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

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Birds and humanity have interacted for as long as there has been humanity, and various bird species have proven to be constants, influencing mythologies, religions, art, economics, and even warfare. Natural history, as it turns out, is human history, and that is the idea behind the book 10 Birds that Changed the World. Stephen Moss is the author, he is one of Britain's most influential nature writers and broadcasters. You can find him writing a monthly Birdwatch column for the Guardian and appearing regularly on BBC Radio, among many other places.

Also, a recent hantavirus outbreak on a nature cruise has the wider world looking at birders and landfills with a critical eye, even though birders have been part of the solution.

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The concept of the "spark bird", the transformative moment with a particular species that turns you from a normal person into a real-deal birder, is one that many birders are familiar with. These personal testimonies frequently tell you as much about the birder as they do about the spark bird itself. The human element of a natural experience is what excites Dr Jenn Lodi-Smith, a professor of psychology at Canisius University and scholar in residence at the Roger Tory Peterson Institute, and it's what inspired her to create the Spark Bird Project, an online collection of spark birds and the birders they inspire.

Also, if you're going to be at the Biggest Week festibal next week, come say hi!

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It's the end of April and that means it's time again for another This Month in Birding panel with a great group of birding friends joining host Nate Swick to talk about recent birding news and science. Jody Allair, Gabriel Foley, and Jennie Duberstein discuss birding and your brain, guano and civilization, and our favorite birding April Fools.

Links to items discussed in this podcast:

Backyard birdwatchers help scientists uncover what hawks really like to eat

Becoming an Expert Birder Can Reshape Your Brain and Might Help Protect It From Aging, New Research Suggests

Seabirds shaped the expansion of pre-Inca society in Peru

Feeling you belong may keep scientists in ornithology, study suggests

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