It’s the last week of August and that means it’s time for This Month in Birding featuring a panel containing some folks familiar to those who are keeping up with the growing birding podcast scene. It's a fun group with some birdosphere podcast crossover energy.  Mollee Brown from The Birding Co-op and the Life List podcast, Andrés Jiménez of Birds Canada's new podcast The Warblers, and our old friend Nick Lund, The Birdist, join host Nate Swick to talk about birding ethics, trash parrots, fur thieves, and whether we have saved a bird. 

Links to topics discussed this month:

Is birding a lifestyle or a hobby?

Trash Parrots open garbage cans in Australia

Birds stealing hair from unwitting mammals

Farewell to Barry the Barred Owl

Kendall Jenner and Khloe Kardashian save a bird

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How would you describe summer birding? Hot? Humid? Buggy? Unbearable? For many birders it has always been the least exciting and most taxing season for getting in the field, but there's a lot to be excited about for those who make the effort.  ABA colleagues Jennie Duberstein and Greg Neise join host Nate Swick to talk about what excites them about the season, from molt to shorebirds to birding camp, and how to be prepared to handle the difficulties. Special granola bars for everyone!

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Parrots and parakeets are among the most spectacular and diverse birds on the planet, but also among the most adaptable. Urban parrots have made their way into dozens of places around the world and in many cities are a regular feature of city and suburban landscapes. The many ways that dynamic manifests is the subject of a new book, Naturalized Parrots of the World: Distribution, Ecology, and Impacts of the World’s Most Colorful Colonizers, edited by Dr Stephen Pruett-Jones who joins Nate Swick to talk parrots of all kinds. 

Also, Ed Yong has some fascinating things to say about how birds taste the world. 

The Hawaiian Island of Kaua'i is known as the Garden Isle for its lush scenery and dramatic landscapes, but that beauty hides worrying biodiversity loss and an uncertain future for the island’s native birds. Decline driven primarily by mosquito borne avian malaria have decimated populations of Hawaii's honeycreepers, but there is some hope in the form of an effort to control mosquito populations that was recently approved for use in Hawaii. Dr. Lisa Crampton is the Project Leader of the Kaua'i Forest Bird Recovery Project and  she has been in the middle of a lot of conservation and research efforts around these birds. She joins host Nate Swick to talk about the ups and downs of working with species on the brink. 

Also, a fantastic story of a long thought dead Kiwikiu (Maui Parrotbill) that shows the resilience of Hawaiian birds. 

Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts, and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!