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PODCAST

The American Birding Podcast

American Birding Association

The American Birding Podcast brings together staff and friends of the American Birding Association as we talk about birds, birding, travel and conservation in North America and beyond. Join host Nate Swick every Thursday for news and happenings, recent rarities, guests from around the birding world, and features of interest to every birder.

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All Episodes

01:10:29

09-51: Random Birds, December 2025, with Ted Floyd

The American Birding Podcast ·

2025/12/18

We get one more go-round with the list and the random number generator for 2025 as Ted Floyd joins host Nate Swick to talk about, well, whatever birds we randomly turn up. This Random Birds covers an impressivley random suite of birds with kites, warblers, waders, and flycatchers all on the agenda. Also, ABA membership makes a great holiday gift! 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

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34:34

09-50: The Five Great Forests with Anna Lello-Smith

The American Birding Podcast ·

2025/12/11

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,

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01:16:09

09-49: Birding Book Club - Best Books of 2025

The American Birding Podcast ·

2025/12/04

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

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01:01:46

09-48: This Month in Birding - November 2025

The American Birding Podcast ·

2025/11/27

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

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29:52

09-47: Birds and Board Games with Elizabeth Hargrave

The American Birding Podcast ·

2025/11/20

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

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36:28

09-46: The Feather Detective with Chris Sweeney

The American Birding Podcast ·

2025/11/13

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

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39:46

09-45: Dating Like a Bird with Bryony Angell & Wenfei...

The American Birding Podcast ·

2025/11/06

Can the various mating rituals, displays, and behaviors of birds apply to the lives of humans in the 21st Century, with our own uniue rituals, displays and behaviors? It's a question that birder and writer Bryony Angell asks as she approached her own renewed dating life in an article The Migratory Suiter, published in the most recent issue of BWD. In doing so, she enlists the help of Dr Wenfei Tong. author of Bird Love: The Family Life of Birds, to compare the respective courtship drama of birds and

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01:03:55

09-44: This Month in Birding - October 2025

The American Birding Podcast ·

2025/10/30

The last Thursday of the month means it's time for This Month in Birding, our round table discussion with birding friends about news in birding and ornithology. This week we welcome Jennie Duberstein, Nick Lund, and Brodie Cass Talbott to discuss casual eBirding, hybrid Jays, and what bird to patronize on Halloween night. Links to articles discussed in this episode: The relaxed birder The Unexpected Profundity of a Movie About Bird-Watching An Intergeneric Hybrid Between Historically Isolated

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36:14

09-43: Inside Merlin with Miyoko Chu & Alli Smith

The American Birding Podcast ·

2025/10/23

It's hard to overstate in influence of Cornell's Merlin on the growth of birding over the last few years. What began as a simple tool for helping people to identify bird photos has become so much more, reaching millions of nature enthusiasts and even some celebrities. Miyoko Chu. Senior Director of Science Communitcations at the Lab, and Alli Smith, Project Coordinator for Merlin, join us to talk about what it's like to be in the middle of one this massive movement for nature lovers. If you're

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01:01:17

09-42: Random Birds, October 2025, with Ted Floyd

The American Birding Podcast ·

2025/10/16

Birding magazine editor and random birder Ted Floyd is back for another trip around the bird list. He and host Nate Swick take their list of birds and their random number generator and end up talking longspurs, vireos, and drama plovers in this edition of Random Birds. Also, check out the ABA Store for all sorts of fun Bird of the Year and logo wear stuff! 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

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01:13:00

09-42: Take It or Leave It: Trumpeter Swans,...

The American Birding Podcast ·

2025/10/09

It's not hard to get birders talking about some of the big questions in our hobby. And this time we go back in the archives of Birding magazine to collect some historic hot takes for another edition of Take It or Leave It, the discussion panel for the most opinionated birders. This time we welcome Tim Healy and Martha Harbison to talk about Trumpeter Swan introductions, the proper plural of binoculars, and whether the internet was a good thing for birders. Also, don't forget to bid on some great

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33:35

09-40: What is Birding Like?

The American Birding Podcast ·

2025/10/02

Have you ever had to describe birding to a friend or family member who just doesn’t get it? What analogies do you use? Is birding like a religion? A sport? An obsession? In this encore episode from 2018, Guest host Greg Neise brings Birding editor Ted Floyd and young birder liaison Jennie Duberstein to bear on the issue in a rollicking discussion in an attempt to figure it out. Also, it looks like Nate is going to be at the ABA Community Weekend in Fort Meyers, Florida, next month! Subscribe

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01:12:25

09-39: This Month in Birding - September 2025

The American Birding Podcast ·

2025/09/25

The last Thursday of September means that it's time for another This Month in Birding, featuring friends from around the birding world gathering to talk about interesting bird news and science from the last month or so. This time around we welcome Frank Izaguirre, Andres Jimenez, and Sarah Swanson to talk about Barred Owls, baby cowbirds, and our favorite bird conservation success stories. Links to items discussed in this episode: Suddenly Birding Is the Hot-Girl Hobby of the Year Taking Action to

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42:21

09-38: A Dirtbag Big Year with Owen Reiser

The American Birding Podcast ·

2025/09/18

A Big Year is maybe the ultimate expression of birding obsession, with all the drama inherent to the effort. Brothers Quentin and Owen Reiser’s attempt at a Big Year maybe most of all. It’s the subject of their documentary, Listers, an attempt to throw themselves into the birding world through perhaps the most extreme expression of the hobby. It’s profane, it’s funny, it's honest, and it covers all aspects of the birding world, warts and all. Owen joins us to talk about the film and his experience

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40:15

09-37: New Art in the New Nat Geo Guide with Andrew...

The American Birding Podcast ·

2025/09/11

For more than 40 year the National Geographic Field Guide has been an essential text in the library of US and Canadian birders. The venerable series is in its 8th edition now, published as East and West earlier this year and as as guide from coast to coast just recently. Ted Floyd, a regular on this podcast, is the author, but a field guide is only as good as its illustrations. Former Bird of the Year artist Andrew Guttenberg is the art coordinator for this series as it takes a turn into the 21st

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41:59

09-36: Where Have the Gray-headed Chickadees Gone...

The American Birding Podcast ·

2025/09/04

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

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01:13:08

09-35: This Month in Birding - August 2025

The American Birding Podcast ·

2025/08/28

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

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01:03:43

09-34: Random Birds, August 2025, with Ted Floyd

The American Birding Podcast ·

2025/08/21

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

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36:59

09-33: Why Birders Go Where They Go with Natalia...

The American Birding Podcast ·

2025/08/14

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

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40:15

09-32: The Backyard Bird Chronicles with Amy Tan

The American Birding Podcast ·

2025/08/07

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

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