This issue covers a range of topics and perspectives, all of which are about the intersection of people, birds, and the environment. Join us in learning about making birding & the outdoors accessible to all, birding in cemeteries, recent research, and more. And thank you to all of our 2021 donors!
Highly lauded field guide author David Sibley starts off our printed content with notes on the first known U.S. records and the identification of “Cozumel” Bananaquits. Oliver Komar presents results of his study on the field identification Pacific Parakeet and its close Middle American relatives. The Finch Research Network team reports on the 2020–2021 winter finch invasion. And as usual, we round out the fall issue of the magazine with the annual ABA Checklist Committee Report.
Podcast ➚
As interest in birding has grown in the last couple years, birders have turned up in some really interesting places, including the streaming platform Twitch. Dr WD40, Liz Clayton Fuller, and Ian Davies are birders who have figured out this live streaming thing and are using it to build a community read more >>
If anyone out there is wondering where the Rare Bird Alert went last week, I was out of town for the Kansas Lek Treks birding festival and was traveling the entire time I usually put this together. That said, this week you get a bonus week worth of rarities to get Moebius 1965 Chevrolet Chevy II Gasser Drag Car 1:25 scale model
When you travel with the ABA, you help build a better future for birds and birding. The ABA offers a carefully designed program of birding travel experiences that not only let experience and thrill of seeing great birds and traveling with friendly, interesting people, they give you the satisfaction of knowing that you are supporting local on-the-ground conservation efforts as well as the ABA’s ongoing work to inspire all people to enjoy and protect wild birds.
Below is a sample of what we’ve got going. Click here to view all of our tours >>
It was a most satisfactory look at a most splendiferous bird, a lifer indeed for one member of our party. Let’s linger just a bit longer with this purple sandpiper on the famous jetty at Barnegat Light...
The pinnacle of spring is when the first of year birds come hard and fast: when you’re getting 3¬¬¬¬¬-5+ birds you haven’t seen in months per day, sometimes even per hour or minute. The euphoric two-week period when this is possible, which varies across the US and Canada, is considered...
For the second consecutive month, the subject of the quiz photo is easily and quickly identifiable to family and, by most, to genus. However, despite field guides, the ABA-Area members of that genus do not make for quick and straightforward IDs...
A 1,000-Kilometer Journey to the Wintering Grounds
A sense of wonder has stayed with me since seeing those Thick-billed Murre chicks jump at Prince Leopold Island on my first expedition cruise to Nunavut, as well as on subsequent trips until the most recent one in Aug. 2019.
Birders love discussing bird names: whether they’re accurate, whether they’re useful, what an unusual word means, who did the naming, whom the names honor, and if they should honor anyone at all. Bird name buffs of all types will enjoy and benefit from Gary H. Meiter’s Bird is the Word...
Growing up in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley, the majestic Sierra Nevada Mountains stood to the east, beckoning me toward them with dramatic snow-capped peaks on clear winter and early spring mornings. Just as enticingly, early autumn evenings hosted ominous congregations of colossal thunderheads looming above the highest...
Every summer, birders anxiously await publication of the “Check-list Supplement” by the American Ornithological Society’s Committee on Classification and Nomenclature of North and Middle American Birds (a.k.a. the NACC). The supplement (available linked to here eventually) details revisions to the NACC’s Check-list. Here's a rundown of the more significant revisions.
Current ➚
If you’ve had experiences with access in the outdoors, we would appreciate knowing about them.
Birders love discussing bird names: whether they’re accurate, whether they’re useful, what an unusual word means, who did the naming, whom the names honor, and if they should honor anyone at all. Bird name buffs of all types will enjoy and benefit from Gary H. Meiter’s Bird is the Word...
Every summer, birders anxiously await publication of the “Check-list Supplement” by the American Ornithological Society’s Committee on Classification and Nomenclature of North and Middle American Birds (a.k.a. the NACC). The supplement (available linked to here eventually) details revisions to the NACC’s Check-list. Here's a rundown of the more significant revisions.
Current ➚
If you’ve had experiences with access in the outdoors, we would appreciate knowing about them.