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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 other Thursday for news and happenings, recent rarities, guests from around the birding world, and features of interest to every birder.

American Birding Podcast: The ABA at 50

The end of 2019 means that we’re coming to the end of the ABA’s 50th, looking forward to the our next 50. Any big milestone encourages taking stock of where you’ve been, where you’re going. And here at the ABA ...
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American Birding Podcast: Best Bird Books of 2019 with Donna Schulman

As is our tradition, the end of the year means it’s time for a look back at the best bird books published this year. Once again, 10,000 Birds book reviewer Donna Schulman joins me to talk about our favorites. Donna and ...
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American Birding Podcast: LIVE from the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival

The ABA's 50th Anniversary roadshow rolls on, this time to the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival for another LIVE show Our special bird-themed game show features guest appearances from Birds of North America's Jason Ward and Birding magazine editor and ...
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American Birding Podcast: Documenting Birders on the Border with Otilia Portillo Padua

Many birders throughout the ABA Area have been paying attention to the ongoing situation in South Texas with regard to the construction of the border wall. So many of our favorite birding sites have been under threat, and the situation ...
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American Birding Podcast: Bird Glamour with Lisa Buckley

How many of you out there have dressed as a bird for Halloween? Many, I'm sure! But there is obviously so much more that can be done in the realm of bird costuming, and Dr. Lisa Buckley has taken bird ...
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American Birding Podcast: The Secrets of Female Bird Song with Lauryn Benedict

The incredible variety of bird song in a morning chorus on a spring or summer day is a phenomenon that a lot of birders are familiar with. But even after centuries of study there is still a lot we don’t ...
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American Birding Podcast: 3 Billion Birds Lost, A Discussion with Jordan Rutter & Ted Floyd

3 Billion breeding birds have been lost in the last 40 years in the US and Canada. These are certainly sobering numbers. This was the conclusion of a paper published recently in the journal Science, and the core of the ...
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American Birding Podcast: Birding to Change the World with Trish O’Kane

All birders intuitively understand the value of birding, even if we're not so great as a community as expressing that value. Birding as a means for personal growth, and coming to grips with the changing world around us is an ...
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American Birding Podcast: Veery Meteorology with Christopher Heckscher

The 2019 Atlantic hurricane season is underway with a handful of storms already named. In the last couple decades human meteorologists have gotten pretty good at predicting the strength and track of tropical storms in the Atlantic basin, but still ...
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American Birding Podcast: Birding the Rock

Located in the northeast corner of the ABA Area, the island of Newfoundland is known for its incredible rarity pedigree. But there's far more to this beautiful place than European vagrants. The city of St. John's is a gateway to ...
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American Birding Podcast: Inside Fantasy Birding with Matt Smith

Fantasy Sports is big business these day, especially now that participants no longer have to do the work by hand. It’s so popular that managing virtual worlds based on real world data has spread beyond sports. Fantasy Birding has become ...
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American Birding Podcast: Where Experience Falls Short

What does it mean to be an "expert" birder? And do the skills that make one an expert necessarily translate to the skills that are most in demand when it comes to promoting the birding community in a positive way? Birding editor ...
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American Birding Podcast: Letters from Bird Camp with Jennie Duberstein & Robert Buckert

The ABA’s summer camps have long been an avenue for young birders to take in some excellent birding opportunities, to network with other young birders, and to learn about career opportunities in birding and ornithology. So many young people who ...
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American Birding Podcast: Bird Collision Basics with Heidi Trudell

Birders love to watch the birds at their feeders from the comfort of their own home, but those windows we depend on can cause quite a few problems for birds, something that Heidi Trudell is all too aware of. She ...
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American Birding Podcast: 2019 Splits and Lumps with Nick Block

It's taxonomy time again, bird nerds! The 2019 proposals to the American Ornithological Society's Classification Committee are chock full of splits, name changes, and a couple proposals that may or may not set some interesting precedents in the way we ...
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American Birding Podcast: Birds and Board Games with Elizabeth Hargrave

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, released earlier this year to ...
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American Birding Podcast: LIVE from The Biggest Week-The ABA at 50

