09-40: What is Birding Like?

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 inclined! We appreciate it!  

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 original bird art from our Bird of the Year program.  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!  

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 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 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 Avoid Extinction: Successful Regional-Scale Lethal Control of Barred Owls Supports a Federal Strategy to Save Spotted Owls How a Parasitic Bird With No Parents Learns What Species It Is North American bird declines are driven by reductions in common species The surprising recovery of once-rare birds How many bird and mammal extinctions has recent conservation action prevented? 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 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 undertaking what he calls a "fully dirtbag Big Year". Plus there's a companion book! Also, check out the ABA's biweekly What's This Bird show on YouTube! 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!  

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 Century and he joins us to talk about it.  Also, have you seen the new Listers documentary? 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!  

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 Frontier: The Mysterious Disappearance of North America’s Rarest Breeding Bird, published in the July 2025 issue of Birding magazine, and he joins us to talk more about this avian mystery. Stay tuned for a publicly accessible version of this article.  Also, the auction featuring some of our past Bird of the Year cover art is up and running! 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 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 involved in rapid range expansion, urban bird study finds Conservation sweet spots: How protecting nature helps both birds and humans in the US Fighting isn’t sexy in lekking greater sage-grouse: a relational event model approach for mating interactions Dagger beaks and strong wings: New fossils rewrite the penguin story and affirm NZ as a cradle of their evolution 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!

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 or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!

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 talk "bird capital" and birder wants.  Also, a much loved birding hotspot in Fort Worth, Texas is closed indefinitely.  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!