The American Birding Podcast

Earlier this year the ABA was delighted to award our Lifetime Achievement Award to a pair of birders who have made a very big impact not only on the places where they live, but on the birding community across the continent. J. Drew Lanham is a birder, poet, academic, award-winning memoirist, and JB Brunfield is an environmental educator, artist, and the undefeated Big Year champion of Cuyahoga Cou...

Close observers of the ABA might remember when we launched a new publication completely produced by a team of teen birders from all over the ABA Area. It's called The Fledgling ,  and after two issues it is well on its way to being something special. Hannes Leonard and Adrianna Nelson and members of The Fledgling team and they join Nate Swick to talk about this publication and the needs of young b...

July is awfully hot across most of the ABA Area, and we've got a panel with no shortage of hot takes for the July 2022 This Month in Birding. Martha Harbison , Nicole Jackson , and Nick Lund join host Nate Swick to talk about national birds, woodpecker myths, ravens, macaws, and how your brain works when you bird. Don't forget to join the ABA for FREE coffee or join Nate in Panama in September ! L...

Back in May of this year, the American Birding Association announced the hiring of Nikki Belmonte as the organization's newest Executive Director. She comes to us with a background in non-profit management, environmental education, and as a hobby birder. We're excited to welcome her to the podcast to talk about birding community, CBCs, and the best flannel to cover up your nerdy bird shirt. Also,...

Birding magazine editor and all-around bird-knower Ted Floyd is back for another bout of Random Birds. He joins host Nate Swick, a big bird list, and a random number generator to create podcast magic. They talk Eared Grebes, Black Vultures, and whatever other birds the magic number tells us to talk about.  Also, the Duck Stamp is back and you can get yours at the ABA ! Join the ABA and get a FREE...

Birders love bird books, and we at the American Birding Podcast love to get together to discuss bird books in the Birding Book Club segment. Donna Schulman from the website 10,000 Birds and Birding magazine's Frank Izaguirre join Nate Swick to talk about our favorite Bird and Birding Reference guides. It's a broad topic, but if you're looking for books to fill out your bird library, we're here to...

It's the last episode of the month and that means it's time for This Month in Birding, featuring a fun panel of ABA friends discussing the biggest birding news of the month and more. On our panel this month, Sarah Bloemers from the hilarious Bird Sh*t podcas t, Frank Izaguirre of the ABA's  Birding  magazine, and aeroecologist and birder Mikko Jimenez . They join host Nate Swick to talk Grasshoppe...

Mention Panama to a bunch of birders and typically only one place comes to mind - beautiful Canopy Tower . A former radar station and military installation west of Panama Cit, Canopy Tower has, over the last couple decades, transformed into one of the most well-regarded ecolodges in the Americas. And when you talk about Canopy Tower you cannot help but talk about Carlos Betancourt, whose work as a...

In early summer eager birders turn to bird taxonomy, and we at the podcast turn once again to our friend Nick Block, professor of Biology at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts to read the tea leaves for American Ornithological Society's North America Classification Committee and explain the latest in bird taxonomy. He joins Nate Swick to talk about new meadowlarks, Mew Gulls, and the House...

As part of its celebration of the third Black Birders Week, please enjoy highlights from the ABA's two-part panel "Black Birders: Embracing the Beauty Within." The panel session co-hosts are Sheridan Alford and Chelsea Connor. They are joined in the first session by Alex Troutman, Sharon Scott, and Scott Edwards, and in the second session by Alex Troutman and Danielle Belleny. Panelists explores s...

Finding birds in places where you shouldn't expect to find them if certainly one of the more exciting aspects of birding. In fact, it might well be the reason for the American Birding Association's very existence. The unpredictability, the excitement, the community that builds around these sorts of birds are certainly appealing even the mechanisms that bring them to these places are not always kno...

It is the end of the month, and with it, comes the This Month in Birding panel. Because May is arguably the best month of the year for birding in the US and Canada we have a panel this month that attempts to meet those expectations. Mollee Brown of the Life List Podcast , Gabriel Foley of the Maryland/DC Bird Atlas, and Purbita Saha of Popular Science .  Also, wanna travel to Panama with Nate?  To...

