10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 6, 2023

As mentioned in many other posts on this blog, the avifauna of Trinidad & Tobago consists of several species and family groups occurring very interestingly, in threes. All of this to say that finally I have documented all three species of nighthawk found in T&T. Well, kind of.

Trinidad 130

Trinidad Bats Falcons Groups 130

10,000 Birds

JULY 21, 2022

The one bird I did not see here, however, was the Bateleur Eagle … One highlight in the area is the Saddle-billed Stork , likely to be the tallest species in the stork family. Habitat loss, as documented by hieroglyphs. Each of these ‘families’ consists of a single mating pair and 1-5 ‘helpers’ who assist in raising the young.

Ostriches 147

Ostriches Parrots Birds Eggs 147

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 15, 2018

There are 258 species documented; half of which nest in the park. Canada Goose family. In the midst of an intensifying battle between protecting public lands and advancing private interests, I want to share a moment of avian celebration at Yellowstone National Park. As the first U.S. Photo by © Robin Edwards. Yellow-headed Blackbird.

Canada 157

Canada 2018 Birds Protection 157

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

Appendix A lists “Rare Migrants and Vagrants,” 81 species, including birds for which there are no documented records, but which are listed in the literature or eBird. Checklist for Belize lists 622 species in 76 families, of which 104 are rare or accidental and four introduced. For context, the IOC version 13.1

Costa Rica 227

Costa Rica Belize El Salvador Birds 227

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 12, 2024

Said Blue-throated Barbet – maybe lacking an altimeter – indeed could be seen very close to its family member at Tongbiguan. Does that mean that families in Florida should on average be larger than in Colorado? This avian marvel, belonging to the family Picidae, is a sight to behold, especially for any dedicated bird lover.

Birds 188

Birds China Woodpeckers Breeding 188

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 5, 2021

Species are arranged by family and genus along taxonomic lines, but not always in accordance with the very latest molecular DNA research. Wait–that adds up to 290 species, but the book only covers 283. First page (p. 131) and last page (p. 141) of the Firetails section. © 2021 by Dennis R.

Costa Rica 263

Costa Rica North America Family America 263

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

A family of Eurasian Sparrowhawks showed well on several occasions, than there was one Black Kite , and up to five White-tailed Eagles at once. Also, a European Roller and a Turtle Dove made their appearances, too. No, without an explanation, I felt cheated.

Serbia 282

Serbia Birds Boars Otters 282

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 7, 2014

It’s relatively easy to classify birds into family groups based on physical characteristics. We view them as our enemies when they eat our crops and as an extension of our family when we see them at our feeders. Remarkably, there are 59 bird families that have very little cultural significance; these are listed in Appendix III.

Birds 224

Birds Egypt Family Eagles 224

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 23, 2021

No photoshop was needed to document this bizarre creature encountered somewhere along the road. Occasionally, it seems these birds can be quite long-lived – a paper documents a recapturing of a ringed female after 10 years. I was vaguely curious about the family name mousebird. On the ground?

South Africa 246

South Africa Africa Lesotho Nigeria 246

10,000 Birds

JULY 4, 2023

The species are taxonomically divided into two families: Tytonidae, Barn-Owls, and Strigidae, Owls, encompassed in one order, Strigiformes. When you look at Clements latest taxonomic spreadsheet, you get a sense of the depth of their relationships to each other and the world. Humans were drawing owls 36,000 years ago, as Ackerman points out!

Owls 224

Owls Science Barn Owls Penguins 224

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 3, 2020

But, unlike most books focused on a bird family, this one is organized geographically. His wildlife photographs have been published in birding and mountaineering magazines and his devotion to his very favorite bird family, the Albatross, have been documented in his book, Around the World for Albatrosses (2019). Press, 2011).

Penguins 278

Penguins Georgia New Zealand Albatross 278

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 19, 2023

It is an impressive bird (for a prinia – these birds are not usually very flashy) – eBird calls the species a “large, fierce-eyed prinia with a long, oft-cocked tail” There even is a separate document just on the vocalization of the Hill Prinia, if you are interested (frankly, I am not).

