The American Birding Podcast

Thanks to all our listeners and supporters for another exceptional year. To wrap up 2022, we welcome back some insightful and entertaining birder friends to the last This Month in Birding for the year. We're joined by Popular Science's Purbita Saha, science writer Ryan Mandelbaum, and The Birdist, Nick Lund to talk about the biggest birding trends of 2022 and our best birding experiences of the year.  Links to article discussed in this episode: New Shazam for Birds will Identify that Chipping For You Female Blue Tits Sing Frequently Old Bones Suggest Presence of Thick-billed Parrots in the Southwest 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!

ABA staffers Katinka Domen and Ted Floyd recently accompanied an ABA excursion to the land of penguins and albatrosses. They join host Nate Swick to talk about what it's like to visit the southernmost continent on Earth, and what ecotourism looks like in this unique place.  Also, the ABA Bird of the Year 2023 is Belted Kingfisher! 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 is time once more for the most anticipated Birding Book Club of the year, our annual Best Bird Books of the Year episode for 2022. With the holiday gift-giving season is right around the corner there's no better time to give the gift of bird books to the birder in your life. Or yourself, we don't judge. We are joined by 10,000 Birds book reviewer Donna Schulman and Birding magazine editor Frank Izaguirre to talk about what we loved this year in bird books. For a full list of the books discussed, please see the ABA Podcast website.  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!

One of the issues that the birding community has been reckoning with for the last several years is how we can encourage a broader coalition of nature enthusiasts to join us and to share the joy of birding. It’s an issue that Dr. Drew Lanham has given a great deal of thought. Lanham is a distinguished professor of wildlife ecology at Clemson University, a recent MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, and his memoir, The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair With Nature was published in 2017. In this encore episode from 2018, he joins host Nate Swick to talk about his experiences as a black man who loves what he calls one of “the whitest things you can do”. Also, a small adjustment in our winter finch expectations. 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!

Happy Thanksgiving to those celebrating! How about a fun bird discussion to go along with our one and only bird-related holiday? Nate Swick is joined by Bird Sh*t's Mo Stych, aeroecologist Mikko Jimenez, and the ABA's own Greg Neise to talk about eBird status and trends, hybrid chickadees, bird rediscoveries, and our avian zodiac signs.  Links to topics discussed in this episode: Smartphone-based Study Reveals Mental Health Benefits of Birding Evaluating crowdsourced data to Quantify Inequitable Access to Urban Biodiversity.  Hybrid Birds in Human-altered Landscapes Researchers Rediscover the Black-naped Pheasant-Pigeon What is Your Birth Month Bird? 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!

The ABA is gearing up to announce its 2023 Bird of the Year but we’re not ready to say good-bye to the year of the Burrowing Owl just yet. With that in mind, we welcome Colleen Wisinski and Susanne Marczak of the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s Burrowing Owl Recovery Program to talk about their efforts to protect the local population of Burrowing Owls and what they’ve learned about the species in doing so. Also, Nate is back from a great Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival. 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!

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, a new bird endurance record! 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!

If the English language is an amalgamation of words from thousands of other languages and cultures, then English common bird names are that writ small. They're a hodgepodge of from every possible source and an endless supply of amazing bird history and trivia. WINGS guide Susan Myers's new work, called The Bird Name Book, is a fascinating combination of etymology and ornithology, and she joins us to talk about it.  Also, a really cool new study about convergent evolution.  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 the end of October and time for our monthly This Month in Birding panel. This week features a fun crew with MD/DC Bird Atlas coordinator Gabriel Foley, Birding magazine editor Frank Izaguirre, and Sarah Swanson, author of the new Best Little Book of Birds: Oregon Coast. The panel geeks out over woodpecker brains, commiserates over the sobering State of the Birds, and suggests exciting bird costume ideas for Halloween, among other things.  Links to topics discussed in this episode: 2022 State of the Birds Reveals Widespread Losses of Birds in all Habitats Never Before Seen Colorful Bird Hybrid Surprises Scientists Even a Small Amount of Spilled Oil Damages Seabird Feathers Woodpecker Brains Process Their Own Tree-Drumming as if its Birdsong 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!

Every spring, thousands of Red Knots congregate on the Delaware Bay to take advantage of the horseshoe crab spawn. Fueled by crab eggs they finish a migration that spans from the southern tip of South America to the northern reaches of North America. That essential link in this migratory chain is, once again, under threat, which concerns the environmental law group Earthjustice and partners. Tim Preso of the Biodiversity Defense Program is here to talk about what birders need to know about this new threat.  Also, check out the new ABA Community! 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!