10-01: 2026 ABA Bird of the Year Artist Kristina Knowski
The American Birding Podcast
naswick
4.7 • 677 Ratings
🗓️ 8 January 2026
⏱️ 39 minutes
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Summary
2026 is officially the year of the Horned Lark!
This dapper little songbird can be found just about everywhere in the ABA Area, and we're excited to put a spotlight on it this year as our Bird of the Year for 2026. As is tradition, the species is featured on the January issue of the ABA's Birding magazine, depicted by Indiana artist Kristina Knowski, who bird art afficianados might know from her work as artist in residence for the Indiana Dunes Birding Festival.
And it's not just the magazine, we will have a whole range of fun Horned Lark merch, including the return of our Bird of the Year t-shirts, at the ABA shop!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Florida Birding and Nature Festival has moved to the spring in Tampa Bay, April 9th through the 12th, which is the height of migration through coastal Florida. |
| 0:10.6 | You can see warblers and other songbirds sporting their fanciest plumages and nesting herons and pelicans. |
| 0:16.8 | The Florida Birding and Nature Festival features field trips to the best habitats across the six county area, |
| 0:22.1 | led by expert birders and land managers to protect the natural resources, |
| 0:26.3 | and who will share the measures taken to properly and scientifically protect their preserves. |
| 0:31.0 | There's a Nature Expo on Friday and Saturday with opportunities to purchase birding equipment, |
| 0:35.0 | art, and wildlife products, and keynote talks featuring women conservationists in Florida by Rollins College's Dr. Leslie Kempool and Snail Kites and their snail prey by Eckerd College's Dr. Hilary Flower. |
| 0:48.0 | Get more information at Florida birding and nature festival.org It's wintertime in our hemisphere. |
| 1:05.0 | Time for Aviate's bird of a year. |
| 1:08.0 | And what about Aviate's bird of the year. Spreading a word about A.B.A.'s bird of the year. |
| 1:14.0 | Happy New Year and welcome back to the American Birding podcast from the American |
| 1:18.9 | Birding Association. I am your host, Nate Swick. The New Year means the new bird |
| 1:26.1 | of the year. And earlier this week, we announced that |
| 1:29.3 | 26 would be the year of the horned lark here at the ABA. |
| 1:36.6 | Ola! Holla! Horned Lark is our one and only member of the pastor and family, a loudity |
| 1:42.7 | in the entire hemisphere. |
| 1:45.2 | It's found in all Canadian provinces and territories and 49 of the 50 U.S. states. |
| 1:50.9 | Hawaii, always the outlier. |
| 1:53.3 | It's also found throughout Asia. |
| 1:54.7 | In fact, there are 42 recognized subspecies, and that may be conservative, most of which |
| 2:00.3 | are quite wide-ranging, but there are some isolated, unique, non-migratory subspecies, and that may be conservative, most of which are quite wide-ranging, |
| 2:01.7 | but there are some isolated, unique, non-migratory subspecies, including one in Central |
... |
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