China 218

China Birds Burma Afghanistan 218

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 7, 2021

It covers 434 species across 9 orders and 18 families of birds. Other families are more complicated and these introductory sections are correspondingly longer and amazingly more detailed. Although Harrison did all the artwork for the 1983 title, he enlisted artist Hans Larsson for terns, gulls, and skimmers–the Laridae family.

Albatross 279

Albatross Penguins Family Groups 279

10,000 Birds

MARCH 7, 2023

His goal, he says in the Preface, is to fulfill a childhood desire to learn more about a stern figure in a family photograph, a mysterious man with impressive but largely undocumented achievements. He has done an enormous amount of research, carefully documented the text, and produced a bibliography 13 pages long.

Connecticut 147

Connecticut Washington Legislation Hunting 147

10,000 Birds

JULY 2, 2019

Antpittas and Gnateaters covers 64 species in six genera and two families. (I Here’s Plate 3, the third plate for Conopophaga , one of the two genera of the Gnateater family. Books that focus on a bird family tend to be mostly about identification and plumage. The length and dense text of these accounts is intimidating.

Research 149

Research Eggs South America Costa Rica 149

10,000 Birds

MARCH 3, 2020

The guide covers 1,433 species, the number of birds documented at the end of 2014, the cutoff point for the book. These are species which have been seen one or two or three times, but the rare sightings were unsupported by documentation. This unfortunately happens with the large Tanager (Thraupidae) family here.

Bolivia 181

Bolivia Birds Brazil Switzerland 181

10,000 Birds

JUNE 7, 2022

Wrynecks are fascinating because they are woodpeckers, taxonomically and evolutionarily, yet they do not share many behaviors and anatomical features of most members of the Picidae family. But they are woodpeckers: the genus Jynx of the subfamily Jynginae of the Picidae family. They are beautiful, but in a different way.

Woodpeckers 247

Woodpeckers Hungary Thailand 2014 247

10,000 Birds

JUNE 2, 2020

It’s the bird family that most people don’t know is a bird family. For many years it was thought the two bird families were related taxonomically. Like Antpittas and Gnateaters by Harold F. Introduction. Images of typical display poses are included for many of the birds of paradise.

Guinea 264

Guinea Birds Papua New Guinea Family 264

10,000 Birds

JULY 6, 2021

If you had your choice of one bird family to pursue, to seek out and observe and photograph and kvell over, which one would you choose? A passion for one bird family is also very useful. I hope by this time you have settled on a bird family for your avian obsession. (I Still, I would really love to see this in some form.

Costa Rica 264

Costa Rica Brazil Ecuador Bolivia 264

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 1, 2019

Still, besides documenting rare species, forms, or odd individuals (e.g. Talking of eBird, why don’t they show users the list of the bird families they observed? My life list is not even a thousand species long, yet, I birded four continents and the list of bird families should be quite interesting.).

Birds 144

Birds Costa Rica Greece Colombia 144

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 7, 2019

Nor are there any birding authorities requiring folks to identify, count and document the nuthatches, titmice and Downy Woodpeckers that come to their backyard feeders. We get serious about quality optics and spend hours studying field guides about birds because we really really want to.

Costa Rica 220

Costa Rica Cooking Birds Chickens 220

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 5, 2017

The 7th edition of the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America covers 1,023 species that reside, migrate, or have been documented as accidentals or exotics in North America. Most of the species are described in the Species Accounts, arranged taxonomically into 86 family chapters.

North America 187

North America America 2017 Birds 187

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 20, 2023

Another member of the magpie family, the White-winged Magpie , makes do with far fewer colors. Apparently, he was the first documented person to reach the peak of Mount Kinabalu.

China 242

China Birds Pythons Eagles 242

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 31, 2016

A lone Great Blue Heron stalked prey in the shallows, eventually taking flight when a family (and their dog) made it to the sand. Given the unique birding opportunities and my well-documented love for boardwalks, I’m positive I’ll return. Enjoying the network of boardwalks.

United States 100

United States Florida Pelicans Birds 100

10,000 Birds

MARCH 2, 2012

But what actually snapped me out of documenter mode was disgust. This is a family site so I won’t mention the what it managed to extract from that bag of garbage. At a certain point I stopped being an observer and photographer and intervened. For one, I knew that someone would have to clean up the mess the bird was bound to make.

