10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 20, 2023

This is the second part of a post showing some birds seen at Nonggang in December 2022, along with the usual (mostly irrelevant) comments. Even the Latin species name soror (“sister”) indicates the similarity to another pitta species (blue-naped). Sir James McGrigor (1771-1858) Director Gen.

China 242

China Birds Pythons Eagles 242

10,000 Birds

APRIL 28, 2021

Perhaps his first attempt at raising a family – I’ll be checking on him in a few days! What I’m not looking forward to is the flurry of rare bird reports of elaenias. Some birds chose to sit quietly together, perhaps getting to know each other’s quirks and habits before settling down to raise a family.

Raised 264

Raised Breeding South America Family 264

10,000 Birds

JULY 2, 2023

The other duck species that we observe often is the Pacific Black Duck and this duck is one of the most versatile ducks in Australia and can be found in most places. Pacific Black Ducks lay up to 16 eggs and sometimes two clutches are raised in a year. The stripe around their eyes makes them quite a distinctive duck.

Ducks 130

Ducks Australia Eggs Raised 130

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

Last month, I birded my favourite local patch, Beljarica – the best eBird hotspot in Belgrade city and the 3rd best in Serbia – four times. One consequence of being near the city is the widespread feeding of birds with what is junk-food for them – bread. With more than 30 birds, Black Storks became truly common.

Serbia 282

Serbia Birds Boars Otters 282

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 13, 2021

The poster bird of this area is the near-threatened Black-necked Crane. The HBW even mentions the importance of Ruoergai for this species: “Key sites for migrants include the Ruoergai Plateau (China), which is also an important breeding area” Common Mergansers also seem to use these wetlands as breeding area.

China 181

China Mongolia Birds Russia 181

10,000 Birds

MAY 25, 2023

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

Birds Raised Cattle Mammals 130

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 20, 2014

The magnificent history and diversity of birds on Earth came into sharper focus this month with the publication of 28 new scientific papers in Science and other journals. One of the central papers, Whole-genome analyses resolve early branches in the tree of life of modern birds (Jarvis et al. American Flamingo photo by Dick Culbert).

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Family Birds Parrots 2014 279

10,000 Birds

JUNE 1, 2021

Audubon guides to birds have been around since 1946. The first guide bearing the National Audubon Society imprint was Audubon Bird Guide; Eastern Land Birds , written by Richard Hooper Pough, and illustrated by Don Eckelberry. Plate 28 from Audubon Bird Guide, Eastern Land Birds, by Richard H. Knopf, 1994/97.

North America 279

North America America Birds California Condor 279

10,000 Birds

APRIL 29, 2020

Typical of the species. The last time I had seen a Summer Tanager was during a Christmas Bird Count in 2012. Sightings in Trinidad have been sporadic, 38 to be exact since the formation of the T&T Bird Status and Distribution Committee. This is an immature bird, as evidenced by the yellow wash on his underparts.

Trinidad 218

Trinidad Birds Squirrels 2012 218

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 2, 2023

(Boring bureaucratic note to dissuade casual readers: This post covers birds seen in Shanghai in January 2023, except for those seen at Tianmashan – these are shown in a separate post. End of note) Probably the most interesting bird in Shanghai this month was a Barred Cuckoo-Dove choosing a small downtown park to feed on berries.

Birds 147

Birds Geese Fish Industry 147

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 7, 2021

Some people read cookbooks though they have no intention of whipping up a mushroom risotto, some people read bird guide books, even when the likelihood of actually seeing the creatures in those guides is remote. SCOPE & SPECIES ORGANIZATION. It covers 434 species across 9 orders and 18 families of birds.

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Albatross Penguins Family Groups 279

10,000 Birds

MARCH 2, 2023

February 2023 was a slow month for birding in Shanghai, at least for me – so slow that I almost put the Spotted Dove , possibly my least favorite bird here, on the cover. Not a cover species The Black Kite is not actually black, but of course, misleading bird names are not exactly rare.

Birds 130

Birds Iraq China Ireland 130

10,000 Birds

JULY 4, 2023

I’ve been fortunate to encounter many owls in my birding life, sometimes because I’m looking for them, sometimes happily by happenstance. It’s also about human-owl interaction on an individual level and a wider sociocultural level, and ultimately how we can use all this for habitat and bird conservation.

