Hello and welcome to the American Birding Podcast from the American Birding Association.

I am your host, Nate Swick.

I have a good and long this month in birding for you this time around in April 26.

No need to linger here in the intro. Let's get on to it.

Jody Allaire, Jenny Doberstein,

and Gabriel Foley join me to talk about

cool raptor doings, birds and your brain

belonging in ornithology and our best

April fooled stories. Some good stuff this time

around, all coming at you after this week's

rarebirds.

This is your rarebird focus for the end of April, 2026. A wayward Bicall-Teel, a stunning

adult male, no less, seen last week near Point Peely, Ontario has reignited the discussion that we always seem

to get with vagrant waterfowl.

That of provenance.

This is a potential first provincial record, so perhaps it matters more.

But the chatter only ever seems to wane once we reach a critical mass of records of these

old world waterfowl species

in North America, and it doesn't seem like we've reached that point yet with Bical teal, particularly

in the eastern half of the continent. As I mentioned, this is a stunning little duck species

from East Asia, notably unrelated to any of the ducks we call teal here in North America.

It's actually basal to the rest of the dabbling ducks,

...