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Grallards: New Zealand’s Next Extinction or Newest Species?

10,000 Birds

The obvious choice was the Mallard , that plucky familiar northern hemisphere species that is the father of the even more familiar domesticated duck. In fact, as the species was quickly identified as as creating hybrids with Grey Ducks, the opinion was by the 1920s that the species shouldn’t be released further.

Species 166
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Birds and Us: A 12,000 Year History from Cave Art to Conservation–A Book Review

10,000 Birds

2008 and this video recommended by the Ted Talk people: The Early Birdwatchers ), or the social behavior of Common Guillemots (what we North Americans call Common Murres) ( Bird Sense: What it Is Like to Be a Bird , 2012). Common Guillemot research at Skomer Island, Wales. Beagle , pt.

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Accessibility Matters

10,000 Birds

So armed with some knowledge from the “ Access Considerations for Birding Locations ” page on the Birdability website and some research, I twice visited the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge near Portland, Oregon with accessibility in mind. The refuge has an impressive visitor center that opened in 2008, so it is ADA compliant.

Portland 191
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A new genus for Calliope Hummingbird, the ‘little star’

10,000 Birds

My friend Erik Johnson and I recently visited the home of Dr. Jeff Harris — a birder and research entomologist — who has up to six different species visiting his feeders each day this season. The bee-like Volcano Hummingbird is one of three extremely tiny Central American species in the genus. Some authors (e.g.,

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Photo Essay: Green-rumped Parrotlets from Egg to Adult

10,000 Birds

Back in October 2008, in his first field job out of school, he helped a Cornell PhD student, Karl, with his dissertation on vocal communication in Green-rumped Parrotlets Forpus passerinus. Getting intimate with a species over the course of the breeding cycle is one of the more rewarding aspects of birding, and field research too.

Eggs 268
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“Keep your taxonomy out of my field guide” – revisited

10,000 Birds

Way back in the days when blog posts still got a lot of comments, I wrote a piece on why field guides that arrange species in a more or less strict taxonomic order regularly frustrate me. Taxonomy is constantly changing and so does the order of species in field guides. It was a nightmarish thing to do.

Brunei 155
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The Birds of Trinidad and Tobago: Two Guides, One Book Review

10,000 Birds

A little bit of research when I got home unraveled the ways of publishers here and in Great Britain. The first, Field Guide to the Birds of Trinidad & Tobago, was published by Christopher Helm in London in 2007 and then published in the United States in 2008 by Yale University Press. The AOU has not accepted that split.

Trinidad 195