The American Birding Podcast

Alabama Audubon has invited your own podcast host, Nate Swick, to be the keynote speaker at the 2026 Black Belt Birding Festival. The festival highlights the birds, the ecology, and the civil rights heritage of the region. To get excited for this summer's event, we welcome Andrew Lydeard, Alabama Audubon's Program Coordinator, and Chris Joe, third generation farmer whose family's 200 acre cattle farm in Newbern, Alabama, is an important site for the festival and a great example of the conservation and community efforts that the festival seeks to highlights. We talk birding Alabama, festival highlights, and how the community has come to love birders. 
Also, the Breeding Bird Suvey is back and Nate is excited to get back on his routes. 
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The easternmost province in mainland Canada, Labrador doesn't get the attention afford to its island provincial partner Newfoundland. Its position on the continent, however, affords its birders the opportunity for some unique avian opportunities from unlikely rarities to birding by snowmobile. Labrador birder Vernon Buckle joins guest host Frank Izaguirre for a conversation about birds and birding in one of the continent's most unique places. 
Also, Frank shares some thoughts about the new internet of birding. 
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There are bird species that are extant and those that are extinct, but between those two seemingly immutable categories, lies one hundred odd species of birds that are considered "Lost". This means that they hasn't been documented in many years but have not yet been determined to be extinct by authorities for any number of reasons. It is the search for those birds that is the work of John Mittermeier, Director of the Search for Lost Birds, an effort from the American Bird Conservancy, BirdLife International ReWild, and Cornell Lab, to seek out those birds a determine not only whether they're not extinct, but what needs to be done to keep them that way.
Also, so long and thanks for all your help, John Lowry! 
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It's the end of May, the season for bald cardinals, baby birds, and buggy birding. But most importantly, it's the last Thursday of the month and that means it's time for This Month in Birding, our monthly panel discussion of bird news and science and we have rounded up another great group of birding friends to have that discussion. Host Nate Swick is joined by Mikko Jimenez, Jordan Rutter, and Brodie Cass Talbott, to talk vagrant birds, robo-grouse, and birdy World Cup crests. 
Links to articles discussed in this episode:
When Primm resort-casinos go dark, what happens to the birds?
Students fabricate randy robo-grouse whose strut could save birds at Jackson Hole Airport
Demography and dispersion: evaluating the causes and consequences of vagrancy in North American migratory birds
Inter- and intra-individual variation in the feather coloration of American crows
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The ABA hosted a membership drive livestream earlier this week, and part of the four hours of birdy entertainment was a LIVE version of the American Birding Podcast favorite segment, Take it or Leave it. Panelists Nick Lund and Martha Harbison joined host Nate Swick to hash out some very hot birding takes on topics like four-letter codes, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and ugly birds. You can find the livestream on the ABA's YouTube channel. 
The membership drive is still live until the end of the month! Help us reach our goal at aba.org/join
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!