Ear Candy Alert: Latest Podcast Episodes!

If you enjoy listening to podcasts about birding, there are new episodes posted in the past few days from two podcasts in which I'm involved.

This Birding Life has been going for more than a decade and just passed the 70 episode count. Episode 73 is a collection of four different birding-related stories I recorded during a recent trip to Taiwan. These first-person tales range from trying to charm you way into an exit-row seat on an international flight to being rescued in dire remote circumstances. Here's a link to listen to episode 73 of "This Birding Life" entitled "More Birding Stories."

That's me in the yellow sleeves with our Taiwan birding group.

"Out There With the Birds" is the second podcast I'm part of, along with my colleague and friend Ben Lizdas. Where TBL is an interview-style podcast with me interviewing an interesting person or people, OTWTB is pretty much just Ben and me talking back and forth about anything that comes to mind. And we usually crack up along the way.

Ben lives and works outside of Madison, Wisconsin, so most of our episodes are recorded via Skype, which makes the audio quality , occasionally challenging. When our paths converge, we record episodes in person and take lots of silly selfies.  Here's a link to a recent episode that included a short discussion about recent research into male duck genitalia.

If you like what you hear, please click on the RSS feed link to be notified when new issues are posted. TBL is once monthly, OTWTB is twice monthly. In between episodes, you should go birding.

Happy listening! We'll see you out there with the birds!

New Podcast: Teen Birders on Hog Island!

Dr. Sara Morris gives a banding demonstration to some of the teen birders at Hog Island Audubon Camp. Photo ©Corey Husic.

There's a new episode of my "This Birding Life" podcast: "Teen Birders on Hog Island." It features interviews with five teen birders who were part of a Joy of Birding/Coastal Maine Bird Studies session at the Hog Island Audubon Camp in late June 2012.

Young birders getting oriented on the session's first day.

Hog Island is quite an experience for nature lovers of any age. But the group of teens that shared our week in late June seemed particularly enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the natural world. It was a real treat to have them there with us.

Campers ashore on Wreck Island with instructor Tom Johnson (right) and naturalist Josh Potter (second from right).

Despite the iffy weather, somewhat rugged terrain, and boat trips on unsettles seas, the teen birders seemed to enjoy themselves immensely. After all, an island on the coast of Maine is a very interesting, unique place to spend a week. There are birds to see—including Atlantic puffins!

Atlantic puffin.

And there are others there with you at Hog Island who share your interest in birds and nature. That in itself is a very special thing.

Watching and photographing a northern parula nest with instructors Lang Elliott and Julie Zickefoose.

Give this new episode a listen. If you're a young birder (or just a young-at-heart birder) consider attending one of the excellent week-long 2013 sessions at the Hog Island Audubon Camp.


Now you know I'm also going to encourage you to take a young person birding. There are an increasing number of really excellent events designed specifically for young bird watchers, including the upcoming Mid-Atlantic Young Birders' Conference sponsored by the American Birding Association.

I'll have more news to share about encouraging young birders in the near future. Until then, I'll see you out there with the birds!

New Episode of "This Birding Life!"

Director David Frankel on the set of "The Big Year" with Steve Martin (left) and Jack Black. ©Murray Close.

Episode 33 of my podcast This Birding Life is now live over at Podcast Central and in the iTunes Store Podcasts category. This episode is an interview with David Frankel, director of the movie "The Big Year." David also directed the hit movies "Marley & Me" and "The Devil Wears Prada."

In the interview we chat about the making of the movie, the central theme of the movie and the book upon which it is based (Mark Obmascik's classic book The Big Year), the movie's all-star cast (Steve Martin, Owen Wilson, Jack Black, et al), and how birding and birders are portrayed in the film.

You can't swing a catbird by the tail these days without hitting some sort of reference to this movie on birding and movie blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and even the movie's promotional trailer, which is being run during NFL football games! I'm hoping this will be a really great boost for our favorite hobby, but I have to admit that I'm really curious about how Hollywood's latest portrayal of avid birders will be received by the world at large.

The three lead actors in "The Big Year" are, from left: Owen Wilson, Steve Martin, and Jack Black. Photo © Murray Close.

Give the podcast a listen and let me know what you think. Thanks for lending me your eyes and ears.

This Birding Life Podcast Episode 25!

