the many many that they did. 

Are we in a golden age of bird-watching? Maybe, but maybe not. 

Su...

Friend of the Podcast and Birds Canada stalwart Jody Allair steps into the hosts chair for a discussion on nature study beyond birding with the ABA's Frank Izaguirre. The two talk about their own favorite non-bird nature experiences, the value of looking at everything else, and follow up with a discussion on Canadian nature writers. 

Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it! And don't forget to join the ABA to support this podcast and the m...

It's the April edition of This Month in Birding, with a panel as bold and timeless as the new eBird font. We welcome Frank Izaguirre, Ryan Mandelbaum, and Jordan Rutter to talk Birds Aren't Real, seabird spies, dream birds, and much more!

Links to articles discussed in this episode:

A Fake Conspiracy Theorist's Second Act

Wild bird gestures "after you" - Japanese tit uses wing movements for gestural communication

Use of bird-borne radar to examine shearwater interactions with legal and illegal fisheries

Tropical field stations yield high conservation return...

Birders are full of strong opinions, some serious and some silly. In this new feature, we invite friends on to discuss the spiciest bird takes we can find to determine whether we Take it or Leave it. George Armistead and Amy Davis join host Nate Swick to talk about spark birds, seawatching, records committees, and whether we should shre the locations of owls more frequently. 

Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it! And don't for...

Spring is finally on its way and with it, the promise of returning migratory birds to the United States and Canada. Among the first to arrive every year, and beloved among birders and non-birders alike, is North America's largest swallow, the Purple Martin. With their chatty and gregarious nature martins have inspired so many people, one of whom is Dr. Kevin Fraser of the Avian Behavior and Conservation Lab at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. A migration ecologist with a particularly interest in neotropical migrants, Kevin has worked with Purple Martins for years, and he joined host Nate S...

John Lowry steps from the production booth into the host's seat this time around to join Birding magazine editor Ted Floyd in a special Random Birds featuring John's home state of Michigan and Ted's old home of Nevada. They discuss a smorgasbord of avian trivia from the big middle of the ABA Area. 

Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it! And don't forget to join the ABA to support this podcast and the many things...

Beware the IDs of March! Shakespeare was no doubt concerned with molting grebes, singing juncos and the various other birding difficulties brought to us in this month when he wrote those words.  Jody Allair, Mikko Jimenez, and Purbita Saha join host Nate Swick this month to talk climate change and birds, skinny bird legs, and more!

Links to topics discussed in this episode:

The great eBird outage of 2024

To mitigate bird collisions, enforce the Migratory Bird Treaty Act

As Spring Shifts Earlier, Many Migrating Birds Are Struggling to Keep Up

What can we learn from one of the most familiar birds in North America? A bird so well-known that it's migration is remarked upon by friends and colleagues who might otherwise have no knowledge about birds at all. The American Robin, of course, is ubiquitous but there is a lot left to learn. That is, in part, the work of Emily Williams, an avian ecologist at Georgetown University, currently studying the migration ecology of American Robins. She joins us to talk about what we don't know about a bird everyone knows.

Also, it's March Madness! Which obviously m...

Digiscoping is more popular than ever, but bird records involving this practice are few and far between. We needed someone to lay down the gauntlet, and last year that person was Jeff Bouton. Many birders know Jeff as the representative for Kowa Optics, and he's a familiar face around bird festivals and events, and now, the Digicoping Big Year Champion, a record he set in 2023. He's here to challenge others to match him. 

Also, a rare bird on the Las Vegas strip gets national media exposure, for better or for worse. 

Subscribe to the podcast at...

Beach nesting shorebird conservation is one of the more nuanced issues on the continent because the sorts of places and times of year where they prefer to nest are the sorts of places and times of year that humans prefer to recreate. But opportunities exist to get people to care about and protect these birds that we share space with. Chris Allieri and the NYC Plover Project are doing just that. The volunteer group is one of the most celebrated and successful groups in New York City, and Chris joins us to talk about what works and what doesn't. 

It's Leap Day! It's not often that we have an extra week in February, but this month's This Month in Birding marks the first time we've ever had an episode on the 29th of February. We are joined by Jennie Duberstein, Nicole Jackson, and Gabriel Foley for a panel that is as unique as this day to talk eBird streaks, landfill condors, brilliant falcons, and more. 

Links to articles discussed in this episode:

One's trash is another's treasure: How landfills support Andean condors

Innovative problem solving by wild falcons

Yellow-crested Helmetshrike re...

Way back in 2019, we first spoke with Trish O'Kane about the Birding to Change the World program she had instituted at the University of Vermont, where she is a lecturer and environmental educator, because of an essay she had written for The New York Times. She's back 5 years later to talk about her new memoir, appropriately titled Birding to Change the World, which recounts her journey from nascent bird obsessive to activist to environmental educator through the effort to protect a much-loved urban park in Madison, Wisconsin.

Also, Emperor Penguin colonies are all accounted for in Antarctica...

2023 was an exceptional year for ABA Rarities, and few can remember a more extraordinary one in terms of both quality and quantity of shocking and spectacular rare birds in the US and Canada. As we do every year, we welcome North American Birds editor Amy Davis and educator and writer at The Nemesis Bird, Tim Healy, to share our favorites and draft the Top 10 (and a few more) ABA Area Rare Birds for 2023.

Also, congrats to Peter Kaestner for becoming the first birder to see 10,000 species.

Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wh...

The voyages of migratory shorebirds are cinematic in their scope; certainly an attractive subject for a nature documentarian. Randall Wood is the award-winning writer, director, and producer of Flyways: The Untold Story of Migratory Shorebirds, which aired in the United States on the PBS program Nature on February 7, 2024. He joins us to talk about the film, which focuses on the incredible journeys of three long-distance migrants and the researchers racing against time to preserve these birds and this incredible phenomenon. You can find the film at pbs.org/nature, YouTube and the PBS App. 

Also, the AOS N...

Birders use eBird to log their own personal lists, and to help find birds they would like to see, but the heart of eBird, the dream even of eBird, was to create a massive public database of bird sightings that can turn into opportunities to monitor bird populations. That is, in fact, what Harry Stevens, the Climate Lab columnist for the Washington Post, has done in a new interactive feature at the Washington Post which takes a look at why bird populations are declining. 

Also, Artificial Intelligence helps researchers get a bird's eye view.

Subscribe t...