The ABA's 50th Anniversary and The Biggest Week's 10th Anniversary coincide this year and it's a great time to celebrate both stalwarts of the birding community. We threw a bird party and recorded the very first LIVE episode of the ...
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American Birding Podcast: A Season on the Wind with Kenn Kaufman

Kenn Kaufman is one of America's best known birders, and he has done just about everything a person can do in the birding world. He's a guide, an artist, an incredibly skilled birder, and an author of several books, the ...
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American Birding Podcast: Field to Screen with Jason Ward & Rob Meyer

Birders have been portrayed onscreen for decades now, with mixed accuracy. While this has definitely changed for the better in recent years there's still room to grow and the web-series Birds of North America is pushing the public perception forward once again and ...
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American Birding Podcast: On Crow Culture with Kaeli Swift

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 ...
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American Birding Podcast: Birding Means Business in Colombia with John Myers

Birders know the South American nation of Colombia as the most bird-rich country on the planet, but Colombia’s reputation among the general public is unfortunately somewhat more mixed. That is something that the Colombian government and non-profits who work there ...
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American Birding Podcast: Martin Migration Magic with Kevin Fraser

Spring is finally on its way and with it, the promise of returning migratory birds to the United States and Canada. Among the first to arrive every year, and beloved among birders and non-birders alike, is North America’s largest swallow, ...
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American Birding Podcast: Birding at 100 (Issues) with Ted Floyd

The February 2019 issue of Birding magazine is noteworthy not only for being the Bird of the Year issue, or for launching the 50th Anniversary of the ABA, but for another, less obvious, reason. February 2019 is the 100th issue of Birding for which ...
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American Birding Podcast: Birding and the Border Wall with Tiffany Kersten

The Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas is one of the most special places in the ABA Area­ for birders and naturalists, hosting some exceptional species and some iconic birding locations. It’s why so many birders have watched the politics ...
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American Birding Podcast: eBird’s Spectacular Status & Trends with Tom Auer

Cornell’s eBird has been around for 16 years now, and 2019 finds it as ingrained in the birding community, especially in North America, as it’s ever been. More users than ever plugging more data than ever into the project, which ...
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American Birding Podcast: 2019 Bird of the Year Artist Megan Massa

Multimedia bird artist Megan Massa is the latest artist to create the Bird of the Year cover art, an auspicious list that includes David Sibley, Julie Zickefoose, and Louise Zemaitis, among others. Her experiences have run the gamut from the ...
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American Birding Podcast: Winter Birding Basics with Ted Floyd & Greg Neise

Days are short, weather is at or near its coldest, and it's easy to just suspend birding for a few months and wait for Spring. But that would be missing out on some truly great birding experiences, including Christmas Counts, ...
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American Birding Podcast: Birds at Large with Nick Lund

Birds are everywhere. They are in your movies and TV shows, on your sports team logos, even in your Google Street View. There is no shortage of ways that your interest in birds can manifest itself beyond time in the ...
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American Birding Podcast: Best Bird Books of 2018 with Donna Schulman

We're getting to the end of the year and it's time for a look back at the best bird books published in 2018. Once again, 10,000 Birds book reviewer Donna Schulman joins me to talk about our favorites. Donna and I each ...
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American Birding Podcast: The Internet of Wildlife with Mike Lanzone

One of the more exciting aspects of birding and birding science in the 21st Century has been the reveal of a great many secrets of bird movements and migration, much of it the result of technology. Increasingly small trackers that ...
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American Birding Podcast: Birding By Bus with Marc Kramer & Eliana Ardila Ardila

It’s the dream of many birders, to travel the US and Canada by car for one entire year taking in as much of the continent’s birds as you can along the way. It is the reality of Marc Kramer and ...
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American Birding Podcast: The Feminist Bird Club Story with Molly Adams

For many of us, birding is about community, and for retaining people in the hobby finding a group of people you like to bird with is as important as that first pair of binoculars or a field guide. Molly Adams ...
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American Birding Podcast: Fall at Cape May with David La Puma

Few birders would dispute that Cape May, New Jersey, is among the continent’s most storied birding locations, both in terms of birding spectacles and its influence in North American birding culture. It feels like Cape May Bird Observatory, New Jersey ...
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American Birding Podcast: What is Birding Like?