Episode #25 of my podcast "This Birding Life" is now available for downloading or streaming in Podcast Central on the Bird Watcher's Digest website. And it's available in the iTunes store (for free). Simply search on iTunes for "This Birding Life."

This episode features Bo Beolens of Fatbirder.com fame reading his article "An Englishman in Florida" which appears in the March/April 2010 issue of BWD.

Bo Beolens birding in Panama. Image courtesy John Afdem.

You can sample the March/April 2010 issue of BWD here with our special digital preview.


Bo reads an extended version of the article for this episode of TBL and adds in his own bit of stand-up comedy at the beginning, which, if you know him, is quintessential Bo Beolens.

I hope you enjoy this episode of "This Birding Life," which celebrated its third birthday on February 6, 2010. Hard to believe our little podcast is already three years old! It seems like only yesterday that I was fumbling around with cords and a microphone, trying to record the first episode...

As always the entire staff here at the international headquarters of the media empire that is "This Birding Life" welcomes your comments, rejoinders, and exclamations of incredulity. Please share them via the comments box on this post and we'll discuss them at our next board meeting, which I believe is being held in Fiji this year.

Thanks for listening and I--err WE--will see you out there with the birds!

This Birding Life, Episode 22

Al Batt speaking at the 2009m Midwest Birding Symposium. Photo © Connie Kogler.

The new episode (#22!) of my podcast This Birding Life is now available for your listening pleasure at Podcast Central on the Bird Watcher's Digest website. This episode features the inimitable Al Batt presenting a program called "Snippets from a Life Gone to the Birds" at the recent Midwest Birding Symposium in Lakeside, Ohio.

Al Batt is a humorist and storyteller from Hartland, MN, where he grew up on a dairy farm. He was one of our keynote speakers at The Midwest Birding Symposium in September, and as you'll hear from the podcast, he had us all rolling in the aisles laughing (wld tht b txtd as RITAL?).

I've had the great fortune of knowing Al for about a decade now, and I can tell you that he's every bit as funny and nice in person as he is in this recording. He is also an avid, excellent birder and holds the distinction of being the world's tallest Lutheran.

This photo shows Al and me enjoying our camp biscuits with "sum o that yaller mustard. hmmmmm. " Photo © Julie Zickefoose.

Last June the family and I shared a four-day canoeing and camping trip down the Missouri River in Montana with Al and two local guides. We were paddling in the footsteps of history: this was the route Lewis & Clark took on their famous Journey of Discovery in the early 1800s.

Being out in the weather and mud, sleeping on the cold hard ground, and eating camp food can try one's patience. Not Al's. He was just as sunny and friendly on the last hot afternoon, eating flat-meat sandwiches, as he was at the outset of the adventure. I think that's because he has the unique combination of a Zen-like outlook on the world mixed with a down-home sense of humor. Plus he knows what it's like to get up at 4 in the morning to milk dairy cows and he's just so dang happy that he's not doing that anymore...

Listen to Al on the podcast, and then do yourself a favor and catch him at one of his many public-speaking appearances. I guarantee that you'll get a good laugh, plus a some Midwestern wisdom that will make you think.

You can access the podcasts in both regular audio (MP3) and enhanced audio (M4A, with images) formats at Podcast Central and in the iTunes Store in the Podcasts category.

This Birding Life is made possible through the support of our sponsor: iBird. To learn more about iBird and the iBird line of applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch, visit them online at www.ibirdexplorer.com.

This Birding Life: Kenn Kaufman

Kenn Kaufman, creator of the Kaufman Field Guide Series.

A new episode of my podcast This Birding Life is available for your downloading and listening pleasure. It features a conversation with Kenn Kaufman, birding all-star, author, naturalist, and deep thinker.

We talk about a variety of topics: recruiting young bird watchers, birding technology, his fabulous field guides, and the legacy of the greatest bird watcher of all time, Roger Tory Peterson.

This Birding Life is brought to you by Bird Watcher's Digest and is sponsored by the good folks at Houghton Mifflin. You can subscribe to TBL (it's free!) by following the link along the right side of Bill of the Birds (see it over there?), or via Apple's iTunes store.

This episode of TBL is available in two formats: MP3 (audio only) and M4A (audio with images--which can be played on your computer or on your video iPod/MP3 player).

Since this is a new channel of content delivery/consumption for all of us, I welcome your comments and feedback on the This Birding Life podcasts.