The American Birding Podcast

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!

It's the time of year when Arctic birds are moving south into the populated parts of the continent, and citizen scientists are there to meet them, trap them, and use cutting edge technology to track their movements. It's a testament to our interest in nomadic tundra birds that that could apply to a couple different projects, but this time around we are talking about Snow Buntings and the Canadian Snow Bunting Network. Dr. Emily McKinnon is a researcher at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg and the administrator of this project that has found out a number of fascinating things about these consummate winter birds. Also, the ABA added three species to its checklist last month, each with a different story. 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!

It's the last Thursday in March and that means This Month in Birding. It's the first of 2021 that can officially, meteorologically, and birdingly, be said to be in spring, even if that spring is tumbling in like an awkward albatross landing. And to this first spring panel of 2021 we welcome three excellent birders Nicole Jackson of Black in National Parks week, Mikko Jimenez of Audubon's Migratory Bird Initiative, and Ryan Mandelbaum of the Finch Research Network and Birdmodo. Also, want to join the ABA team? Here's the info you need! Links to articles talked about in this episode: What does the Anthropause mean for birds? Winter Finches are coming back north The world's oldest gull discovered in Cleveland Philadelphia joins Lights Out Initiative Black-browed Babbler Rediscovered After 180 Years 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!