The American Birding Podcast

Latest Episodes:

08-31: On Crow Culture with Kaeli Swift Aug 01, 2024

Show notes

Dr. Kaeli Swift knows crows. And she's watched them do some pretty extraordinary things. In fact all corvids-the family that includes crows, jays, magpies, and others-have a well deserved reputation for intelligence and fascinating social behaviors. Dr. Swift's research has provided insights into how crows interact with us, with their dead, and with each other. She joined host Nate Swick from Denali National Park where she is working with Canada Jays to talk about corvid culture and cognition.

Also, some spectacular, if slightly wrong, bird art in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Thanks to our friends the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival for sponsoring this episode. Register today! Chicago's Urban Birding Festival is a great way to enjoy the unique birding in unique landscapes

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! And don't forget to join the ABA to support this podcast and the many things we do for birds and birders!

08-30: This Month in Birding - July 2024 Jul 25, 2024

Show notes

It's This Month in Birding for July 2024 with Stephanie Beilke, Martha Harbison, and Mikko Jimenez the aeroecologist! The panel discusses recent bird news including AOS splits and lumps, bird intelligence, and bird regalia, but that's hardly all. Join us for another great conversation about birds, science, and, for some reason, the Insane Clown Posse.

Links to articles discussed in this episode:

AOS Checklist Redux 2024

Birds barcode food to map stashes

These crows have counting skills previously only seen in people

Do Magnetic murmurs guide birds? A directional statistical investigation for influence of Earth's Magnetic field on bird navigation

'As I Stood There, a Bird Watcher in Full Regalia Paused Next to Me'

Thanks to our friends at OM System for sponsoring this episode. Embrace the outdoors and find new ways to enjoy birds and birding. Visit omsystem.com or log in to your ABA member account to claim your exclusive 10% discount on cameras and lenses like the all new weather-sealed bodies and lenses.

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!

08-29: Dare to Bird with Melissa Hafting Jul 18, 2024

Show notes

The incredibly diverse and unbelievably photogenic landscape of British Columbia is on display in photographer and birder Melissa Hafting's new book, Dare to Bird, and with it, the birds that make this part of the continent so special and inspire Hafting's effort to spread the joy of birding and photography around the province, across Canada, and beyond. She joins host Nate Swick to talk about it, along with rare bird recordkeeping, young birders, and more.

Also, new hope for Hawaiian birds in the form of mosquito air drops.

Thanks to our friends at Zeiss for sponsoring this episode. For a limited time you can get $200 of all ZEISS Conquest HD binoculars. Visit your local optics dealer or visit ZEISS.com/nature to find a dealer near you.

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!

08-28: Birding with Benefits, A Discussion Jul 11, 2024

Show notes

Birding with Benefits, a new book by author Sarah T Dubb, is a unique new addition to the birding canon. While we shouldn't be too surprised that all the new attention paid to birding has seen it turn up in surprising places, but the pages of a romance novel certainly seemed like a stretch. To help discuss birding's introduction into the romance genre, host Nate Swick turns to his own birding adjacent relationship and beach read enthusiast to talk about this unlikely intersection.

Also, SpaceX turns out to be a bad neighbor to birds in South Texas, according to The New York Times.

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!

08-27: 2024 Splits and Lumps with Nick Block Jul 04, 2024

Show notes

Birders around North America look forward to midsummer every year for the publication of the AOS North American Classification Committee's Taxonomic Supplement, the splits and lumps that affect our life lists. And for this conversation we turn, as we have since the very beginning of this podcast, to our own taxonomy guru Dr Nick Block of Stonehill College to talk shearwater splits, gull confusion, redpoll DNA, and everything else in the 2024 list of proposals.

Don't forget to donate to the ABA's Nesting Season Appeal, which raises money for our excellent young birder programs. And check out our upcoming community weekends!

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!

08-26: This Month in Birding - June 2024 Jun 27, 2024

Show notes

The summer solstice marks another turn of the seasons to nesting and post-breeding dispersal, and, in some cases southward migration once again. And the end of the month means turn to This Month in Birding, our roundtable discussion with some birding friends. We welcome back Nick Lund, Jordan Rutter, and Brodie Cass Talbott for a wide-ranging discussion that includes polyamorous shorebirds, Giga-geese, and birder "would you rathers".

Links to articles discussed in this episode:

Tiny New Zealand bird delivers a lesson in birdsong evolution

Polyandrous birds evolve faster than monogamous ones, new study finds

New fossils show what Australia's giant prehistoric 'thunder birds' looked like

Don't forget to donate to the ABA's Nesting Season Appeal, which raises money for our excellent young birder programs. And check out our upcoming community weekends!

08-25: The Importance of Insects with David Leatherman Jun 20, 2024

Show notes

When birders talk about the importance of a bird-friendly yard, they often mean insects even if they don't mention them explicitely. And so people that want to attract birds need to get comfortable with bugs. Colorado birder David Leatherman is a fan of bug-bird interactions and in his piece The Importance of Native Plants and Insects Amid the Reality of Modern Bird Habitats, in the April 2024 issue of Birding magazine, he encourages birders to familiarize themselves with living bird food. He joins host Nate Swick to discuss it.

Also, it's 2024 Young Birder of the Year Season! Meet our new awardees and learn more about this exceptional program.

Don't forget to donate to the ABA's Nesting Season Appeal, which raises money for our excellent young birder programs.

08-24: Random Birds XI with Ted Floyd Jun 13, 2024

Show notes

What better way to spend a random Thursday in June than with a random number generator and a random list of birds? As he does from time to time, the ABA's Birding magazine editor Ted Floyd joins host Nate Swick for another round of Random Birds. This time the list has a strongly cosmopolitan bent, and Nate and Ted discuss birds that can be enjoyed, for the most part, not just around the continent, but in some cases around the world.

Don't forget to donate to the ABA's Nesting Season Appeal, which raises money for our excellent young birder programs.

08-23: Enjoying the Natural B's with Georgia Silvera Seamans & Natasza Fontaine Jun 06, 2024

Show notes

Last week saw the fourth year of Black Birders Week, which continues to be a wonderful opportunity to celebrate diversity in the birding and nature communities. To help mark the occassion, we hand over the podcast to the host of Your Bird Story, Georgia Silvera Seamans, who brings our 2024 ABA Bird of the Year artist Natasza Fontaine, a working biologist in addition to being a science illustrator, to talk about her experiences with birds, botany, and whatever other natural "B's" she loves to encounter.

Don't forget to donate to the ABA's Nesting Season Appeal, which raises money for our excellent young birder programs.

08-22: This Month in Birding - May 2024 May 30, 2024

Show notes

Spring turns to summer in much of the ABA Area this week, and we celebrate spring 2024 with a birding podcast crossover event for this month's This Month in Birding. We welcome Mollee Brown, one of the hosts of the Life List podcast and Jason Hall and Dexter Patterson, hosts of the brand new, and very fun, Bird Joy podcast to talk about the mathematics of bird flocks, how birding makes you happy, and our favorite moments of spring 2024, among other things.

Links to articles discussed in this episode:

The federal government plans to kill half a million West Coast owls

How do birds flock? Researchers do the math to reveal previously unknown aerodynamic phenomenon

Why birdwatchers are happier than the rest of us

Bald eagles are back, but great blue herons paid the price

Don't forget to donate to the ABA's Nesting Season Appeal, which raises money for our excellent young birder programs.