10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 1, 2015

The other day I was exploring a new area for the first time, birding the national park that I’ve watched only in BBC documentaries, the place famous for the largest Dalmatian Pelican colony in the world – more than 1300 pairs! Have you heard of it? Can you pinpoint it on a map? Add more than 350 pairs of White Pelicans to that picture, numerous herons and up to 700 pairs of Pygmy Cormorants breeding in the same reedbeds (cover photo)… It must be bursting with activity in spring, but I was

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Greece Pelicans Geese Breeding 252

4 The Love Of Animals

OCTOBER 27, 2015

This Friday, October 30th at 8/7C, the Hallmark Channel will air the HERO DOG AWARDS! It’s our favorite award show and this year is sure to be a great one. The show is a moving celebration of our four-legged friends … Continue reading → The post Hero Dog Awards airs October 30th on Hallmark Channel appeared first on 4 The Love of Animals.

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Dogs Animal 186

Animal Ethics

OCTOBER 1, 2015

This blog had 1,024 visits during September, which is an average of 34.1 visits per day. A year ago, the average was 27.0.

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10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 23, 2015

This week’s guest blog was written by Linda Hufford, who has been a wildlife rehabilitator specializing in raptors for over twenty years. She runs Birds of Texas Rehabilitation Center in Austin County, Texas. A number of years ago I was granted the privilege of flying into the Kuparuk Oil Field, above the Arctic Circle in the remote regions of the North Slope Borough in Alaska.

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Collecting Wildlife Rehabilitation Solomon Islands Texas 240

Speaker: Steve Romanco

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10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 15, 2015

“The estuary and the delta of the River Kalamas form the most important wetland of northwest Greece”, so the “ Birding in Greece ” guidebook claims for the area where I am heading, a bit late since I overslept this morning. Driving north along the Ionian seacoast through the city of Igoumenitsa, there is a place where the main artery takes you right, further away from the sea – follow it for 150 metres (500 ft) and then turn left just before a small stadium.

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Greece Dogs Pelicans Fish 232

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 6, 2015

Here are some things I’ve learned from the Peterson Reference Guide to Owls of North America and the Caribbean by Scott Weidensaul: The Burrowing Owl is the only North American owl species where the male is larger than the female, albeit, only slightly larger. (And the term is ‘non-reversed size dimorphism.’). The Caribbean islands were once populated by enormous owls, some over 3-feet tall, some flightless.

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North America Owls America Dominican Republic 222

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 9, 2015

There are many charismatic endangered birds that capture people’s hearts and imaginations: the colossal California Condor , the evocative Red-crowned Crane , and the adorable Spoon-billed Sandpiper come to mind. 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.

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Brazil California Condor Parrots Texas 214

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 29, 2015

I can’t wait for January! To be exact, 20-25 January 2016. Why? The 19th Annual Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival ! I’ve had so many great moments at previous festivals and now I can’t wait for the next. As an inducement to get you to come, here are five of my favorite moments from the last several years at the festival. The story behind each can be reached by clicking on the image.

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2016 Wildlife Bald Eagle Florida 188

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 31, 2015

Big Days* have been a big deal for the past few years. That said, some stalwart birders are undoubtedly thinking, “I beg your pardon? My Big Day has been a huge deal for the past thirty years!” Without diminishing the importance of any local Big Days, although Big Day birding has been popular and reaching new heights in North America for more than a decade, major attempts at truly breaking the world record have only taken place the past few years.

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Costa Rica South Africa Kenya Ecuador 165

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 18, 2015

The pygmy wren-babbler is a tiny babbler that looks like a wren, making it a bird well named. This is not an insignificant fact from this blogger’s perspective, considering the awkward common names we often have to cope with in our day-to-day birding lives and the fact that all babblers are essentially brown, offering few options to those in charge of naming them.

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Vietnam Timor Myanmar Asia 159

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10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 28, 2015

After my post about collecting two weeks ago I received a bit of feedback, some positive, some negative, and I’ve been mulling it over with the intention of writing about some of the issues that could be considered the root cause of the disagreement. Then I read Linda Hufford’s guest post , hosted by our own Suzie, and decided that first I had to write another piece, a reply to that post.

