CURRENT

Birds inspire art in many ways: writing, painting, photography, film. Not least of the art forms that birds frequently move people to create is music. The work of composer and violinist Julia Tchira has been heavily influenced by the wonder of birds, including a recent piece she wrote about the ABA’s 2022 Bird of the Year, the Burrowing Owl.

Holy freakin’ cow! I have uttered those words quite regularly, and rarely quietly, from the moment I unpacked my new Olympus M.Zuiko 150–400mm F4.5 TC 1.25x IS PRO. So what does the TC 1.25x in the name stand for? That’s another fun capability of this lens . . . it has a 1.25x teleconverter built in. Just flipping a switch multiplies your focal length by 25%, so the 300–800mm equivalent focal length becomes a 375–1,000mm f5.6 super telephoto birding lens.

As part of its celebration of the third Black Birders Week, please enjoy the ABA's two-part session of the prerecorded panel "Black Birders: Embracing the Beauty Within." The panel explores such topics as childhood experiences with birds, how to pass on generational knowledge of birds, and whether things have changed since the first Black Birders Week.

Delaware City, Delaware – Rebecca Minardi has been hired as Birding magazine’s new Book and Media Reviews read more >>

Delaware City, Delaware – After a thorough search, the American Birding Association is thrilled to announce that Nikki read more >>

On behalf of the ABA Board of Directors and staff, we are delighted to share our two 2021 recipients of the ABA Lifetime Achievement Award, also called “The Tropicbird”: J. Drew Lanham and Jen Brumfield. ABA Lifetime Achievement Awards are given to birders who have completed a lifetime’s worth of...

If you’ve had experiences with access in the outdoors, we would appreciate knowing about them.

Spend any amount of time at all in the company of birders, and you quickly discover read more >>

The American Birding Association announces that Jeffrey A. Gordon has resigned from his 11-year post as president, effective 30 Nov. 2021.

In 2004, Mark Obmascik suddenly burst onto the birding scene with the release of his first book, The Big Year—and his fame escalated when Hollywood made it into a movie in 2011.

The American Birding Association is happy to announce a re-envisioned, complete make-over of our tried-and-true staple: ABA Birding News 2021.

It turned out that I didn’t know what kinds of noises Northern Saw-whet Owls made in fall and early winter! Now I do, and it’s changed everything.

The Tale of an Epic Big Sit in a Tiny Back Yard

Stuck at home for the entire spring migration, Greg Neise documents the birds flying through, around, and over his 35-foot-by-25-foot brick patio. Even if you're confined to a small urban swelling during this time of COVID-19, there is still birding to be had.

"Please don’t tell a person of color you don’t see color. That’s insulting. After all, most birders spend lots of time seeing color—otherwise a Red-winged Blackbird and a Snow Bunting wouldn’t be so beautifully different. So, see the color. Respect the face. Get to know me inside. The rest will fall into place."

The whole world seems to have started to notice birds, a phenomenon that has been widely reported in major newspapers, on network news, and at online information sites.

This spring is a historic one. For us birders and nature-lovers, sheltering in place during spring migration is a tough pill to swallow. You might have had a calendar chock full of group tours, road trips, or bird club meetings. For your own safety and the safety of others, you’re staying home… but now what?

American Birding Association Guidelines on Birding and Social Distancing The basic principles of “quarantine” birding are already well covered in the ABA Code of Birding Ethics:

Here’s the deal: We’re all sheltering in place, we’re all staying at home, and we’re all, frankly, looking for ways to take our minds off the COVID-19 crisis, if even for a short while. And birding, it turns out, is a superb activity if you can’t get out of the neighborhood, if you can’t even get out of the house.

With this update, we’re going to let you know what’s been going on at the ABA in the past week (lots!), how you can continue to help (not just financially), and how we can help you (we really do mean that).

Dear ABA Members and Friends, The past week has been unlike anything any of us have ever read more >>

Hey, everyone! My name is Hannah Floyd, and I am a ninth-grader in Colorado. Like many of you reading this, I am on an extended break due to the coronavirus. What does one do in a situation like this? Go outside and explore, of course!

First things first. We at the ABA are taking this seriously. The COVID-19 emergency is affecting read more >>

Now we faced another long haul … but this was into unknown territory for us. The drive to Meredosia was quiet. We were in the mid-170s, the day was running out and we couldn’t see a clear path to 188. Jeff was becoming irritated. It’s the unspoken part of doing a big day. We hear all about the awesome sightings, the strategy and so on … but the grunt-work: the driving (especially, and Jeff is an especially gifted driver), and staying on-your-game when you’ve been up and going at it for 18 hours—with another day’s-worth of work ahead of you—takes a toll.