Today, Evan and Nate sit down with Matt Young, President and Founder of the Finch Research Network (FiRN), to talk finches.

They begin by discussing birds they are currently seeing. This week Evan went twitching to find a Gyrfalcon and stumbled across a Great Black Backed Gull in Central Illinois. Nate went looking for the Ivory Billed Woodpecker and Roadrunners in Arkansas, but struck out on both.

In our discussion, Matt gives us a brief overview of FiRN, its mission statement, and what the future holds for FiRN.  We talk Grosbeaks, Crossbills, Lawrence Goldfinches, and Redpolls. Matt provides great insight on the different types of these birds.  Specifically, he explains which types we may be seeing in Illinois.

Our last topic involved Common versus Hoary Redpolls. A previous guest, Colin Dobson, recently ran across what he thought was a Hoary Redpoll in East Central Illinois. Matt provides some excellent ID tips, scientific data, and his own experience after looking at "more Redpolls that any human should."

Matt's finch knowledge absolutely blew us away and we think you too will have to listen to the episode twice to digest everything he throws at you.

Happy listening and Happy Birding!


Matt's Biography

Matt has been observing and enjoying nature since a very young age. He’s lived in Central New York the past 22 years and it was during this time when he really started studying everything from birds to orchids, and bogs and fens. Matt received his B.S. in Water Resources with a minor in Meteorology from SUNY-Oneonta and his M.S. in Ornithology from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry/Syracuse University in 2003. Matt did his masters research on avian diversity in restored wetlands of central New York at the Great Swamp Conservancy. He was a Regional Editor of the Kingbird for 10 years, the state ornithological journal in New York, was an Adjunct Professor in Environmental Studies at SUNY-Cortland, and currently teaches an Intro to Birding class for Cornell University and is the Board Chair at The Wetland Trust.

He worked at the Cornell Lab across 15+ years where he did extensive field work for the Lab’s Cerulean and Golden-winged Warblers atlas projects, and was project lead on the Lab’s first Finch Irruptive Bird Survey for Bird Source in 1999. He was the Collections Management Leader/Audio Engineer at the Macaulay Library ~12 years where he edited sounds for several Merlin packs around the world in addition to being the lead audio engineer on guides, the Songs of the Warblers of North America, Audubon Society Voices of Hawaii’s Birds, and the Cornell Lab’s Guides to Bird Sounds, the North America Master and Essential Sets. He’s been a tour guide leader for Victor Emanuel Nature Tours, written finch species accounts for breeding bird atlases and Birds of the World, has published several papers about the Red Crossbill vocal complex, and is the President and Founder of the Finch Research Network (FiRN)