The American Birding Podcast

Gray-headed Chickadee is certainly one of the most enigmatic species of breeding birds in the ABA Area. Though it is found broadly across northern Eurasian it was, until very recently, also known from an isolated breeding population in northern Alaska and far northwestern Canada. Those bird, long a bucket list objective for ABA Area birders, might be gone, and the reasons for that are unclear. Alaska birder and conservationist Brad Meiklejohn explores their disappearance in the Lost on the Frontier: The Mysterious Disappearance of North America’s Rarest Breeding Bird, published in the July 2025 issue of Birding magazine, and he joins us to talk more about this avian mystery. Stay tuned for a publicly accessible version of this article.  Also, the auction featuring some of our past Bird of the Year cover art is up and running! Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!

It's This Month in Birding for August 2025 and, as we do at the end of every month, we’ve got a great panel of birders to discuss the month’s birding news and scientific publications. Jason Hall, Mikko Jimenez, and Jordan Rutter join host Nate Swick to talk about grackle behavior, museums, and our very favorite penguins.  Links to articles discussed in this episode: The Rodrigues parakeet's last day: What one extinct bird tells us about the role of museums Exploration and dispersal are key traits involved in rapid range expansion, urban bird study finds Conservation sweet spots: How protecting nature helps both birds and humans in the US Fighting isn’t sexy in lekking greater sage-grouse: a relational event model approach for mating interactions Dagger beaks and strong wings: New fossils rewrite the penguin story and affirm NZ as a cradle of their evolution Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!

Every once in a while, Birding editor Ted Floyd drops in for for another episode of Random Birds. The Birding Gods smile on Ted and Nate's random number generator for an eclectic bunch of birds from warblers to gulls, and one incredibly apropos selection.   The AOS Classification Committee decisions are in, and Michael Retter has all the changes to your list laid out at aba.org.   Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!

Bird tourism is booming, and in many parts of the world we’ve seen countries invest in conservation and tourism infrastructure to take advantage of it. Certainly birders are drawn by unique species, but  perhaps our choices for bird-watching destinations have as much to do with other factors as they do with the presence of really great birds. It’s the subject of a paper to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal People and Nature by Natalia Ocampo-Peñuela and Scott Winton, who join us to talk "bird capital" and birder wants.  Also, a much loved birding hotspot in Fort Worth, Texas is closed indefinitely.  Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!

Writer Amy Tan is perhaps best known for her many novels including The Joy Luck Club and The Bonesetter’s Daughter, exploring themes of identity, family, and the immigrant experience. Her newest book, however, explores something rather different. The Backyard Bird Chronicles is a collection of nature writing and sketching focuses on the many avian visitors to Amy’s California backyard over a period of several years. The book was published in 2024, bit more recently Amy is the subject of an upcoming Birding magazine interview and The Backyard Bird Chronicles was recently reviewed in the magazine as well. She joins us to talk backyard birding and finding community among the birds and her nature sketching peers.  Also, does a recent Salon commentary suggests a return to the "birders are weird" genre of writing? Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!

The end of the month means This Month in Birding, and for July 2025 we've got a great panel of fun birders to discuss the month's birding news and scientific publications. Birders know Rebecca Heisman, Nick Lund, and Dexter Patterson for their great work in the birding world, and they join host Nate Swick to talk about hummingbird bills, drinking birds, and the best bird tribute to Ozzy Osbourne.  Links to articles discussed in this episode: AvianLexiconAtlas: A database of descriptive categories of English-language bird names around the world A new study knocks down a popular hypothesis about why birds sing at dawn Bird feeders have caused a dramatic evolution of California hummingbirds Birds are consuming alcohol more often than we realized Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!

The ABA’s 2025 Bird of the Year Common Loon is beloved across the United States and Canada, and though we at the ABA will only celebrate it for a short time, there are other organizations that have made protection and awareness of Common Loons their reason for being. The National Loon Center in Crosslake, Minnesota, is one such organization. They aim to restore and protect loon habitat, enhance responsible recreation, and promote research and education of not only Common Loon, but the habitats they enjoy. Natasha Bartolotta is the Science and Stewardship Manager for the National Loon Center, and she joins us to talk about loon outreach and wetlands conservation.  Also, urban Cooper's Hawks show surprisingly clever adaptations.  Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!  

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 ways to describe those sounds. It's called Bird Talk: Hilariously Accurate Ways to Identify Birds by the Sounds they Make from Storey Publishing. She joins us to talk bird noises and bird community. Also, some thoughts about the new taxonomy at Avilist.  Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!

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 efforts on the island.  Also, Nate finished his Breeding Bird Surveys and hopes that this isn't the last year for the venerable conservation project. Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!

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 protections for the Florida Scrub Jay and lead attorney Aaron Bloom joins us to to lay out the threats to the jays and to all endangered species, and how birders have helped to make his case.  Also, the 2026 Young Birder of the Year Mentoring Program is open for registration! If you're a young birder, or you know a young birder, sign up now! Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!  

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 Observation of a Western Gull (Larus occidentalis) Riding in a Long-Haul Garbage Transfer Truck Study Reveals Birds Nested in the Arctic During the Age of Dinosaurs Same-sex partnerships in birds: a review of the current literature and a call for more data Study reveals songbirds change flight patterns over Midwest's vast farmlands Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!

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 for one of south Texas's best birding sites.  Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!

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 interesting set of proposals this year, with Warbling Vireo splits, titmouse lumps, and lots of genetic mayhem.  Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!

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 story of how the path of discovery winds its way from one researcher to the next. Miranda joins us to talk about her work. If you'd like to see what the maps look like,  check out this write-up about her project.  Also, the Breeding Bird Survey and the Bird Banding Lab are set to be eliminated if a budget bill passes the US Senate, greatly threatening bird research not only in the US, but across the hemisphere. Learn more about it and what you can do.  Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!

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 discussed in this episode: The Wonders of Bird-Watching without Tech Crows understand shapes and use geometry in everyday life Foraging on the wing: How can ecologically similar birds live together? Where the wild bees are: Birds improve indicators of bee richness Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!      

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 Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!

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 review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!    

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 the birding lexicon features definitions for everything from adorbler to zygodactyl illustrated with Rosemary’s wonderful illustrations and she joins us to chat about the language of birders.  Plus, let us know if you'll be at Biggest Week and want to participate in the American Birding Podcast bird quiz! Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!

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 hives, and whether or not birds "sit".  Links to articles discussed in this episode: Six-decade research bias towards fancy and familiar bird species Hummingbirds Living in a Hive Found for the First Time Angler perceptions of pelican entanglement reveal opportunities for seabird conservation on fishing piers in Tampa Bay Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!

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 fides cannot be denied, and Ryan chats about the incredible geology, botany, and subway ferns that can be found in The Big Apple.  Also, the ABA is heading to the Biggest Week! We hope to see you there.  Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!