10-18: Sharing Spark Birds with Jenn Lodi-Smith
The American Birding Podcast
naswick
4.7 • 677 Ratings
🗓️ 7 May 2026
⏱️ 41 minutes
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Summary
The concept of the "spark bird", the transformative moment with a particular species that turns you from a normal person into a real-deal birder, is one that many birders are familiar with. These personal testimonies frequently tell you as much about the birder as they do about the spark bird itself. The human element of a natural experience is what excites Dr Jenn Lodi-Smith, a professor of psychology at Canisius University and scholar in residence at the Roger Tory Peterson Institute, and it's what inspired her to create the Spark Bird Project, an online collection of spark birds and the birders they inspire.
Also, if you're going to be at the Biggest Week festibal next week, come say hi!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the American Burning podcast from the American Birding Association. |
| 0:10.3 | I am Nate Swick. |
| 0:12.5 | Next week is the biggest week in American Birding in Northern Ohio. |
| 0:17.5 | I'll be there. |
| 0:18.5 | Will you? |
| 0:19.9 | Not that we need it around here. Spring is popping off where I live. |
| 0:23.4 | In the last few days I've had, first of year, Blue Grove Week, Yellow Throat o'Irode Viro, Banks Swallow, |
| 0:29.6 | Ruby Threat and Hummingbird, loads, loads of summer tanagers, among many, many others. |
| 0:35.5 | And to be honest, I'm barely looking for them. |
| 0:38.0 | I just happen to be in places adjacent to appropriate habitat, |
| 0:41.9 | a power line cut here where a prairie warbler is singing, an open field, |
| 0:46.7 | where grasshopper sparrows are doing their thing. |
| 0:49.0 | You know how it works. |
| 0:50.5 | Migration in North America in April and May is easily one of the great nature phenomena on the planet. |
| 0:59.0 | Right up there with the stuff that you see in nature docks from far-flung parts of the world, |
| 1:04.2 | I would put spring migration in eastern North America in particular up there with an Okavango Delta wet season or a cock of the rock |
| 1:12.5 | lac or cetaceans in the Southern Ocean summer when it comes to dramatic nature doings. |
| 1:18.8 | And it's going on right in your backyard, unknown and unremarked upon by millions of normal |
| 1:24.0 | people, but not you. You know what I'm talking about. |
| 1:28.5 | Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting up there and seeing some friends. |
| 1:31.1 | I only see once or twice a year, getting my retinas melted by Baltimore Orioles and yellow warblers. |
| 1:38.1 | Excuse me, northern yellow warblers. |
... |
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