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? Guest host Greg Neise brings Birding editor Ted Floyd and ...
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American Birding Podcast: Photography as Birding with Keith Barnes

Birders in North America are increasingly keen to combine the somewhat separate skills of birding and photography, but around the rest of the world birding is pretty much synonymous with photography to the point where sometimes you don’t even carry ...
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American Birding Podcast: Out There With the American Birding Expo with Bill Thompson III & Ben Lizdas

The American Birding Expo is returning to the Philadelphia area once more next month. Running from 21-23 September, it is billed as “the world of birding in one place” and with exhibitors from 6 continents that is a pretty fair ...
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American Birding Podcast: Birding While Black with Drew Lanham

One of the issues that the birding community has been reckoning with for the last several years is our relative lack of diversity, at least in terms of black and brown faces in the field, and how we can encourage ...
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American Birding Podcast: Birding Without Tears 2, Birding & Kids with Bryony Angell

When Birding editor Ted Floyd and I did our first Birding Without Tears episode a few weeks ago we were called to the carpet by the fact that we were only telling half of the story. Ted and I are both ...
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American Birding Podcast: A Life in Raptors with Jerry Liguori

Hawk-watchers are easily the most established sub-groups within the birding community, and the hawk-watching community in North America is close-knit and passionate. One of its undisputed authorities is Jerry Liguori of Salt Lake City, Utah, the author of Hawks at ...
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American Birding Podcast: Voices of The Biggest Week- Women and ABA Big Years

For decades, the ABA Big Year has been a man's game, but in the last few years that has changed with more women than ever tackling the grueling endeavor in a number of creative and personally enriching ways. This year's ...
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American Birding Podcast: 2018 Splits and Lumps with Nick Block

Another year, another trip around the world of bird taxonomy courtesy of the American Ornithological Society’s classification committee. That group of bird scientists informs the field guides and lists we birders use every day and they are once again making ...
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American Birding Podcast: Birding is My Favorite Video Game with Rosemary Mosco

If you’re a naturalist or a nature lover on social media chances are you have come across Bird & Moon, an exceptionally fun series of webcomics filled with colorful and endearing and accurate nature themes. Bird & Moon is the ...
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American Birding Podcast: Birding Without Tears- Stories and Secrets of Birding with Kids

It's natural for birding parents to want to share their passion with their children. Birding with kids often brings additional complications, but also additional pleasures, and opportunities to appreciate birding in different and delightful ways. Both Birding magazine editor Ted Floyd and ...
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American Birding Podcast: At the Champions of the Flyway with the ABA-Leica Subadult Wheatears

The Champions of the Flyway is one the world's premiere birding events, a combination bird race/conservation fundraiser held annually in southern Israel that has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to help stop illegal bird poaching around the Mediterranean. While ...
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American Birding Podcast: eBird’s Global Big Day with Ian Davies & Kyle Horton

Spring is right around the corner. And if you're going to be birding, you might as well be eBirding. You should definitely be eBirding on May 5th, eBird’s annual Global Big Day. Last year birders recorded more than 6600 species ...
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American Birding Podcast: Tales of Urban Birding with Jen Brumfield

Few birders in North American have taken on the mantle of urban birding like Ohio native Jen Brumfield. Her Cuyahoga County big years are the stuff of legend, not only for their high totals but for the passion she throws ...
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American Birding Podcast: Winter Birding in Review with Mike Hudson & Tom Reed

For birders interested in Status & Distribution, that is the wheres and whys of birding, the ABA’s quarterly journal, North American Birds, has always been a much anticipated part of the ornithological canon. After a year or so in stasis, ...
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American Birding Podcast: The Joy of Birdfeeding with Jim Carpenter

Jim Carpenter opened the very first Wild Birds Unlimited store near his home in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1981. At the time it was one of very few bird specific retail outlets in the country. Since then, Wild Birds Unlimited has ...
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American Birding Podcast: Big Year Reflections with Yve Morrell

In 2017, Florida birder Yve Morrell did what many of us dream of doing--she took an entire year off for birding all around the continent. Her 2017 Big Year ended in December with 813 (+4 provisional species), a total that will ...
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American Birding Podcast: More than Birds with Jody Allair & Frank Izaguirre

