10,000 Birds

JUNE 2, 2015

Producing a book about birds and nesting is a dangerous business. First of all, there is the cuteness factor. The truth is that there are few images cuter than baby birds in the nest opening their mouths and begging for food, but there are curmudgeons amongst us, myself included, who don’t like to admit this. We simply refuse to squee. Second, reading about birds courting and parenting brings out the tendency to identify, which leads directly to anthropomorphism, the tendency to assign birds hum

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Eggs Family 2006 New York 263

4 The Love Of Animals

JUNE 29, 2015

This cute Corgi named Turbo thinks he found a nice rock. Imagine his surprise when the rock moves! Luckily it was all caught on video and you can see the cute reaction below. The post Corgi surprised by “rock” appeared first on 4 The Love of Animals.

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Animal Ethics

JUNE 1, 2015

This blog had 1,313 visits during May, which is an average of 42.3 visits per day. A year ago, the average was 48.8.

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10,000 Birds

JUNE 5, 2015

Wildlife rehabilitators are a multi-tasking lot. Not only do we take care of zillions of injured and orphaned birds/mammals/reptiles/whatever, we also have to deal with and educate the public. The baffling, mind-boggling public. Luckily for rehabbers there’s FaceBook, where we can b h and moan and vent and swap can-you-top-this stories with other rehabbers.

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Squirrels Hamburgers Chickens Wildlife Rehabilitation 250

Speaker: Steve Romanco

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10,000 Birds

JUNE 9, 2015

Common Ravens have, it seems, finally nested in Manhattan, the densest metropolitan area in the nation. The photo above depicts three fledglings I encountered on the morning of March 31, 2015. But let’s back up for a minute. Over the last five or six years, Common Ravens have been sighted with increasing frequency in New York City, part of a resurgence throughout the Northeast after more than a century of regional extirpation.

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New York City New York 2015 New Jersey 250

10,000 Birds

JUNE 25, 2015

Early morning finds me driving southeast through spruce forests, mountain meadows, pastures and an occasional potato field, across Mt. Zlatar in western Serbia, heading towards the town of Sjenica and, behind it, the bridge on the River Vapa. As we go lower, from glorious sunshine, we enter the morning fog. Are we going to bird in the fog? Still, we are lucky.

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Europe Serbia Russia Breeding 248

10,000 Birds

JUNE 11, 2015

Gaborone, Botswana; June 1999. Marvellous orange-pink sunrise high over the Indian Ocean… Then, landing on a small airport at Gaborone, Botswana. Impossibly bright blue sky. Billboards advertising safari operators in the north of the country. A manicured green lawn in front of the building and an iridescent blue bird on a smallish aloe tree. It was June 1999 and I was observing my first ever bird on African soil.

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Africa Botswana Birds Europe 211

10,000 Birds

JUNE 3, 2015

The Nuttall’s Woodpecker’s ( Picoides nattallii ) diet consists mainly of (about 80%) insects, primarily captured by probing and gleaning from tree bark. They also dine on some nuts and seeds but I never knew until I spotted this juvenile in our garden, that they also occasionally eat fruit! Click on photos for full sized images. I first became aware of the bird’s presence when I heard the unmistakable raspy flight call this species utters, usually as it moves from one locatio

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Woodpeckers California Birds Species 195

10,000 Birds

JUNE 28, 2015

Great Egrets Ardea alba are confusing on many levels. The first level is the most harmless of them all since it only pertains to birders engaged in international conversations: its common name. Known as the Great Egret in the Americas, it was commonly referred to as the Great White Heron in the Old World. This was unfortunate since it invited confusion with the Carribean white morph of the Great Blue Heron , and nowadays it is thus mostly called the Great White Egret.

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Asia Europe Germany Breeding 179

10,000 Birds

JUNE 3, 2015

Over Memorial Day weekend (23-25 May) my family and I spent the weekend along the Delaware shore enjoying the beaches, natural areas, and tourist traps that make visiting the shore such a delight. Our hotel was along the coastal highway less than ten minutes by car from the Cape May – Lewes Ferry, which means it was also ten minutes by car from Cape Henlopen State Park, a marvelous birding hotspot that combines beaches, saltmarshes, and scrub pine forest in perfect proportions for a visiti

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Delaware New York Birds North Carolina 173

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10,000 Birds

JUNE 4, 2015

Nest predation is the driving force of nest site selection by bird. Generally the more exposed the egg are, the more hidden or camouflaged the nest should be. Giant Hummingbirds build cup-shaped nests where eggs are exposed, but rather than hiding or camouflaging the nest, the biggest of all hummers generally places its nest in cacti. The long, sharp, and barbed thorns discourage rats and other small mammals from climbing the cacti to reach the eggs and chicks.

