Birding news with field-tested curiosity.
The American Birding Podcast is a brisk, interview-led show from the American Birding Association, centered on birds and the people who study, protect, and watch them. It moves from practical birding updates into grounded conversations about conservation, behavior, travel, taxonomy, and community science.
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The American Birding Podcast is a warm, brisk show about birds, birding, conservation, and the culture that grows around careful observation. It comes from the American Birding Association and is led in the excerpts by Nate Swick. The format is simple but flexible. A practical opener often sets the scene with birding news, a recent article, a personal field note, or a concern from the wider bird world, then the episode settles into an interview or panel conversation. The subjects are specific. Ferruginous hawks, Cooper's hawks, loons, warblers, vultures, cormorants, grouse, raptors, and breeding bird survey routes all become entry points into bigger questions. Some episodes feel like a field guide with context attached. Others lean toward conservation history, public policy, and the uneasy places where birds meet industry, media, fashion, infrastructure, and land use. The show can spend time on naming, too. A discussion of Yellow Warbler splits or Canada Jay names is not just trivia here; it becomes a way to talk about standardization, older knowledge, Indigenous names, and what gets lost when science needs a shared language. The interviews are accessible without being thin. Guests explain how research gets shaped by real-world needs, like deciding how close infrastructure can be to a hawk nest or how community science data informs bird conservation. The monthly panel format adds a livelier rhythm. It gives room for debate, side paths, and quick turns through the latest birding stories. Humor shows up, but it stays mostly dry and affectionate. The closing credits often carry the loosest jokes. The show's deeper mood is one of informed concern. It notices when bird populations, conservation institutions, or research programs are under pressure, and it gives those pressures enough detail to matter. It also keeps returning to joy. Birding travel, spring arrivals, new route records, backyard observation, and the changing public image of birdwatching all sit beside the heavier topics. The result is a show for listeners who already care about birds and for curious naturalists ready to learn the language. It makes birding feel local, communal, and connected to the planet at once.
Made for: For birders, naturalists, and conservation-minded listeners who enjoy detailed conversations about species, habitat, research, and the birding community. It also works for newer birdwatchers who want technical topics explained in plain language.
What sets it apart: The show stands out by moving easily from everyday birding observations to serious conservation context, without losing its approachable tone. It treats taxonomy, field behavior, policy, travel, and community science as connected parts of the same birding life.
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 Thursday for news and happenings, recent rarities, guests from around the birding world, and features of interest to every birder.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
It turns close attention to birds into clear conversations about taxonomy, conservation research, cultural knowledge, and the practical work of protecting habitat.
Nate Swick treats birding as a route into the science, history, and practical decisions surrounding birds. The American Birding Podcast moves between focused interviews and a monthly panel, with Swick asking patient follow-ups while leaving room for informed disagreement and dry…
Bird names stop being labels here, giving you science, memory, and an argument over who gets heard.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A birding conversation that widens into a careful look at conservation, history, and rewilding.
Nate Swick leads the conversation into land, history, and conservation without losing sight of the practical ecology underneath rewilding. The strongest moments come when it stays close to the real-world mechanics: vultures fading when food runs thin, large ungulates helping…
A grounded episode that starts with pishing and mob tape and opens into species at risk, nests, and infrastructure decisions.
The episode opens with a birding debate about pishing and whether playback or mob-tape use crosses a line, then moves into species at risk and the practical question of how close infrastructure can get to nests before it causes new problems.
April Fools warnings and warbler renaming keep this spring bird chat grounded.
Nate Swick opens with an April Fools warning and a sharp look at the trust birders place in one another, then uses that setup to revisit the annual temptation to report fake birds.
A March roundup that turns a bird-news panel into a conversation about names, memory, and conservation.
The American Birding Podcast closes March with its monthly panel, moving from air tags on birds to Tom Johnson's last piece of amazing bird science, rare birds from the third week of March, and favorite green birds for St. Paddy's Day.
Birds, fashion, and print culture collide in a sharp look at the Feather Wars.
The episode follows the Feather Wars as a fight over birds, fashion, and public taste, moving from feathered hats and sporting journals to George Grinnell, Forest and Stream, and the early Audubon movement.
A Colorado migration hotspot, a Siberian elm, and one European insect open a larger question about how birds use changing habitats.
The American Birding Podcast frames insects as part of the habitat puzzle birds are constantly solving, then grounds that idea in an Eastern Plains Colorado migration hotspot. There, just shy of 30 bird species were feeding on one European insect in a Siberian elm.
Science education between theory and classroom reality.
The podcast episode discusses the new National Geographic bird field guide and the film 'Listers' about a lower 48 big year.
Host Nate Swick interviews Colorado birder and entomologist David Leatherman about the critical link between insects and birds.
Host Nate Swick announces the Common Loon as the American Birding Association's 2025 Bird of the Year.
Nate Swick hosts a rare bird draft with Amy Davis and Tim Healy, discussing notable bird sightings and picks for the 2024 ABA Rare Bird Draft.
The American Birding Podcast interviews Occidental College's John McCormack about two Mexican Amazon parrots, red-crowned and lilac-crowned, that now share Los Angeles.
The American Birding Podcast's September 2026 birding roundup pairs a dodo-brain study with debate over English bird names.
Tyler Wenzel links the 2026 Super El Niño to seabirds leaving the Humboldt Current as warming water disrupts their food supply.
Nate Swick opens with a birding update and looks ahead to the big week in American birding in Northeast Ohio, about a month out.
Nate Swick opens with a familiar question about pishing and whether it harms birds.
Nate Swick opens early.
The American Birding Podcast wraps up March with its monthly panel discussion.
Nate Swick opens with a calm weather-and-birding check-in before moving into the Feather Wars.
Nate Swick introduces an article about birding's punk and quasi-pagan appeal, leading to an interview with Amy Tan about her book The Backyard Bird Chronicles.
A discussion of a recent study describing how a Cooper's hawk in New Jersey uses a line of cars at a stoplight as a screen to ambush prey.
Nate Swick discusses the importance of the Breeding Bird Survey and concerns about its future due to potential funding cuts.