The American Birding Podcast

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...

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...

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 prote...

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...

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...

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 intere...

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...

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...

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! Subscribe to the podcast at  Apple Podcas...

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 rev...

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...

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 hive...

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 f...

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...

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...

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,...

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 songb...

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 conserva...

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...

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 Tho...

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...

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 Ce...

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

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...

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 scienc...