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The Birds are All Right

10,000 Birds

It was the month of March, 2017, when I went to Lake Cuitzeo to check up on our migratory waterfowl and shorebirds one last time before they travelled north to breed. But here in 2020, the eastern half is also suffering the effects of drought — leaving it shallow enough to keep a fair number of Teals, Pintails, and Shovelers happy.

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Birding Shanghai in March 2023

10,000 Birds

Such programs are somewhat inefficient anyway – in one study , the breeding success of wild male pheasants was 2-5 times higher than for hand-reared and released ones while for females, hand-reared birds were 3 times as vulnerable to predation as the wild ones. Wait, the study was not done with people but with Eurasian Siskins.

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Who cares for your ducks in the winter?

10,000 Birds

Just from the two roads (one toll, one free) that cross the lake, and a small part of its total shore, on a good day in December or January you can count on seeing thousands of Northern Shovelers , Northern Pintails , and Yellow-headed Blackbirds. Which can also be said for the Yellow-headed Blackbirds.

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Endangered and Unknown: Red-billed Curassow

10,000 Birds

However, there are those species which have a hard time bringing attention to themselves such as Yellow-shouldered Blackbird , Giant Nuthatch , and Vinaceous-breasted Parrot. Regardless of their popularity, these species and the threatened ecosystems they inhabit are equally spectacular. Curassows are such stately birds.

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Western Serbia, or Griffons in the raspberries

10,000 Birds

The unpaved road winds up the hill, through a traditional farming landscape of small gardens, meadows and raspberry fields with thickets of the Oriental hornbeam, Turkey and Italian oak, black pine and prickly juniper, where Common Whitethroats (above) and Eurasian Blackcaps sing and Eurasian Blackbirds chase each other.

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Birding Shanghai in April 2023

10,000 Birds

While the conclusion seems fairly established now, the paper still puts it in the usual wordy and careful statement: “The shorter minimum stopover duration of both species in spring may indicate a faster migration than in autumn, suggesting a time-minimizing strategy in spring to reach the breeding grounds as fast as possible.”

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Birding Shanghai in June 2022

10,000 Birds

There was a breeding pair at Binjiang Forest Park this June. This allows you to watch birds (well, at least those that are not too noise sensitive) while not having to suffer their sounds. When juvenile Chinese Blackbirds want to get an alcoholic drink at a bar, they usually blacken their yellow gape flanges in order to look older.

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