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10-01: 2026 ABA Bird of the Year Artist Kristina Knowski
New Jan 08, 2026 39 min

10-01: 2026 ABA Bird of the Year Artist Kristina Knowski

2026 is officially the year of the Horned Lark! This dapper little songbird can be found just about everywhere in the ABA Area, and we're excited to put a spotlight on it this year as our Bird of t...

09-52: This Month in Birding - December 2025
Dec 25, 2025 1h 1m

09-52: This Month in Birding - December 2025

Jody Allair, Martha Harbison, and Rebecca Heisman join host Nate Swick for the last American Birding Podcast episode of the year, with a wide-ranging discussion of some of the latest bird and birdi...

09-51: Random Birds, December 2025, with Ted Floyd
Dec 18, 2025 1h 10m

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

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 ...

09-50: The Five Great Forests with Anna Lello-Smith
Dec 11, 2025 34 min

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

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 o...

09-49: Birding Book Club - Best Books of 2025
Dec 04, 2025 1h 16m

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

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 some...

09-48: This Month in Birding - November 2025
Nov 27, 2025 1h 1m

09-48: This Month in Birding - November 2025

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 sci...

09-47: Birds and Board Games with Elizabeth Hargrave
Nov 20, 2025 29 min

09-47: 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...

09-46: The Feather Detective with Chris Sweeney
Nov 13, 2025 36 min

09-46: The Feather Detective with Chris Sweeney

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 ...

09-45: Dating Like a Bird with Bryony Angell & Wenfei Tong
Nov 06, 2025 39 min

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

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 an...

09-44: This Month in Birding - October 2025
Oct 30, 2025 1h 3m

09-44: This Month in Birding - October 2025

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 Duberste...

09-43: Inside Merlin with Miyoko Chu & Alli Smith
Oct 23, 2025 36 min

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

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 ...

09-42: Random Birds, October 2025, with Ted Floyd
Oct 16, 2025 1h 1m

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

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 ...

09-40: What is Birding Like?
Oct 02, 2025 33 min

09-40: 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? In this encore episode from...

09-39: This Month in Birding - September 2025
Sep 25, 2025 1h 12m

09-39: This Month in Birding - September 2025

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...

09-38: A Dirtbag Big Year with Owen Reiser
Sep 18, 2025 42 min

09-38: A Dirtbag Big Year with Owen Reiser

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 sub...

09-37: New Art in the New Nat Geo Guide with Andrew Guttenberg
Sep 11, 2025 40 min

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

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...

09-35: This Month in Birding - August 2025
Aug 28, 2025 1h 13m

09-35: This Month in Birding - August 2025

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, M...

09-34: Random Birds, August 2025, with Ted Floyd
Aug 21, 2025 1h 3m

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

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 bird...