One of the major birding trends of the 21st Century has been a move away from a sole interest in birds. This is facilitated by an ever increasing library of field guides to various taxa, smartphone apps that make it ...
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American Birding Podcast: The Nomadic Nature of Snow Buntings with Emily McKinnon

It’s the time of year when Arctic birds are moving south into the populated parts of the continent, and citizen scientists are there to meet them, trap them, and use cutting edge technology to track their movements. It’s a testament ...
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American Birding Podcast: 2018 Bird of the Year Artist Doug Pratt

When we chose Iiwi to be the 2018 Bird of the Year, there was really only one person we could ask to do the artwork. H. Douglas Pratt is a bird artist, author, and researcher, currently based in Raleigh, North ...
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American Birding Podcast: The Christmas Bird Count-stravaganza Episode

It's Christmas Bird Count season, and in this episode of the American Birding Podcast we bring you past guests and ABA friends and staff sharing their own CBC stories. We have tales of found birds, of missed birds, of fun ...
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American Birding Podcast: What’s in a Common Name?

What is in a bird common name? It’s a question that many of us might not think about immediately, but there’s a lot going on in those lists we are so familiar with. Capitalization, honorifics, patronyms, how names are assigned, ...
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American Birding Podcast: Best Bird Books of 2017 with Donna Schulman

2017 was a good year for bird books, with a number of exciting titles seeing publication this year. As we reach the end of the year it's a good time to look back at the ones we loved, and 10,000 ...
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American Birding Podcast: Birding Without Borders with Noah Strycker

Before 2015, a 365 day round the world Big Year had never been attempted. The playing field was intimidating, the perceived cost was daunting, and the logistics were demanding. But in 2015 Birding Associate Editor Noah Strycker tossed all that ...
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American Birding Podcast: Hurricane Impacts on Caribbean Birds with Alvaro Jaramillo

The 2017 Hurricane season was notable for the scale of the tropical storms involved and the destruction they caused not only where they made landfall in the United States, but also the islands in the Caribbean that they passed over ...
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American Birding Podcast: Birds and the Farm Bill with Amanda Rodewald

When birders think about the Farm Bill they might be forgiven for thinking immediately about corn and soybeans. But the Farm Bill is more than an agricultural omnibus, it also funds projects that provide important habitat for more than 100 ...
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American Birding Podcast: How Photography has Changed Birding

There is arguably no technological shift that has changed birding more in the last decade or so than the proliferation of cameras. Taking photos and sharing photos has become synonymous with birding for many and it’s hard to remember time ...
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American Birding Podcast: Bird Tours from the Inside with Rockjumper’s George Armistead

There's more to a successful bird tour than just pointing out the birds. From logistics to managing personalities, a bird tour guide has to be part ornithologist and part psychologist. Rockjumper Birding's George Armistead has led bird tours on all ...
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American Birding Podcast: American Birding Expo News with Bill Thompson III

Later this month, birders and tour operators from across the globe will converge on Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for the 3rd American Birding Expo. This "World of Birding in One Place" is the brainchild of Bill Thompson III, editor of Birdwatcher's Digest, ...
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American Birding Podcast: The Secret Life of Rails with Auriel Fournier

Rails are a mysterious and enigmatic family, often requiring and rewarding effort. Researcher Auriel Fournier knows that more than most, and her work with rails in Missouri has shed some light on how these birds migrate and how they use ...
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American Birding Podcast: Reviewing the 2017 AOS Supplement with Nick Block & Michael Retter

The 2017 American Ornithological Society Check-list Supplement was notable for the taxonomic decisions that were not made as much as those that were. Yellow-rumped Warbler and Willet were not split, but Cassia Crossbill was. We also saw the unprecedented lump ...
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American Birding Podcast: Birds Over the Top with Seabird McKeon

The new episode of American Birding Podcast is ready to go! A changing climate means a different world for many bird species, particularly seabirds which may find themselves exploring new paths over the top of a melting Arctic. Ocean researcher ...
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American Birding Podcast: Birding, Social Media, and the Facebook Summit