Julie Zickefoose scarcely needs an introduction. A prolific artist and an award-winning writer, much of her work is inspired by her home in southeast Ohio. It's the topic of a piece she has written for the May special issue of Birding magazine, Wildlife Gardening in Appalachian Ohio . She joins us talk about the satisfactions and frustrations that come from building a wildlife sanctuary and a litt...

Maybe more than anyone in North America in the last 20 years, Brian Sullivan has been deeply involved in things that birders do. He was one of the original developers of eBird, which hardly needs an introduction to listeners, and is now project lead of Cornell's Birds of the World . In the last couple years Birds of the World has absolutely become an essential collection of bird knowledge which is...

Friend of the ABA Nick Lund has had a busy spring! He not only published his first book, but his first two books. The ABA Guide to Birds of Maine is the newest installment in the well-regarded ABA guide series from Scott & Nix, and The Ultimate Biography of Earth seeks to reach science fans of all ages with its fun text and colorful illustrations. Nick joins Nate Swick to talk about them both and...

It's the last Thursday of the month and that means it is time for the American Birding Podcast This Month in Birding panel where we talk some bird news, share some sightings, and generally have a good time. We welcome to the panel this month Portland Audubon's Brodie Cass Talbott , t he American Bird Conservancy's Jordan Rutter , and Birds Canada, Jody Allair .   Also, wanna travel to Panama with...

The incredible variety of bird song in a morning chorus on a spring or summer day is a phenomenon that a lot of birders are familiar with. But even after centuries of study there is still a lot we don't know about bird vocalizations, especially the world of female birdsong. The vocalizations of female birds are frequently as complex and important to the lives of birds as the songs we associate wit...

As interest in birding has grown in the last couple years, birders have turned up in some really interesting places, including the streaming platform Twitch. Dr WD40, Liz Clayton Fuller , and Ian Davies are birders who have figured out this live streaming thing and are using it to build a community of bird and nature fans in a seemingly unconventional place, and they join host Nate Swick to talk a...

Birding  editor Ted Floyd is back and ready to remember some birds! He joins host Nate Swick to put their fates in the hands of chance and a random number generator to find some birds to talk about woodpeckers, wrens, and warblers.  Subscribe to the podcast at  Apple Podcasts ,  Stitcher , and  Google Podcasts , and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!

It's time again for This Month in Birding! While March is arguably the slowest month of the year for birding in the ABA Area, we haven't given the short shrift with this excellent panel of returnees. From Sonoran Join Venture, Jennie Duberstein , from Birds Canada and The Warblers podcast, it's Andrés Jimenez , and from Birdmodo and a thousand other fun sciency things, it's Ryan Mandelbaum . They...

Forrest Rowland advocates for ecotourism around the world as a tour leader for Rockjumper and for ecotourism close to home with Landtrust , an effort to connect landowners in the west and outdoor recreationists in some pretty interesting ways. Birders get access to private ranches full of amazing birds and wildlife and landowners get to put their properties to work in an environmentally sustainabl...

In many many parts of the country, and the world, the most accessible greenspaces are cemeteries. And while they have a morbid reputation, they can offer lots of great nature opportunities for those willing to explore. Danielle Belleny is a wildlife biologist in San Antonio, Texas, a co-founder of Black Birders Week, and the author of the essay L awn of the Dead: Finding Solace, Ecological Integri...

The birding world was shocked and more than a little saddened late last year when the venerable magazine Bird Watcher's Digest announced that it was ceasing operations. Famously founded by Elsa Thompson and Bill Thompson Jr in 1978 it was a real tent pole of the birding community in North America. But the exciting news is that the magazine will be back in 2022, rechristened as BWD and with many of...

If a bird calls in a forest, or a swamp, or a grassland, and no birder is there to hear it, did that vocalization really happen? The birds sounds we miss contain so much information about bird behavior and populations, wouldn't it be useful if we could hear those sounds surreptitiously. That's the work of Tessa Rhinehart , a researcher, birder, and mathematician at the University of Pittsburgh who...

It's the last week of the month and that means it's time for This Month in Birding. And while February is the shortest month, we do not give you the short shrift with our panel this month. We're joined by Sam D'Jarnett from Always Be Birdin' , Orietta Estrada from Amplify the Future , and podcast regular Frank Izaguirre of  Birding  magazine to talk about murmuration dangers, Rare Bird Alerts pros...