The American Birding Podcast

Early summer means that it’s time to talk taxonomy, and that means Nick Block, professor of Biology at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts. For the last several years, Nick is person we like to talk to when it comes to reading the tea-leaves of the American Ornithological Society’s North America Classification Committee. We chat storm-petrels, bunting lumps, and the curious case of the Swainson's Thrushes. Also, there's no better time to sign up to run your own Breeding Bird Survey route! Help support the ABA and the American Birding Podcast by contributing to our Nesting Season Appeal. 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 dreams of the "internet of nature" was a device that birders could put in their yard that picks up GPS fitted and tracked wildlife, and maybe even identifies them when they pass over your home. That device is here and it is called Terra. Mike Lanzone of Cellular Tracking Technologies and birder and writer Scott Whittle, are the creators of this magic device. They both join me to talk about what it can do, and how it will change migration monitoring forever.  If you want to contribute to their kickstarter, here's the link.  Also, do you have birding enemies? Billy Baker of the Boston Globe thinks he does and Nate has thoughts.  Help support the ABA and the American Birding Podcast by contributing to our Nesting Season Appeal.  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!

Sean Milnes, Jordan Rutter, and Purbita Saha join the May 2021 This Month in Birding panel to talk about some of the most important bird and birding related news items of the month. Links to items discussed: Female Bird Day (6:56) Colombia boycotts the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Global Big Day (8:52) AOS moves forward on changing English bird names (17:25) The period cicada's Brood X is here and impacting birds (24:15) Chicago releases feral cats into the city (33:40) Estimates of bird populations mean there are 6 wild birds per human (42:35) And don't forget that Black Birders Week is next week! Thanks to Field Guides for sponsoring this episode. Check out their new video series, Out Birding with Field Guides. 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!

In the United States, we’re over 100 days into a new administration and five months into a new Congress, and our elected officials have been busy with some interesting environmental policies and legislation in that time. Interestingly, many of them impact birds. To chat about it, we bring back to the podcast, Tykee James, host of the On Word for Wildlife podcast from the Wildlife Observer Network. Tykee lays out what birders should be paying attention to, and talks about his new project, Freedom Birders.  Plus, another Pileated Woodpecker story from Christy Esmahan in Austin, Texas, and a wild Wall Street Journal article about threatening Bald Eagles.  Thanks to Field Guides for sponsoring this episode. Check out their new video series, Out Birding with Field Guides. 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!

Birding editor Ted Floyd is back to play a new birder game we're calling "Random Birds". Host Nate Swick has a list of birds and a random number generator and is ready to chat about whatever bird pops up. Nate and Ted chat about Snow Geese, Red Knots, Bobolinks, Blue Grosbeaks and more.  Also, some birds in the news! California Condors and Vaux's Swifts invading homes in California.  Thanks to Field Guides for sponsoring this episode. Check out their new video series, Out Birding with Field Guides. 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!

Hummingbirds, perhaps more than any other bird family in the world, seem to elicit a strange sort of mania, and this seems to have been true for as long as human beings have been aware of them. Writer Jon Dunn is one of the obsessed, and his new book The Glitter in the Green - In Search of Hummingbirds is part history, part travelogue, and part quest to see as many of the world’s hummingbirds as possible, including some of the most iconic species on Earth. Also, another Pileated Woodpecker story from Lerena in Toronto, Ontario and Nate sings the praise of fantasy birding in spring.  Thanks to Field Guides for sponsoring this episode. Check out their new video series, Out Birding with Field Guides. 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 last Thursday of the month and that means it's time for the This Month in Birding panel. April 2021 is a special month because it marks one year from the 1st This Month in Birding, and one year since the podcast we went to a weekly format. We're joined by a panel of Birds Canada's Jody Allair, Orietta Estrada of the Birder's Fund, and The Birdist, Nick Lund, who come to talk about the AOS Bird Names Congress, Bald Eagles, big news for the Black & Latinx Scholarship Fund, and thoughts on the accuracy of nature documentaries.   Links to topics discussed: The AOS Bird Names Congress Bald Eagle Mystery Solved Bald Eagle Population Estimate Black & Latinx Birder Scholarship Fund News The Problem with Nature Documentaries Audubon CEO Resigning Thanks to Field Guides for sponsoring this episode. Check out their new video series, Out Birding with Field Guides. 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!

This time of year is a tough one for many birds, as they make their long dangerous journey from wintering grounds to breeding territories. The path taken by many sees them passing over or stopping to nest in increasingly urban landscapes. These landscape changes affect birds in many ways, some obvious, some more subtle. That is the work of researcher Lauren Pharr, a PhD student at North Carolina State studying urban noise and light pollution and their affect on birds. She’s with me now to chat about her work, wildlife research in urban settings, and community science.  Thanks to Field Guides for sponsoring this episode. Check out their new video series, Out Birding with Field Guides. 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!

There are a few lucky places in the ABA Area where parrots still fly free, even if most have captive origins these day. But these big loud flashy birds have a history and future than is perhaps more interesting than many birders might imagine and these feral populations can even give us some insights into the frequently threatened wild birds in Mexico and Central America. John McCormack, director of the Moore Lab of Zoology at Occidental College in Los Angeles, is one of the authors of a paper about how two closely related Amazon parrots in southern California more or less fit into the landscape together and he joins us to talk about it. Also, as promised, the link to sign up for the Bird Names meeting on Friday, April 16.  Thanks to Field Guides for sponsoring this episode. Check out their new video series, Out Birding with Field Guides. Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Google Play, and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!

Migratory birds undertake some of the most extraordinary and exhausting undertaking of any living things on the planet, an endurance test made all the more difficult by climate change, habitat loss, and illegal hunting. Few know this better than Scott Weidensaul, a bird researcher, prolific nature writer, and the author of more than 30 books, mostly about birds. He first tackled bird migration with 2000’s Living on the Wind. He comes back to the topic with a new book A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds, out this month. He joins Nate Swick to talk about the new book and the the limits of bird migration.  ABA members are eligible for a 15% discount to Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Birds of the World subscription. Log into your ABA account to get the code. Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Google Play, and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!