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Mammals Eggs Rats Peru 171

10,000 Birds

JUNE 21, 2015

This weekend delivered the longest days of the year to those of us on the top half of the world. Hope you made the most of that extra daylight! I took my family on Sunday to explore a stretch of the flat but fancy Lehigh Valley Railroad Trail. The usual summer residents were in attendance, most gaudy of which was a male Rose-breasted Grosbeak , no doubt flush with paternal pride on Father’s Day.

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2015 Jamaica Hunting Birds 165

10,000 Birds

JUNE 7, 2015

Life in Broome evolves around the tides and it does not matter if you are interested in shorebirds, fishing or the creatures of the reef, because you are in some way reliant on the tide chart. With the full moon this past week we were taking note of the bigger tide and therefore the lower tide to follow. The tidal range in Broome is one of the largest in Australia and offers excellent reef walking at low tide.

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Turtles Fish Eggs Breeding 165

10,000 Birds

JUNE 14, 2015

For regular readers of this website you may well think that you have seen that title before! Well, almost! Last time it was Banded Stilt and Red-necked Avocets abound and it was in quite a different environment! The weather itself was completely different and it was thousands of miles away to the south of Melbourne in Victoria. Now we are experiencing our cooler weather in Broome, with daytime temperatures still around 32c and so there is no need to carry a thermos flask like on the last occasi

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Australia Groups Breeding Birds 165

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10,000 Birds

JUNE 21, 2015

Pardalotes are an endemic species to Australia and the rarest of all can be found in Tasmania and is called the Forty-spotted Pardalote , which we have had the privilege of observing. However, around the Broome area we are currently listening to the constant call of the tiny Striated Pardalote. It is calling incessantly with two or three notes and is busy making holes in any area that it can easily dig.

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Australia Rights Birds Species 163

10,000 Birds

JUNE 27, 2015

It’s the end of June and up north, the birds are busy with their young, and taking full advantage of the summer’s arthropod bounty. In other words, they are doing the same thing as a lot of people except that we could substitute bugs for watermelon, strawberries, glorious nectarines, grilled stuff, dining outdoors, and other summer fare.

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Costa Rica San Jose Birds Owls 162

10,000 Birds

JUNE 5, 2015

I have been very slow in sharing what was for me pretty exciting news. Yes, back in May I added a new bird to my Queens list , one that was long overdue. Finally, finally, finally, I saw a Whimbrel in Queens! It was number 311 on my Queens list and a bird that I was growing increasingly frustrated with as several are spotted in Queens each and every year.

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New York Birds 163

10,000 Birds

JUNE 15, 2015

Back on the last day of May I boarded a boat in Brooklyn and headed out onto the Atlantic Ocean in search of seabirds. It was a pelagic trip organized by See Life Paulagics and it was a pretty memorable trip with five species of shearwater, Leach’s Storm-Petrels , Wilson’s Storm-Petrels , a variety of dolphins, some sharks, and a variety of other sea life.

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New York Penguins Sharks Dolphins 162

Speaker: Gabriel Wagner Presenter

10,000 Birds

JUNE 6, 2015

Despite a life White-fronted Parrot being in contention, the title for my BBOTW this week was taken by the Cordilleran Flycatcher Empidonax occidentalis. I am not sure why the flycatcher got the nod, perhaps it was the oxygen starvation, maybe it was in reparation for simply turning away in the past. My common reaction to any Empidonax is to pretend that I have not seen it and move quickly along in case I get drawn in to the fruitless task of estimating primary projection, comparing wingbar

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Parrots Collecting Species Birds 162

10,000 Birds

JUNE 3, 2015

I’ve never been one to be overly concerned about whether a bird “counts” People, and organisations, have complex and elaborate rules about whether a bird you saw or heard actually is a bird you saw or heard, which seems a very unnecessary way to add complexity to an already complex hobby. But I do have rules about whether I can have said to have visited a country, ie does the country “count” which I have inherited from my family, particularly my Dad.