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Collecting Papua New Guinea Science Birds 160

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 21, 2015

At the Northwest corner of San Francisco is Point Lobos. Just South of Point Lobos is Sutro Baths and the Cliff House Restaurant overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The magnificent view from the Cliff House includes the Seal Rocks just offshore. The beach you see below the Cliff House in the photo above (credit Brocken Inaglory, Wikipedia Commons), is where I photographed these Heermann’s Gulls ( Larus heermanni ).

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San Francisco North America Seals Sanctuary 158

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 11, 2015

Over recent months we have observed larger than normal numbers of Black-breasted Buzzards , so we can assume that they have had some successful breeding over the past year. It has been quite common to observe up to six Black-breasted Buzzards at the local ephemeral lakes and also on our travels in the north of Australia over recent months. Many of the birds observed have been juvenile birds and have not quite developed their full adult plumage.

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Eagles Australia Breeding Birds 158

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 8, 2015

The Brown Pelican and the Peruvian Pelican are closely related and once were considered the same species. They are indeed very similar in all plumage stages, but the Peruvian Pelican is nearly twice as big as its northern counterpart. Both pelicans are still common, but their population have been negatively affected by strong El Niño fluctuations and by exercise use of pesticides.

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Pelicans North America Peru Fish 157

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10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 22, 2015

My wife and I had the chance to visit Alaska! This trip was in our bucket list for a long time and did not think it would happen as soon as it did. But an opportunity presented itself and we took it. The Alaska wilderness lives up to the visions we had. The wildlife was what we expected. The birds were not as plentiful because we were there during the tail end of the summer when most species had already flown south.

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Alaska South America Penguins Owls 157

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 27, 2015

Ah Hawaii, land of beautiful beaches, surfing, warm weather, and unique birds. Because of its distance to the mainland, Hawaii is home to over 60 species of endemic birds. Few are as unique (or rare) as the Nene , or Hawaiian Goose , Hawaii’s state bird. Nenes can only be found in Hawaii, and used to be plentiful. Before European explorers arrived in the 1770’s, this goose’s population numbered around 25,000.

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Hawaii Feral Cats Mongoose Geese 156

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 30, 2015

Well, I never did see a Black-backed Woodpecker on my trip, but they were on my mind… What could be more straightforward than the naming of woodpeckers? The name woodpecker itself is a basic behavioral description. Here are birds that peck at wood. When it comes to individual North American species, the old reliable trick of naming them after physical traits is in full effect.

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North America Woodpeckers America Family 155

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 19, 2015

We have had days of northwest winds in New York and the birds have taken full advantage of the favorable conditions to hightail it south. We birders have been doing our best to get out as much as possible and I’m no exception. (Surprise!) Though sparrows tend to be the main focus of mid-to-late October birding here in New York City there are still plenty of other birds to see like the Eastern Phoebe up above.

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New York City New York Sparrows Eggs 153

Speaker: Gabriel Wagner Presenter

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 25, 2015

Well, it’s official… no MLB team named for a bird is going to the World Series. The Blue Jays gave their all, but we now need to turn our avian-inspired athletic interest to the NFL, where at least a couple of football teams with bird totems are worth watching! Without anything extraordinary on my weekend bird list, my favorite sighting was a pair of Hermit Thrushes , half hardy enough to hang around when so many other birds have left town.

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2015 Turkey Birds Woodpeckers 151

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 11, 2015

A beautiful weekend for watching birds demands beautiful people watching birds. Were you out there? I enjoyed a nice selection of sparrows and raptors in Pennsylvania farm country, with a pair of bold and noisy Red-shouldered Hawks taking the prize. Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend was one of the 76 the Queens County Bird Club recorded during the Big Sit on Saturday at the hawk watch platform at Fort Tilden.

