10,000 Birds

APRIL 5, 2012

He writes about how experienced birders think, and how they draw on the sciences of weather, geography, and ecology to analyze where the birds will be. How to Be a Better Birder by Derek Lovitch Princeton University Press, 2012, 208p. Lovitch takes the practice of birding ten steps beyond. 53 color illus.

New Jersey 227

New Jersey Science United States Birds 227

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 5, 2016

Light blue boxes give brief facts on breeding age, strategy and lifespan. To an intermediate-level birder like me, the material in Better Birding –highly focused, detailed, based on the latest research and years of field experience– is daunting, but also fascinating. Green boxes offer Natural History and Taxonomic Notes.

Birds 189

Birds Groups 2015 North America 189

10,000 Birds

JULY 3, 2012

What I didn’t know was how this relationship actually works: the mechanics of Red Knot migration, the reduced digestive systems necessary for their long flighta, the need to fatten up quickly so they can fly to the Arctic and breed, how they compete with other shorebirds and gulls and, it turns out, humans, for horseshoe crab eggs.

Delaware 176

Delaware New Jersey Research Eggs 176

10,000 Birds

JULY 10, 2012

More than 150 bird species are known to have become extinct over the past 500 years, and many more are estimated to have been driven to extinction before they became known to science. Rueppell’s (facing left) and White-backed (three birds facing right) Vultures have worryingly leapt two categories from Near-Threatened to Endangered.

Endangered Species 183

Endangered Species Species South Africa Morocco 183

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 11, 2018

Several years ago, I read about the enormous colonies of breeding birds in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and I did some research to satisfy my curiosity. ( Google Scholar is an excellent resource and free full-text PDFs can be located for many papers, particularly when research is taxpayer-funded. It is helpful to have a sample paper.

Transported 113

Transported 2011 Research 2012 113

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 5, 2021

Consider that Paulson’s Dragonflies and Damselflies of the East (2012) covers 336 odonate species and think about the difference in geographic size and you get a sense of the concentrated diversity in Costa Rica (though the authors note that the rate of diversity is still less than the increase in diversity for butterflies and orchids).

Costa Rica 256

Costa Rica North America Family America 256