Image: The Ultimate Bird Drawing Throwdown Showdown Graphic featuring images of David Sibley and H. Jon Benjamin

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Illustrator David Sibley and actor H. Jon Benjamin will face off in the bird illustration battle of the century during BirdNote's Year-end Celebration and Auction!

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Shows With Contributions by Mark Bramhill

Male Red-tailed Hawk, wings extended in flight against a clear blue sky

Spark Bird: Maya Higa and Bean

When Maya Higa started interning at a zoo, she wasn't especially into birds — until she began rehabilitating a Red-tailed Hawk named Bean. Meanwhile, Maya was doing live-streams of herself singing and playing guitar on the website Twitch, just for fun, to a pretty small audience. The video…
The episode artwork for Bring Birds Back: This is Your Brain on Birds

This is Your Brain on Birds

In order for us to show up for birds, we must first show up for ourselves. Our show is all about ways we can help our bird friends, but today we’re looking at how birds and nature can help restore us. Over the past few decades, researchers have found strong links between our connection to…
Episode promotional graphic for Bring Birds Back: "The Birds and the Trees"

The Birds and the Trees

Clark’s Nutcracker and the whitebark pine have a strong mutualistic relationship: the tree is the bird’s best source of food, and the bird is the tree’s most dependable seed disperser. But several factors are putting the tree at risk — and the decline in whitebark pines is making that…
A pair of Acorn Woodpeckers perched on a branch, looking at each other.

Wenfei Tong on Seeing Ourselves in Birds

For biologist and writer Wenfei Tong, the line between people and animals has always felt fuzzy — or maybe feathery, in the case of birds. Wenfei loves to highlight commonalities we share with birds, like how young adult Acorn Woodpeckers sometimes stay with their parents if there aren't…
The episode artwork for Bring Birds Back: The Fascinating World of Bird Behavior

The Fascinating World of Bird Behavior

Since Tenijah Hamilton began birding, a lot of questions have come up about why birds do some of the strange things that they do. Writer and biologist Wenfei Tong joins Tenijah to answer some burning questions about what’s going on with our bird friends – questions about different…
The episode artwork for Bring Birds Back: The Streaming Sanctuary

The Streaming Sanctuary

Maya Higa is a 24-year-old streamer, falconer and sole founder of Alveus Sanctuary, a wildlife reserve outside of Austin, TX. What's unusual about Alveus is its digital footprint — it's "a virtual conservation education center facility" primarily found on Twitch where Maya streams to teach…
A Common Raven in profile against a diffuse orange background.

Who’s Afraid of Corvids?

Of all the birds out there, the corvid family — the crows, ravens, and jays — might have the spookiest reputation. But this idea that corvids are spooky is far from universal — it's mainly in the Western world, as corvid researcher Kaeli Swift explains.
Episode promotional graphic for Bring Birds Back: "Spooky Birds" featuring the podcast artwork and headshot of guest, Kaeli Swift

Spooky Birds That Squawk in the Dark

For Halloween, corvid researcher Kaeli Swift joins Tenijah for a show-and-tell of spooky birds. Corvids, vultures, and owls all have reputations as ominous and foreboding — and today, we’re digging into those ideas. Kaeli unpacks why the birds are seen as scary, shares cool facts beyond…
Episode promotional graphic for Bring Birds Back: "Birding On The Hill" featuring the podcast artwork and headshot of guest, Tykee James

Birding on the Hill

So many of the challenges facing birds are systemic, bigger than what any one person can fix — so how do we get governments to step in and do something? Tykee James, a Sr. Government Relations Representative for The Wilderness Society, has approached this issue in a creative way: by…
A bird with a bright lemon yellow breast, black bib, striped head and long sharp beak stands perches on a fencepost in the sunlight.

Tykee James on Recovering America's Wildlife Act

Tykee James is a Senior Government Affairs Representative at The Wilderness Society in DC. Gridlock in Washington can be a real challenge to protecting birds, but a bill called Recovering America's Wildlife Act is giving Tykee hope. The bill would provide $1.4 billion a year in funding for…