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Pennsylvania 2015 Farming Birds 151

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 9, 2015

October, at least in Dylan Thomas’s Poem in October , was alive with avian activity: My birthday began with the water-. Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name. Above the farms and the white horses. And I rose. In rainy autumn. And walked abroad in a shower of all my days. High tide and the heron dived when I took the road. Over the border.

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2015 Pennsylvania Horses Farming 151

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 26, 2015

When a Sora was found in the Loch in New York City’s Central Park almost a week ago birders were pretty happy. After all, a twitchable Sora in Manhattan is an oddity with the only previous really twitchable bird being the one that showed up in Bryant Park two years ago. But exhilaration turned, to some degree, to dismay, when it was realized that this Sora had a broken left wing, as you can see in the above image.

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New York City New York Birds Wildlife Rehabilitation 150

Speaker: Steve Romanco

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 19, 2015

I think everyone can readily admit that owls are cool. Most are creatures of the night, swooping soundlessly from above to scoop up their prey below. Their calls are eerie, but beautiful, almost like ghosts. Yet, these very qualities are what make them so difficult to see as birders, and in my years of birding I had managed to spot just two: the Snowy Owl (which is active during the daytime) and the Barred Owl.

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Owls Florida Family Raised 150

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 18, 2015

Autumn in my part of the world means fantastic fall foliage, football, and apple cider. Unfortunately, this month offers a preview of winter weather. I saw snowflakes today. Ugh. At least that means winter birds are on their way. I’m loving the Tufted Titmice that must have summered to the north but returned to Rochester in time to raid my feeders.

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New York City 2015 New York Sparrows 150

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 15, 2015

October tends to be a rather windy month in many parts of the world. Keep your eyes to the skies… you never know what the wind may blow your way! I’ll be cooped up inside for too much of the weekend, which will preclude me from any reasonable measure of birding. Corey, on the other hand, cannot be held back from exercising his Constitutional right to observe avian activity; look for him anywhere in New York the vagrant winds blow.

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2015 New York Birds Rights 150

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 13, 2015

You know a bird is beautiful when Robert Tory Peterson describes it as a “ sparrow dipped in raspberry juice.” New Hampshire must have thought the same, for they voted the Purple Finch the state bird in 1957. Originally, the Purple Finch ran into opposition from proponents of the New Hampshire hen. However, Representative Robert Monahan was so passionate about the finch, and so scared that “ some other state beats us to it ,” that when he brought it up for public hearing

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New Hampshire United States Birds 2010 150

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10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 9, 2015

Boreal Chickadees. Ruffed Grouse. Black-backed Woodpeckers. Even in the off-season, a trip to the Adirondacks promises a bevy of delights for the downstate birder. And so I’m headed there for two weeks, starting tomorrow. What’s the first thing I’m going to do when I get there? Write an essay about the strange and wonderful urban Rock Pigeon , of course.

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Woodpeckers Fish Wildlife Birds 150

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 6, 2015

Since I live so close to the state line, it’s only natural that I do some of my birding along the Alabama coastline. I did a little research, and came across good birding reports on Gulf Park, so to Gulf Park I went. Turns out, Gulf Park is huge. To bird, my husband and I focused on walking the Hugh S. Branyon Backcountry Trail , a paved multi-use path that winds through the coastal forest.

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Alabama Bald Eagle North Carolina Woodpeckers 150

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 4, 2015

Last week we were visiting a local ephemeral lake when we were lucky enough to come across a Little Ringed Plover Charadrius dubius. It is believed that the sub species most likely to be visiting the north of Australia is curonicus. At this time of year in Broome the ephemeral lakes are rapidly drying up and are a hot-spot for all birds, so it is always interesting to see what shows up when you sit quietly and enjoy the environment.

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Australia 2009 Rights Species 150

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 3, 2015

Myriam’s Quetzales ! Are they her’s? Can there be a more enticing name than for a place that that? To be honest, quetzals aren’t seen that often right at Myriam’s but they are seen just down the road. You see, Myriam’s is located in what might be the Resplendent Quetzal capital of the world, the valley of San Gerardo de Dota, Costa Rica.

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Costa Rica Panama Nicaragua Honduras 150

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