Celebrate your birding experiences with the ABA community! If you celebrated birds and birding, we at Birding magazine want to hear about it—and so does the rest of the ABA membership.

Their ranges do not overlap here, but white-eyes are successful invaders, and range expansions and even new introductions may be in store.

The age-old problem of Alder vs. Willow roars back to life in the era of eBird and digital photography. In addition to new field marks, maybe we have a new mindset on this long-standing ID conundrum.

Pay attention to the upperwing, study bill color and structure, watch the bird in flight—and beware similarities with the Spotted Sandpiper.

In a commentary in the May 2026 Birding, Ted Floyd makes the case that the spring warbler migration east of the Mississippi is the grandest birding experience in the ABA Area.

In the Colombian Andes, Michelle Tapasco built a family-run ecolodge, empowering women, supporting education, and protecting biodiversity through birding tourism despite conflict.

Cin-Ty Lee is a renowned field ID expert, prolific author, and ornithological illustrator and photographer. In this wide-ranging interview, Lee talks about flycatcher identification, nocturnal flight calls, general fieldcraft, the Asian American experience in birding, and more.

Overextended and burned out, a health services provider discovered wonder and peace in the world of birds. This is a "spark bird" story about finding strength and self-worth, even in the most trying of times.

Saraiya Kanning is a triple threat: naturalist, nature writer, and visual artist. In this retrospective, Kanning shares a bit about her background—including extensive involvement as a teen with the ABA’s Young Birder programs—and then walks us through the process of creating the remarkable art that she has produced for the Mar. 2026 issue of Birding.

Seeing and hearing a troupe of mirthful Pinyon Jays is an unforgettable experience. Sadly, their numbers are in sharp decline. In this richly illustrated and deeply informative article, five wildlife biologists share the results of their research on “the blue crow”—and offer hope for reversing recent population losses.

In a five-part Special Section in the Mar. 2026 Birding, the ABA presents diverse commentaries on the state of the birding community in the second half of 2020s. In this commentary, birding veteran Peter Pyle takes a playful but thoughtful look at the use of "electronic pishing" in an age of changing birder demographics and evolving ethical dimensions.

Celebrate your birding experiences with the ABA community! If you celebrated birds and birding, we at Birding magazine want to hear about it—and so does the rest of the ABA membership.

The annual highlight of the birding calendar is, for so many birders, the Christmas Bird Count. Birding Editor Ted Floyd and ABA cartoonist Sal Palmero team up to celebrate "Birding's Grandest Tradition" in this article in the Dec. 2025 Birding. It's both fun and thoughtful, and we at the ABA are delighted to make this content available for free to the entire birding community. Seasons Greetings to all of you!

Acompañen a Cristina Devin Vojta en una visita a una encantadora reserva natural familiar en el corazón de Colombia. ¡Seguro que quedarán encantados!

On Sept. 14, 2025, a juvenile Double-striped Thick-knee was photographed in Wilson County, Texas. Providing a likely second record for the U.S., the bird probably originates from an expanding population in Mexico.

After Lyme disease forced him into retirement, geologist Bob Bell found healing in birding, improving wellness, sharing knowledge, and inspiring people to connect with birds.

Conjectures—and some evidence—regarding why the Gray-headed Chickadee may have been extirpated from the ABA Area.

Yellow Grosbeak is on par with Nutting’s Flycatcher, Plain-capped Starthroat, and Northern Jaçana as a rare and prized visitor to Southeast Arizona. But in 2025, four different counties in Colorado logged records of this species. What’s behind this, and how many individuals were truly involved?

Believe it or not, subspecies-level taxonomy of North American birds hasn’t been updated since the 1950s. In this article, Peter Pyle takes a deep dive into the subject and offers suggested revisions.

ABA Executive Director Wayne Klockner shares his thoughts on how, in this time of global upheaval and uncertainty, birding has a bigger role to play than ever before.

Peter Kaestner, who became the first person in the world to see 10,000 species of birds in 2024, meditates on how global birding and our understanding of which species are in or out of reach has changed in the last 50 years.

The Toronto Whimbrel Watch tracks thousands of migrating Whimbrels each May. This important effort supports international research and urgent conservation needs for declining Hudsonian Whimbrel populations.

An ABA code 5 Red-legged Thrush briefly graced Sebastian Inlet State Park, Florida on 5 May 2025. This dramatic one-day wonder has been the climax of an exciting wave of Bahamian vagrants reaching southern Florida this spring, fueled by drought-stricken habitat and persistent east winds – and raising the possibility that more vagrants are waiting to be discovered!

On April 22, 2025, a pair of Military Macaws was photographed in Big Bend National Park, Texas. This could represent the first confirmed record of the species within the ABA Area; however, this is not the first record. On August 23, 1992, a group of seven Military Macaws was found in Santa Cruz Co, Arizona in the wake of passing hurricane remnants.

The separation of Chihuahuan and Common Raven has long been recognized as a significant identification challenge. Both species are entirely black, with very similar structure and voice. Known field marks all involve subtle and subjective differences, and in every one of these, there is overlap between the two species.

After combing through hundreds of photos of vagrant Sandwich Terns in North America, David Sibley discovered that many were of European origin. In this article, Sibley shares new artwork and discusses field marks to help us identify them.

One of the great things about birding is that some birds are incredibly challenging to find, requiring skill, patience, and, maybe most of all, luck. The ABA and Birding magazine are dedicated to helping birders increase their chances of finding the ABA Area’s most difficult birds by providing tips and tricks by top birding experts. That’s the philosophy behind the new Codebreakers series, of which Heather Hill’s column on finding Black Rails is the first entry.

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.

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.

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 Mexican Duck, Anas [platyrhynchos] diazi, is considered by the American Ornithological Society and the ABA to be a subspecies, but many ornithologists believe it probably warrants full-species rank. This article reviews the basic natural history and field identification of this little-known member of the ABA Area’s avifauna.