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!

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 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

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!

Pishing, mob tapes, and playback are all tools that birders frequently use to supplement their birding experience, be it to show other birders a great bird or to bring birds close for photographs. They have typically been seen in the community as benign but the ease of their use certainly raises questions about how they affect the birds we enjoy. Marty Freeland is a Stanford student who has not only been thinking about these questions, but has attempted to answer them in a scientific manner. His work helped inform an essay by Peter Pyle that was published both in the most recent issue of Birding magazine and on the ABA website. He joins Nate Swick to talk about his work, his thoughts on the use of "electronic pishing", and the amazing pishing behavior of lyrebirds.

Also, the ABA is hosting a membership drive this spring! By joining or renewing now, you can help unlock an additional $100 per member for the ABA's programs!

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!

Scott Weidensaul is the author of nearly 30 books about birds, birding, and natural history. His latest is The Return of the Oystercatcher: Saving Birds to Save the Planet, a globe-trotting look at look at bird conservation successes from re-wilding efforts in England to vultures in Romania, to the puffins and plovers of North America. It is a soothing balm in this time of great anxiety about bird populations and a critical look at what still nees to be done. He joins host Nate Swick to talk about it all.

Also, we're coming up on The Biggest Week in American Birding! Nate will be there. Will you?

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 wide open spaces of the North American west are frequently spotted with signs of human industrial energy production. Oil and gas wells, massive wind turbines, and the like are impossible to miss and impact, occasionally significantly, the birds that live in these vast prairie ecosystems. Dr Janet Ng studies the effects of this industrial incursion into these wild places in the southern Canadian plains, and works with various partners to keep landscapes "hawky".

Also, Peter Pyle has some interesting thoughts on "electronic pishing" in the most recent issue of Birding

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!

This episode is brought to you by Birding Louisiana.

Host Nate Swick leans once again on Birding magazine editor Ted Floyd for another Random Birds discussion. The Random Number Generator has a certain late winter/early spring bias with warblers and gulls and warblers and gulls on the agenda.

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!

This episode is brought to you by Birding Louisiana.

They say March comes in like a lion and out like an American Birding Podcast This Month in Birding episode, and this month panel is an exceptional one to end a month with. Host Nate Swick is joined by Stephanie Beilke, Andres Jimenez, and Ryan Mandelbaum for a fun and birdy conversation covering Airtags on birds, the most bouba and kiki species, and Tom Johnson's last piece of amazing bird science.

Links to topics covered in this episode:

Using Apple AirTags to Document Dispersal and Exploratory Movements of Harris's Hawks

Indigenous Peoples and local communities report a consistent decline in the body mass of birds across three continents

Seeing in the dark: Using thermal imaging to directly observe nocturnal migration

The bouba-kiki effect: Baby chicks match sounds to shapes just like humans

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!

This episode is brought to you by All4Birding.

The early years of bird conservation in North America, is a fascinating period, featuring colorful characters and countless battles fought in the pages of newspapers and magazines regarding the need for conserving the continent's wildlife. It is a history thoroughly recounted in the book The Feather Wars and Great Crusade to Save America's Birds by James H. McCommons. The author joins the American Birding Podcast to talk about the creation of the bird conservation movement that not only saved a number of species from extinction, but provides the basis of our the conservation landscape we enjoy today.

Registration is open for the ABA's Community Weekend in Philadelphia! It's free!

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!

This episode is brought to you by Naturalist Journeys.

The state of Louisiana hosts one of the world's largest repositories of ornithological knowledge, the Louisiana State University Museum of Natural History. With nearly 200,000 bird specimens, including important collections from the tropical Americas, this institution informs a lot of what we know about bird taxonomy in this hemisphere. Dr Nick Mason is the curator of that collection, and he joins us to talk about the fascinating work done at this place and what museums are doing to make sure bird science stays on a sound footing into the future.

Also, the ABA's live What's This Bird program is breaking ground in online phenology... sort of.

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!

This episode is brought to you by Naturalist Journeys and Birding Louisiana.

The specter of a World Without Birds is certainly a sobering one, but one that could, though, inspire new birders and environmentalists to support the efforts needed to make sure that world is never a reality. In Nick Lund's latest book aimed at younger readers, he tells the stories of birds made extinct by human hands and also those of birds that have been rescued from that fate. Nick and Nate also tell stories of birds seen in unlikely places, and the birding goals of a marathoner in a wide-ranging discussion.

Also, a new study about birds and brain health has made it to The Today Show!

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!

February is the shortest month, but thankfully our end of the month roundtable discussion is long on fun and insight. This month's This Month in Birding brings together Jason Hall, Mikko Jimenez, and Sarah Swanson to discuss birds and plants, whether birds can be illegal immigrants, and our favorite avian romantic gestures. Plus, in a TMIB first, Mikko brings his own science to the discussion.

Links to articles discussed in this episode:

Ancient bird routes mapped via plant diversity

Can a bird be an illegal immigrant? How the White Australia era influenced attitudes to the bulbul

Noise pollution is affecting birds' reproduction, stress levels and more: The good news is we can fix it

Migratory bird stopover patterns linked to urbanization and social landscapes

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!

This episode brought to you by All4Birding