10-10: Bird Collections, From the Inside, with Nick Mason
3/12/202648 min
The state of Louisiana hosts one of the world's largest repositories of ornithological knowledge, the Louisiana State University Museum of Natural History. With nearly 200,000 bird specimens, including important collections from the tropical Americas, this institution informs a lot of what we know about bird taxonomy in this hemisphere. Dr Nick Mason is the curator of that collection, and he joins us to talk about the fascinating work done at this place and what museums are doing to make sure bird science stays on a sound footing into the future.
Also, the ABA's live What's This Bird program is breaking ground in online phenology... sort of.
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This episode is brought to you by Naturalist Journeys and Birding Louisiana.
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First 90 secondsNate Swick· Host0:00
Discover Africa's remarkable wildlife with Naturalist Journeys. Their small group safaris explore some of the continent's richest habitats from Botswana's Okavango Delta to the Serengeti in Kenya and Tanzania. Watch elephants and giraffes gather at waterholes, awake to a bird chorus at dawn, and enjoy the extraordinary diversity of birds and mammals that make Africa unforgettable. Travel with expert naturalist guides and fellow nature lovers on a safari designed for discovery. Learn more at naturalistjourneys.com. [upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to the American Birding Podcast from the American Birding Association. I am your host, Nate Swick. I have my voice back this week, thank goodness. Uh, I want to talk briefly about the ABA's What's This Bird Live program for a sec. Um, for those who don't know, my ABA colleague, Greg Neise, and I host a biweekly live web stream where we talk about bird identification. Uh, the idea being that we have this Facebook group called What's This Bird, and that has been really successful. Almost too successful, honestly. Uh, it's well over a hundred thousand members these days. And the live stream started as a way to grab a few interesting photos submitted to that group and kind of talk through the identification in more detail than you can get in a Facebook group, where frequently all you get is the name of the bird. So we host these on the ABA's