The American Birding Podcast

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!

A warmer and drier world means, unfortunately, a world in which wildfire becomes a greater risk. We know, all too well, the risk these fires pose to wild places, but there is surprisingly little we know about the risk to wildlife. That is the work of Dr. Olivia Sanderfoot, a researcher at UCLA looking at the impacts of wildfire smoke on wild birds and trying to answer a few of those increasingly relevant questions. Also, Nate is out of town and hoping to see Mississippi Kites.  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!    

A deeply felt love of birds is something that can wind its way into all aspects of our lives. It is a journey that writer and pastor Courtney Ellis weaves into her most recent book, Looking Up: A Birder’s Guide to Hope Through Grief, published last year and now available in audiobook. She is also the host of The Thing with Feathers podcast, available in a lot of the same places you can find this one. Also, the recent news about the "de-extinction" of an extinct wolf poses lots of questions for conservation.  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!  

Migrating warblers are heading back to our backyards and patches, and included among that wonderful diversity come the weirdo “winged” warblers, Golden and Blue, whose intermixed genetics have long been fascinating and confusing. We welcome Nick Block, professor of biology at Stonehill College in Massachusetts, as well as Matt Hale, professor of biology at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, the authors of an article covering the current state of winged warblers, published in the most recent issue of North American Birds to talk about them.  Also, a Cuban dove is now the poster-bird for ancient biogeography.  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!      

March 2025 brings another This Month in Birding featuring a panel of birding friends here to talk about the month's new bird news and get ready for spring. This time around we welcome Jennie Duberstein, Bird Joy Pod's Jason Hall, and Nicole Jackson to talk plastics in seabirds, new eyes on old maps, and the best bird to party with. Links to articles discussed in this episode: Fifty years of songbird maps take flight in new hands Plastic pollution leaves seabirds with brain damage similar to Alzheimer’s, study shows How a hummingbird chick acts like a caterpillar to survive Coming off dry January, these birds are getting a little drunk 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!