About

Hi, I'm Sam Rodgers,

an avid birder and host of Bird of the Day. I am 13 and live in Eugene, Oregon. I'm in 7th grade. I don't know the exact date when I caught the "birding bug," but it was probably sometime in the COVID pandemic. I also don't know what got me started, and I don't really have a "spark bird." But I do remember when my great-grandma gave me a bird field guide for passerines of the US. Shortly after this, we went to a wildlife refuge nearby, so maybe it started around then. 

I'm definitely an all-around birder. I try to find rare birds, get good photos, listing, all of it. I feel like I am more into photography than other birders, but this wouldn't be possible if I didn't have the camera I have now. It was given to me by a 90-year-old birder friend who didn't need it anymore. But apart from photography, I try to chase rarities when I can, even though I seem to have bad luck finding them. Some of my most exciting chases in Oregon include a Gyrfalcon in Benton County, a Wood Thrush on the coast, and an Indigo Bunting in Lane County. I also enjoy drawing birds, but I don't do much of it in the field. 

Bird of the Day has been an ongoing thing for the past 2-3 years for me, although not in podcast format until now. I started out on a website, doing a little page on a bird every day. After about 200 of those I branched out to sending a daily email which turned into a weekly email. And now, I started up the Bird of the Day podcast in August of 2025.

Other than birding I do play sports a lot, mainly soccer and football, often with my sports-obsessed brother. I really enjoy reading, and do it a lot at school and at home. I also do almost anything else related to birds, including writing about them. Normally I just go birding with my family, mainly my dad. We are both early risers, so some mornings we will both get up very early and drive out to a nearby spot and stay out there for an hour or two. With school and other things it can be tricky to find time, but we try to go birding once a week. I don't have any career plans yet, but I know I want to do something with nature, preferably birds.