Emotional 219

Emotional Collecting Family Birds 219

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 6, 2022

Birkhead talks about John Gould in several contexts, including a portrait of him and his family and his bird skins by John Everett Millais, reproduced in the color plates section, the only mention of Elizabeth is her co-authorship with John Gould, of another color plate, ‘Comb-crested Jacana.’

Dissection 234

Dissection Birds Research Europe 234

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 31, 2019

I also spent a week in northwestern Costa Rica on a family vacation, a long weekend in Barbados, a week in Georgia, and two week-plus-long trips to visit relatives in southern California. Our family trip to Barbados was mostly about the beach but it was also chock full o’birds! Number 7 – Barbados Bullfinch.

2019 142

2019 Barbados Uganda Costa Rica 142

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 4, 2011

I am reminded of the ducks’ perilous and arduous existence on each family outing to Heidelberg Zoo. Seriously, ducks must be the toughest creatures ever, the Chuck Norrises of the bird world, because they endure this thing all the time. All is peaceful, all is quiet.

Zoos 197

Zoos Ducks Elephants Tigers 197

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 2, 2014

Not a great place for a family vacation, though I think Duncan will disagree. Phillipps’ Field Guide (I’ll be using this shortened form of the title) covers 673 avian species, including 59 endemics, and 53 species that have not been documented yet for the area but which may show up in the next few years.

Brunei 179

Brunei Birds Asia China 179

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 7, 2018

It gives species accounts for 761 birds (I counted, but I could have missed a couple) out of the 763-770 species documented in the country (eBird lists 763 and Gallardo says there were 770 at the time of publication). These descriptions are quite helpful, especially if you are not familiar with the family group. Species Accounts.

Honduras 106

Honduras Birds 2015 Family 106

10,000 Birds

MAY 1, 2018

Families, or in some cases subfamilies, are tied together with brief descriptions of shared family (or subfamily) characteristics: physical, behavioral, sometimes habitat, nocturnal or diurnal flight, and if the species comes to lights. And, the North American Environmental Atlas project documents the locations of these ecoregions.

North America 100

North America America Oklahoma Missouri 100

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 20, 2012

Outside the breeding season, the birds stop vocalizing and roam in pairs or small family groups in wide-ranging feeding circuits which makes them much more difficult to find. The young followed the parents around in small family groups well after they had fledged.

Miami 177

Miami Costa Rica Florida 2005 177

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 1, 2015

Into the Nest: Intimate Views of the Courting, Parenting, and Family Lives of Familiar Birds (Storey Publishing, 2015) by photographer Marie Read and writer Laura Erickson, documents the procreative and parenting lives of 49 species through beautiful images and readable, knowledgeable text. So, Happy Holidays to all!

Papua New Guinea 187

Papua New Guinea 2014 Penguins Birds 187

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Kai understands that traditional bird portraits are beautiful (and offers many), but that understanding and truly appreciating birds comes from observing and documenting behavior and habitat. In addition to a Table of Contents, family captions in the upper left- and right-hand corners of each page aid in locating species.

China 144

China Birds 2018 Ducks 144

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 3, 2019

These are the bird families covered: Penguins, Alcids, Diving-Petrels, Petrels, Albatrosses, Storm-Petrels, Tropicbirds, Frigatebirds, Gannets and Boobies, Skuas and Jaegers, Gulls, Noddies, Terns, Phalaropes. Coverage of all families is not comprehensive.

Albatross 167

Albatross North America Birds Groups 167

10,000 Birds

JULY 2, 2014

The Oriental Pied Hornbills are pretty special, as they represent a recolonization of Singapore of this family. Then, on a recent visit to Pulau Ubin in Singapore, I actually managed to get a few shots of a pair of Oriental Pied Hornbills checking out a potential nesting hole in a massive tree.

Singapore 176

Singapore Uganda Malaysia Seals 176

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 20, 2020

The bird family that got his attention was originally the herons, egrets and other wading birds, but as time went on New World warblers, woodpeckers and ducks fueled the passion further. Welcome to the Everglades where Wood Storks , spoonbills and frigatebirds are expected, but Canada Goose and Chipping Sparrow require documentation.

Canada 173

Canada Cuba Miami Florida 173