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!