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Botswana Birds Lesotho Elephants 162

10,000 Birds

JUNE 14, 2015

Early June in these parts still holds the promise of late migrants but basically showcases the next couple of months of local trip lists. What does June birding look like where you live? I explored Lucien Morin Park for the first time this weekend. This gorgeous forest at the southern tip of Irondequoit Bay is positively filthy with Yellow Warblers and Eastern Pewees , but I was most pleased by a pair of House Wrens caring for a brood in their birdhouse.

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2015 Birds Experience Experiments 161

10,000 Birds

JUNE 26, 2015

Spring migration surely qualifies as one of the seven wonders of the natural world, a brief blizzard of bliss which passes through our lands, adorning every branch with kaleidoscopic wonder. Too bad it’s over. Hunker down for a season of “the same old thing”… My part of the country is reputed to have a bevy of breeding warblers other than the ever-present Yellow; with luck, I’ll track some down.

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2015 Birds Breeding 160

Speaker: Steve Romanco

10,000 Birds

JUNE 23, 2015

Brown Pelicans are quite popular in Louisiana. One of the state’s nicknames is “The Pelican State,” the bird is on the state’s flag, the state seal, the state painting (yes, apparently states have official paintings), as well as on one of Louisiana’s bicentennial coins. Officially designated as the state bird in 1966 , the Brown Pelican has since enjoyed its status.

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Louisiana Pelicans Legislature United States 160

10,000 Birds

JUNE 12, 2015

Wouldn’t you love to enjoy birding and sunset at Lake Apopka ? This is the time of year when many of us in the Northern Hemisphere have to come to grips with two pressing questions: 1. What am I going to do now that spring migration is over? 2. What am I going to do now that my kids (grandkids, neighbors’ kids, etc.) are getting out of school?!

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2015 Birds 160

10,000 Birds

JUNE 8, 2015

Bay-breasted Warblers are one of those wood-warblers that you hope to hear high up in the canopy on their spring migration. Then you induce a crippling case of “warbler neck” by tipping your head back and staring through your binoculars up into the leaves while desperately trying to piece together enough field marks to be sure of the identification.

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New York City Collecting New York Birds 160

10,000 Birds

JUNE 30, 2015

Oh Belize. A beautiful country on Central America’s coast, Belize boasts spectacular diving and snorkeling, immense cave systems, beautiful rivers, dense jungles, and of course, hundreds and hundreds of birds. My husband and I arrived in Belize just after a late afternoon thunderstorm. It was the beginning of the rainy season, and a quiet time in Hopkins, a small Garifuna village in south-central Belize (they are much busier when it is winter in the US).

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Belize Fish Birds Pelicans 158

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10,000 Birds

JUNE 28, 2015

The past week has been invigorating for Americans who support freedom, dignity, and equality. Hopefully you celebrated by enjoying some fine birds! I took a family trip down to rural Pennsylvania, where I can always count on seeing an abundance of Eastern Kingbirds … and I did. Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend could have been the White-faced Ibis at Captree Island, his first of the year, but White-faced Ibis are boring.

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2015 Pennsylvania Sparrows Birds 158

10,000 Birds

JUNE 17, 2015

Danum Valley is the finest birding location I have ever been to. … I typed the above sentence and then dared myself to defend it. It’s a strong sentence, and one I’ll struggle to justify with my poor grasp of English and reputation towards hyperbole. There are, certainly, places I’ve enjoyed more. And places I have seen more birds.

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Lemurs Family Rhinoceros Fish 158

10,000 Birds

JUNE 19, 2015

Birders know better than anyone that spring is all about dads. By this, I don’t mean the warm weather renaissance of BBQ, golf, baseball, bikini season, and all those other things fathers traditionally love just a little less than they love their kids. Rather, spring birding shines the spotlight squarely upon brightly colored avian swains and squires.

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2015 Birds 157

10,000 Birds

JUNE 13, 2015

“Costa Rica borders two oceans. The country has a healthy list of pelagic species. There are no pelagic trips” That ironic pseudo-haiku almost sums up pelagic birding in Costa Rica. Yes, you can strike a deal with fishing boats to take you out into deep water but there isn’t anything like the regularly scheduled trips that we get sick on in other parts of the world.

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Costa Rica Birds Dolphins Rescue 157

Speaker: cha cha dwyer

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