10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 3, 2013

'The video above, taken yesterday at New Jersey’s Stone Harbor Point by Tom Johnson , is pretty awesome. He was simultaneously filming with two different devices so the video starts with the wide-angle view and then starts over again with the closer look. As we have already mentioned here on 10,000 Birds, Snowy Owls are in the middle of a pretty epic irruption , and they are facing all kinds of pressure, from people harassing them to crows and falcons taking exception to their presence.

Falcons 256

Falcons Owls New Jersey Experience 256

4 The Love Of Animals

DECEMBER 30, 2013

'Mad over Maltese. . These tiny fluff balls will make you laugh out loud and drive you crazy. Best friend and protective- pampering parent, you will have to switch roles and shift gears with these sprightly creatures before blinking an eyelid. “The tiniest dog Nature has ever produced –. Her coat of long hair, whiter than ermine, Her movements exquisitely graceful and.

Chad 187

Chad Dogs Egypt Kennels 187

Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 11, 2013

'How, then, shall we sum up in a sentence the principle of our duties to the lower animals? I do not know that it can be better done than in the words of George Nicholson, one of those early pioneers to the influence of whose writings, though now almost forgotten, the cause of humaneness owes so much. "In our conduct to animals," he wrote, "one plain rule may determine what form it ought to take, and prove an effectual guard against an improper treatment of them—a rule universally admitted as a

Non Human 55

Non Human Morals Ethics Humane 55

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 9, 2013

'Well, this doesn’t seem to make much sense : The Port Authority doesn’t give a hoot about the lives of snowy owls. The agency that oversees the city’s airports has added the majestic snowy owl to the list of birds it kills to protect airplanes from bird strikes. The Port Authority’s “wildlife specialists” started exterminating the owls Saturday, killing three at JFK Airport with a shotgun, a Port Authority source said.

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Owls Killing Protection Wildlife 239

Speaker: Steve Romanco

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10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 9, 2013

'Late-breaking Update! It looks like we are well on our way to victory on this issue! The following has been released by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE. December 9, 2013. CONTACT: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. 212-435-7777. STATEMENT FROM THE PORT AUTHORITY ON SNOWY OWLS. “The Port Authority is working with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to move immediately toward implementing a program to trap and relocate snowy ow

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Owls Killing New Jersey New York 235

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 13, 2013

'Last time it was birds and bling. Now it’s birds AS bling. Normally wildlife rehabilitators do not go around wearing birds on purpose. It’s just something that happens. “The Chimney Swifts I had this season made fabulous brooches,” said Leslie Jackson, who sent the photo above (along with the caption “All the rage in Paris.”) Swifts and swallows are notoriously hard to raise and/or rehabilitate, so rehabbers who don’t specialize in them tend to lose their heads when they’re successful.

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Wildlife Rehabilitation Birds Wildlife Raised 226

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 19, 2013

'With a Rustic Bunting in Homer, Alaska, Neil Hayward has tied Sandy Komito’s American Birding Assocation area big year record of 745 (+3) species. That is a lot of birds in what is essentially Alaska, Canada, and the lower 48 states in one year. But whats with the (+3)? That’s where things get kind of fun. In Sandy Komito’s record-setting big year he saw 745 species that were already on the ABA checklist and three that were not yet on the checklist.

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Alaska Falcons Canada Species 217

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 12, 2013

'I don’t know what those so-called meteorologists are doing: they all claim a moderately cold morning, but do not say a word about the fog! Yet, tree branches are covered in hoar frost and the fog is so thick one could cut it with a machete! Of course, I was going – birding, so the view of the fog (certainly not through the fog) has drawn several comments which I will not share here with you… While the car is bumping along the dirt road, a Common Reed Bunting awaits me on a low branch̷

Serbia 215

Serbia Hoarding Europe Woodpeckers 215

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 5, 2013

'As we might have already mentioned here on 10,000 Birds, this year is shaping up to be a historic year in terms of a Snowy Owl irruption. And because birders are often bloggers, the amount of material that has already been published regarding this invasion of big, white owls from the north is pretty impressive. Not only are there a host of blog posts simply featuring images of Snowy Owls but there are quite a few out there that tackle a whole host of different issues related to Snowy Owls.