It's time for another episode of the American Birding Podcast! Birders have always been great at taking advantage of technological tools to pass on birding information. From the early days of the internet in Usenet groups, to listservs and web ...
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American Birding Podcast: Actor Ian Harding’s Odd Birds

The next American Birding Podcast is out! In demand actor, 7 time winner of the Teen Choice Award, and avid birder? Ian Harding is best known for his work on the Freeform network's teen-drama Pretty Little Liars, but in his ...
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American Birding Podcast: Young Birders 2017

The next American Birding Podcast is out! The ABA has a long history of supporting young birders through our Young Birder of the Year competitions and the young birder camps in Colorado and Delaware, programs that have had real positive ...
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American Birding Podcast: Bird Conservation in Hawaii with Mike Parr

The next episode of the American Birding Podcast is out! Mike Parr is the new president of the American Bird Conservancy, one of the premier bird conservation organizations in the Americas. ABC has done a great deal of work supporting ...
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American Birding Podcast: LIVE from The Biggest Week – The Good Birders Panel

The newest episode of the American Birding Podcast is ready to go! The ABA was once again excited to have a presence at The Biggest Week in American Birding in northwest Ohio in 2017. At this year's festival, Houghton Mifflin ...
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American Birding Podcast: Jody Allair and the Great Canadian Birdathon

The latest episode of the American Birding Podcast is out now! Bird Studies Canada is the premier bird conservation organization in Canada, and their annual Great Canadian Birdathon is a the world's oldest sponsored bird race. It's a great way ...
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American Birding Podcast: 2017 Splits and Lumps, The AOS Episode

The newest episode of the American Birding Podcast is out! Every year, birders look forward to the check-list supplement from the American Ornithological Society (formerly the American Ornithologists' Union), and this year is no exception. In fact, 2017 offers a ...
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American Birding Podcast: Kim Kaufman on The Biggest Week

The newest episode of American Birding Podcast is out this morning! The Biggest Week in American Birding is one of the biggest birding events on the calendar, and a wonderful opportunity for birders to make a difference while enjoying the ...
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American Birding Podcast: Nathan Pieplow and The Field Guide to Bird Sounds

The next episode of the American Birding Podcast is live! Nathan Pieplow's new field guide is a departure from the traditional book of bird images. It depicts images of bird sounds as spectrograms, showcasing the diversity of vocalizations in North ...
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American Birding Podcast: Jonathan Meyrav and Champions of the Flyway

The next episode of the American Birding Podcast has just been released! Bird-trapping and shooting are huge problems around the Mediterranean, which prompted Israeli birder Jonathan Meyrav to create the Champions of the Flyway, a 24 hour bird race in ...
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American Birding Podcast: Lang Elliott on Natural Soundscapes

The next episode of the American Birding Podcast is out! I'm joined by master bird recordist Lang Elliott as he talks about his new project, a sound-recording expedition to the western US.  Lang hopes to record in a wide variety ...
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American Birding Podcast 01-03: Drew Weber and Cornell’s Merlin App

The next episode of the American Birding Podcast is ready to go! With the incredible and ambitious Merlin app, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology claims to be able to identify your mystery bird photos. Project Manager Drew Weber joins Nate ...
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American Birding Podcast: The Big Big Year Episode

Episode 4 of the American Birding Podcast is live now and it's something of a special edition, a super-sized look at the major players in 2016's impressive Big Year attempts. I chatted with all four Big Year birders - Christian ...
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American Birding Podcast: Sophie Webb, 2017 ABA Bird of the Year Artist

The latest episode of the American Birding Podcast is ready to go, and this time it's all about our 2017 Bird of the Year, Ruddy Turnstone. I share a conversation I had with scientist, author, and 2017 BOY artist Sophie ...
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American Birding Podcast #2: Scott Somershoe on Prairie Bird Conservation

American Birding Podcast Episode 2 is available now! My guest this time around is Scott Somershoe, Land Bird Coordinator for the US Fish & Wildlife Service, whose recent work has him surveying populations of our 2016 Bird of the Year ...
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American Birding Podcast #1: Laura Kammermeier on Birding Travel

That's right! We have a podcast. The ABA is jumping into the podcast pond with our first episode of the American Birding Podcast, hosted by yours truly but featuring a number of ABA staff and friends. We hope you will ...
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