The American Birding Podcast
American Birding Association
Recent Episodes
Central America is home to five great tropical forests, whose presence and protection are critical to the conservation of just about every one of our neotropical migrant birds. It is the subject of a recent study from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Wildlife Conservation Society published last month in the journal Biological Conservation. Anna Lello-Smith, bird conservation scientist from the WCS is the lead author and she joins is to talk about what this means for bird conservation.
Also, it's the first weekend of the Christmas Bird Count. Hope you're ready!
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 Birding Book Club is back again to do our annual Best Bird Books of the Year episode for 2025. There's no better time to give the gift of bird books to the birder in your life. And why not something for yourself while you're at it? Nate Swick is joined by 10,000 Birds book reviewer Donna Schulman and Birding magazine media and book review editor Rebecca Minardi to talk about what we loved this very unique year of birds in books.
Links to all of our choices at the ABA website.
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!
Happy Thanksgiving! At the ABA, we're thankful for birders - their passion, their deep knowledge base, and the willingness of some to come on the American Birding Podcast to discuss recent bird science and news. This month we welcome Stephanie Beilke, Tim Healy, and Ryan Mandelbaum to talk corvid mimicry, gator loving grebes, and the best birds to assign to all those other holidays.
Links to articles discussed in this episode:
Humans outperform Merlin Sound ID in field-based point-count surveys
Coordinated movements of multiple pied-billed grebes in association with an American alligator
Wintering closer to breeding grounds comes at a cost in an Arctic-specialized songbird,
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!
What do birding and board games have in common? More than you'd expect! Birder and game designer Elizabeth Hargrave has made it a mission to bring these two things together and her bird-themed game Wingspan does just that. Wingspan has been covered by the New York Times, Smithsonian, and Science magazine among other places and has managed to elicit interest at a time when enthusiasm among the general public for both birding and board games are at an all-time high. She joined host Nate Swick in 2019 me to talk about both.
Also, the Philadelphia Eagles are getting in the bird conservation business, which opens up opportunities for all sorts of bird and professional sports crossovers.
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!
Smithsonian researcher Roxie Laybourne may be the most influential ornithologist you've never heard of. Over the more than half a century she was a pioneering figure in the fields of forensics and aviation, all through her work with birds, and, more specifically, their feathers. Her incredible life is documented by journalist Chris Sweeney in the book, The Feather Detective: Mystery, Mayhem, and the Magnificent Life of Roxie Laybourne, released earlier this year. Chris joins us to talk about Laybourne's legacy in fields that go far beyond birds.
Also, the big eBird update is here and our lists are looking a lot different this week. What does this mean for our muddled taxonomic authorities in North America?
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!