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Royal lineage: Kinglets and crests in the bird family tree

10,000 Birds

With the Audubon Christmas Bird Count season in full swing here in the Western Hemisphere, one of the birds on my mind is Golden-crowned Kinglet , a bird often heard and seen on the counts I do every year, and thus one that holds special seasonal significance to me. Birds kinglets taxonomy and systematics'

Family 185
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Birding Nanhui, Shanghai, in September 2021

10,000 Birds

Construction is still ongoing at Nanhui, there are constant rumors that key birding sites will be made inaccessible … you have to take every Nanhui visit as it is your last (yes, another clichee). Still, there were a few birds there this September. Still, there were a few birds there this September. A juvenile male.

Birds 238
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Birding Shanghai in December 2021

10,000 Birds

The bird is easy to identify – if it is small, cute, and black, white, and brown, you have found it (though admittedly, a more qualified description can be found at Shanghaibirding ). Sometimes I do not understand the attraction of bird photography either. A female on Chongming Island gave me a very skeptical look.

Birds 223
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The popstars are back: Paradise Flycatchers in Shanghai

10,000 Birds

Here goes: Paradise Flycatchers are a genus in the broader (and rather large) family of Monarchidae. A characteristic of most but not all Paradise Flycatchers is the long tail of the male bird (tail length is thought to be a criterion by which females select their partners – please insert your own pornographic joke here).

Japan 130
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The Bird Way: A Book Review

10,000 Birds

One good thing about birding during a pandemic–the forced restrictions on place and time translate into more time to observe what birds do. Bird behavior–endlessly fascinating, but so much still hidden and unknown. Extreme behaviors also push scientists to look at birds in new ways.

Research 233
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Musings on a Life List

10,000 Birds

(My Shoebill photographs, incidentally, were digiscoped from a small boat, so they’re not as sharp as they could be, but they are great reminders of an encounter with an extraordinary bird). Tawny Owl , one of the first birds I remember seeing (at the age of five) Like most of us who watch birds, I enjoy listing.

Sri Lanka 239
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Birding Shanghai in May 2023 – Part 1

10,000 Birds

May is a busy month for birds migrating through Shanghai – and of course, last May was completely missed due to the lockdown. So, I spent a lot of time birding this month, and to keep this post at a manageable length, it mostly only covers the first half of May. The video is notable for the bird basically refusing to move at all.

Birds 130