Owls 203

Owls North Carolina New Hampshire Indiana 203

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 11, 2013

'When I was kid, I tried to turn every House Finch we had in Indiana into a Purple Finch. Trying to figure out if one is a little bit more raspberry red from another was the id of choice as the local bird ladies told me. I was also trying to see how far down the pink coloration went on the body. The above bird is clearly a male House Finch. But now that I live some place where we get Purple Finches regularly, there is no question on how to tell them apart.

Indiana 196

Indiana Birds 196

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10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 29, 2013

'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. So naturally, I got to thinking about kinglets, and their Palearctic kin, the “crests,” and where they belong in the avian family tree.

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Family Guatemala Mexico Japan 183

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 31, 2013

'What was your first bird of 2014? Hopefully it was better than a pigeon! Let us know in the comments…and, if you wrote a blog post or have a picture of your first bird of the year online somewhere, well, leave a link in the comments too. Happy New Year from all of us at 10,000 Birds! And here’s hoping you see many great birds, including lots of lifers, in 2014!

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2014 2013 Birds 181

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 26, 2013

'Some time ago, I was doing research of waterbird migrations with a friend of mine, a young ornithologist currently busy writing his Ph.D. thesis and trying to annoy most of us by uplisting some subspecies to full species and downlisting some species into mere races! A knowledgeable birder and great company, he was able to forget just about everything.

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Research Species Birds 181

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 19, 2013

'As you can see in the picture above, all Snowy Owls do not just sit there like lumps of white awesomeness just waiting for a birder to come along and take their picture. Sometimes, if you are lucky, Snowy Owls fly! Well, I guess everyone knows that Snowy Owls fly – they certainly don’t walk from the Arctic. But I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the amount of times that I have seen a Snowy Owl fly that wasn’t a direct result of people getting too close to an owl a

Owls 179

Owls Wyoming New York Birds 179

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10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 29, 2013

'In under a month I will looking at lots of great birds at the 17th Annual Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival. I can’t wait – two years between visits is too long. I want to see Limpkins and Snail Kites and American Alligators and Yellow-throated Warblers and Painted Buntings and this list could go on for quite some time. I thought it would make sense to share which trips I would be on so if any of my legion of adoring fans (Hi mom!

Florida 176

Florida Alligators Wildlife 2008 176

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 14, 2013

'The promise of rain and high winds ahead of Tropical Storm Karen might have brought a few warblers down into New York’s Central Park during a visit last month. I stood, eagerly waiting, ready to give them a good watching as soon as they dropped into the Ramble, but the storm veered out across the ocean and left the city in the gloom under a blanket of low cloud.

New York 174

New York Birds 174

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 31, 2013

'In 2013 I birded in two countries, submitted eBird checklists for seven U.S. states and thirty-seven counties, and added a whopping ninety-two species to my life list. At the beginning of the year I said the following about my goals for the year’s birding: I start 2013 with 297 birds on my Queens Life List , 500 birds on my ABA Life List , and 1,096 birds on my World Life List.

2013 173

2013 New York City New York Trinidad 173

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 21, 2013

'Steve Leddy is a business writer and editor, based at various times in London, Dublin, and Paris and once even part-owned a villa in Tobago, where the birdlife is out of this world. Steve now live in the Auvergne volcanic region a few hours south of Paris, where the birds sometimes inspire him to verse. This is his first contribution to 10,000 Birds: Near the lightning breach in my blister-barked beech –.

Blackbirds 170

Blackbirds Birds 170

Speaker: Gabriel Wagner Presenter

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 1, 2013

'Though seeing birds that belong in the range they are in when you see them is nice, it is often even more exciting to see birds that are out of place. Especially if they are really out of place, like from another continent. Lucky me, I got to see three such birds in my home borough of Queens on Saturday! Only one of them could really be counted though.

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Jamaica Birds New York Europe 170

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 1, 2013

'Over the past two weeks, an incursion of Snowy Owls ( Bubo scandiacus ) has spread rapidly across the Great Lakes region and down the Atlantic Coast, as far south as North Carolina. (The haunting image above is from another year, by Kate Ter Haar.). It’s the third year in a row for a significant, hunger-driven push south by these spectacular predators of the far north, so commanding of the imagination with their striking plumage, remote origins, and wondrous peregrinations.