Owls 224

Owls Science Barn Owls Penguins 224

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 15, 2021

When out birding, I prefer completely wild habitat. I enjoy birding in cocoa estates especially – as they retain some of the highest percentage of native biodiversity (as compared to other altered habitats). Shade-grown crops have myriad advantages, and naturally, we’re here for the birds. Yellow-breasted Flycatcher.

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Trinidad Family Abandon Abandoning 228

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 5, 2021

The first indication is the grumblings of the other bird in our garden. The most vocal species is the Brown Honeyeater. When we first hear the other birds indicate a threat we look to see what the threat is. They are mainly ground dwelling birds and really do not look adept at flying.

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Australia Raised Family Birds 207

10,000 Birds

APRIL 23, 2023

There are plenty of birds along the edge of the highway still and also on the highway. Black-winged Stilt near and on the highway There are still over forty species of birds to be found along the highway across Roebuck Plains, but the tall vegetation can be problematic. All three species of Ibis are now present.

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Pelicans Australia Fish 2019 147

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 1, 2022

Another paper on Taiwanese birds found that “the urban Crested Goshawk bred 34 days earlier on average than the rural population with significantly higher nesting success”, concluding that “the urban Crested Goshawk population benefits from high food supply and low predation risk.”

Birds 147

Birds China Eggs Breeding 147

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 6, 2022

They may be about bird eggs ( The Most Perfect Thing: The Inside (and Outside) of a Bird’s Egg , 2016), or a 17th-century ornithologist ( Virtuoso by Nature: The Scientific Worlds of Francis Willughby, 2016), or How Bullfinches learn songs from humans ( The Wisdom of Birds: An Illustrated History of Ornithology.

Dissection 234

Dissection Birds Research Europe 234

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 6, 2022

Every place has its common birds, the species that do very well in a given habitat. As we like to say, these are species that are “hard to miss”, birds that, if you are watching, will be seen. As one might expect, signature birds take many forms. Birding in a local park? What about urban sites?

Costa Rica 147

Costa Rica San Jose Asia Geese 147

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 17, 2019

Lots of birds, a lot of really cool birds! Some local populations of birds and animals couldn’t adapt to the radical ecosystem-wide changes and just died out but a fair percentage did survive and continue to persist where green space lingers. The Emerald Tanager is one of those cool ones.

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Costa Rica Birds Parrots Sparrows 200

10,000 Birds

JUNE 9, 2022

With the lockdown lasting until the end of May (ironically thus pretty much including the whole spring migration – the divine sense of humor is a rather malign one, I am afraid), June still had the freedom of birding anywhere in Shanghai, not just inside a smallish compound. Accessorizing for birds.

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Singapore Birds Mountain Goats Giraffes 147

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 26, 2021

And apart from local people, primate researchers sometimes spot it, but it is a species seen by fewer than ten living birders. This book is essentially about those birds that breed on the continent south of the Sahara, a topic few birders are familiar with.

Congo 264

Congo Africa South Africa Madagascar 264

10,000 Birds

JULY 7, 2020

They looked out their windows and across their patios and up from their apartment terraces and saw–birds. This is a delightful book, large (8-1/2 by 11 inches), filled with Sibley’s distinctive artwork and an organized potpourri of research-based stories about the science behind bird’s lives.

2020 264

2020 Birds Groups North America 264

10,000 Birds

JUNE 29, 2019

All good things must come to an end and so must Bird Renaming Week. Bird Renaming Week is a good thing but this is the last day of said week so it’s ending. First, Mike welcomed us to the week and in words worthy of the bard himself he explained why we decided to do Bird Renaming Week to begin with. Well, no more!

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Birds Raised China Woodpeckers 114

10,000 Birds

MARCH 3, 2020

One of these days, Jeopardy will feature a category called “Field Guides” and the first clue will be: “This landlocked South American country finally got its own bird field guide in 2016, but it wasn’t available in the United State until 2019.” Bolivia doesn’t come up much in discussions of birding travel.

