[Posted by Chuck Almdale]

This is a very interesting interview with the discoverer of the Cassia Crossbill in 1996, a new species and endemic to Idaho. Benkman is the author of Crossbills & Conifers: One Million Years of Adaptation and Coevolution.

A Birding Interview with Craig Benkman

By Noah Stryker | 2Sep 2026 | Birding Magazine
Noah Stryker was the American Birding Association’s 2004 Young Birder of the Year for 14- to 18-year-olds, has been an Associate Editor for Birding Magazine since 2006, and in 2015 set the World Big Year record with 6,042 species, now chronicled in his book Birding Without Borders.