Owls 169

Owls Indonesia 2002 North Carolina 169

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 13, 2013

'It seems that at least a few birds survived the cold snap and the snow that followed, as they’ve started coming to my feeder in numbers. It took the first birds about 24 hours to turn up. In my case, this year, they were Dark-eyed Juncos in a full candy-box of their color combinations — if the candy box was filled entirely with liquorice and strawberry creams.

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Squirrels Sparrows Woodpeckers Birds 168

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 13, 2013

'How’s this for an exciting weekend? The linked post, from The Bruce Mactavish Newfoundland Birding Blog , also has a possible explanation for where all the Snowy Owls in this amazing irruption year are coming from: First I found out where Snowy Owls were in low to normal numbers in the Canadian Arctic (Rankin Inlet on western shore of Hudson Bay, Igoolik on the Melville Peninsula and northern Baffin Island including Bylot Island – information thanks to Alastair Franke, University of

Owls 167

Owls North America 2013 America 167

Speaker: Steve Romanco

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 18, 2013

'The Pygmy Nuthatch ( Sitta pygmaea ) is a non-migratory bird that lives primarily in Ponderosa and Jeffrey Pine forests in western North America. These Pygmy Nuthatches were seen in June nesting in a pine tree at Lassen Volcanic National Park in Northern California. Click on photos for full sized images. They are one of the few cooperatively breeding passerines in North America and a third of the breeding pairs have 1–3 male helpers, usually progeny or other relatives.

North America 165

North America America California Collecting 165

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 8, 2013

'As mentioned earlier in these pages , wind farms and eagles don’t always go well together—the birds, which often scan the ground for prey instead of looking straight ahead while they’re flying, thus don’t see wind turbines until it’s too late. (It’s not just eagles, either; other bird and bat species also fall victim to the turbines.) Nevertheless, killing an eagle is a federal crime in the United States, and recently a wind energy company linked to eagle deaths settled with the federal governm

Eagles 165

Eagles Bald Eagle Farming Obama 165

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 24, 2013

'Calilegua National Park Birding – Trip Report. … continued from: Bird Watching Laguna del los Pozuelos. Driving to Calilegua National Park was not very difficult, apart from one wrong highway exit, we did not have any other troubles. From La Quiaca, near the border with Bolivia, to Calilegua it takes six hours so we arrived to Libertador General San Martin by 7 pm.

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Woodpeckers Birds Parrots Argentina 166

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 9, 2013

'The title of this post is a trick question as Trinidad and Tobago actually has two national birds, one for each of the country’s namesake islands. Trinidad is represented by the Scarlet Ibis , a beauty of a bird, resplendent in its crimson hue. It is easiest to find in the Caroni Swamp. Tobago, on the other hand, has the Rufous-vented Chachalaca , known locally as the Cocrico after its loud calls that echo throughout Tobago at dusk and dawn (like the one in the photo at top), or as the To

Trinidad 165

Trinidad Birds Game Species 165

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10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 15, 2013

'I would never have noticed the little brown job if it hadn’t “tuck-tucked” from a bush just after I walked past it. I turned around, got my bins up, and was entertained to see a tiny brown bird with an even tinier upturned brown tail scolding me. This is a bird that weighs about eight grams, less than 1/10,000th of what I do. Yet it was daring to take exception to my presence and letting me know that I was unwelcome in no uncertain terms!

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United States Birds 165

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 15, 2013

'To all you hardy naturalists who have already logged Christmas Bird Count hours in service to citizen science, I salute you! Winter has come early and often to Western NY. In the face of endless snow, all I want to do is seek shelter, warmth, and booze. Those of you willing to eschew creature comforts to tally birds across your ice-rimed count circles are my heroes.

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2013 Shelters Birds Science 164

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 13, 2013

'Walter Kitundu, who loyal readers will remember as an excellent Beat Writer here on 10,000 Birds , has a new e-book available. It is studded with the wonderful images that his fans will surely associate with him and is well worth checking out. You can get Bird Knowledge: Little Life Lessons Learned from Birds on the iTunes store here.

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Stud Birds 164

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 1, 2013

'While everyone in the northern hemisphere is enjoying all that winter has to offer as far as food goes, we are currently enjoying all that summer has to offer in the north of Australia. We are lucky enough to actually have some mango trees in Broome as “roadside” trees, so you don’t actually have to have a tree in your garden to enjoy the mangos.

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Parrots Birds Australia Bats 164

Speaker: cha cha dwyer

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