Bolivia 181

Bolivia Birds Brazil Switzerland 181

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

The quacker in question was named Ripper, a drake Musk Duck raised at the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve near Canberra. Though many bird species are capable of imitating human speech, Ripper made headlines for being the first duck ever known to have done so. Good birding and happy drinking! Teal Lake Shiraz (2019).

2019 238

2019 Australia Ducks Fowl 238

10,000 Birds

JULY 8, 2018

July often means travel, which sometimes means tourist attractions, which occasionally means exotic or introduced bird species. Encountering exotics raises all manner of questions in birders, the toughest of which rarely center on identification. We may know these birds well, but should we love them? Following me here?

2018 100

2018 Zoos Birds Raised 100

10,000 Birds

MARCH 31, 2022

Not bad given that the 5 families in the inner circle of the laughingthrush family have a combined number of about 68 species. Presumably, in the early days of ornithology, some scientists spent most of their time transcribing bird calls. 36, if my counting is right and there has been no very recent split or lump.

San Diego 219

San Diego Malaysia China Zoos 219

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 18, 2014

The vast majority of the 10,000+ living species of birds are passerines, and the vast majority of those have a similar system of breeding: Mom and dad bird make a nest and share parental responsibilities roughly equally, if not identically. In the latter, three or more adult individuals contribute to the raising of offspring.

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Breeders Breeding Birds Groups 210

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 1, 2022

On that glorious day, I observed ten critically endangered birds, representing 8% of their Costa Rican, or 2% of their global population!! In my previous post , I dealt with Rancho Naturalista Lodge itself and birding within their private reserve. But, let’s start at the beginning. A group (maybe 4-5 ex.)

Costa Rica 248

Costa Rica Nicaragua 2019 Farming 248

10,000 Birds

JUNE 1, 2022

I came back from a Monday birding trip and told my wife, prior to reviewing my photos, that I saw a bird that was either 1) interesting, or 2) historic. And the bird in question even allowed me some great photos! I have seen two Godwit species at Lake Cuitzeo. I’m feeling pretty good about myself right now.

Mexico 234

Mexico 2018 Ducks Breeding 234

10,000 Birds

JULY 7, 2021

Whether it is birding tourism or simply spreading awareness about biodiversity, it is always with the aim of getting us humanoids to treat nature a little (ideally, a lot) better. As a rule, any tree which sprung up at the fenceline was left alone – as it was highly likely it was planted there by bird droppings.

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Opossums Barn Owls Hunting Reptiles 264

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 19, 2023

Photos courtesy of Mosetlha Bush Camp A dusty-red road leads me through Marico bushveld deeper into the 750 square kilometers large wilderness of the Madikwe Game Reserve – the 4th largest reserve in South Africa, home to 350 bird and 66 mammal species, some 4 hours’ drive from Johannesburg. They raise their trunks, sniffing the air.

South Africa 232

South Africa Africa Game Elephants 232

10,000 Birds

JULY 24, 2021

“Gamebirds” to some, cool, cryptic understory birds to the birding people, grouse crouch protected as unfettered winds sway the top of the tall prairie grass. Then there are the ones that live in PA , the state bird, “the grouse” that a great many non-birders are aware of, my Uncle Fred was one of them.

Costa Rica 264

Costa Rica Chickens Pennsylvania Litter 264

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 6, 2011

Adam Riley, owner and managing director of Rockjumper Birding Tours , is a world birder if ever there was one, but has a special place in his heart for his home continent. Adam will be leading 10,000 Birds readers on an amazing odyssey into Africa starting… now! And Africa is the ONLY continent without an extinct bird to boot!

Papua New Guinea 231

Papua New Guinea Madagascar Africa Equatorial Guinea 231

10,000 Birds

JUNE 6, 2012

There are few families of birds as bewitching as the birds-of-paradise. They are feathered jewels with extraordinary breeding dances almost unrivalled in the bird world. There are, however, two species that are more accesible than the rest of the family. www.youtube.com/watch? Not that I was complaining.

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Indonesia Birds Australia Guinea 199

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 4, 2020

For bird books, we mean – reference works and field guides, books of essays and reminiscences, novels, and works on birdsong and other specialties. In any event, there is no better judge of potent potables in the birding world, no better writer about them, than Tristan Lowery, in his charming and unique “Birds and Booze” essays.

2020 209

2020 Birds North America Italy 209