10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 31, 2012

On this final day of 2012 it is time, just like it was on the final days of 2010 and 2011 , to share your Best Birds of the Year. Here, without further ado, are your Best Birds of 2012, in no particular order. I even managed to shoot a video with hands trembling of excitement, probably a first of the species.

2012 133

2012 Ghana Ireland Birds 133

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 1, 2023

The official Ontario bird checklist, produced by Ontario Field Ornithologists , June 2022 listed 506 bird species**, putting it in the top tier of U.S. Small Species Accounts: Each species is allotted one page (with certain exceptions) offering basics–bird names and size, one or two photographs, and a one-paragraph description.

North America 203

North America Birds Owls Canada 203

10,000 Birds

MAY 3, 2018

According to Macauley Library’s migration map the overwhelming breeding activity for this species occurs north of the state of California. I think their breeding range may be moving South. This is a photo of a female who showed up in August of 2012 with some juveniles.

California 100

California 2012 Breeding Species 100

10,000 Birds

APRIL 29, 2020

Typical of the species. The last time I had seen a Summer Tanager was during a Christmas Bird Count in 2012. Both species seemed content to observe each other though. Bon voyage , friend, may you traverse the next two thousand miles safely, may you not encounter any glass windows and may you find a mate and breed successfully!

Trinidad 197

Trinidad Birds Squirrels 2012 197

10,000 Birds

MAY 16, 2017

A New York City Parks Department contractor just wiped out a breeding population of sparrows in tons of trouble already, on land owned by the parks department that was supposed to be protected as “Forever Wild.” This species is in too much trouble to throw away a breeding ground. Another is in the works. .

New York City 205

New York City New York Sparrows 2016 205

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

An associated issue is that the Belize and Costa Rica guides share many of the same descriptions of species, written by Howell. Similarly, descriptions of species repeated across volumes do not lose their accuracy with each publication. Other species are splits and lumped and have had their names changed. Why are these issues?

Costa Rica 206

Costa Rica Belize El Salvador Birds 206

10,000 Birds

APRIL 29, 2014

Despite our near constant doom-and-gloom prognostications we still manage to see wood-warblers, though most of April is spent looking at the several species that are early arrivals, mostly species that winter in the southeastern United States and therefore can get back to we northeasterns rather quickly.

New York 216

New York United States New York City Breeding 216

10,000 Birds

JULY 3, 2014

I was happy to read that the wood stork ( Mycteria Americana ), a bird near and dear to me, was down-sited from the status of endangered to threatened species. Fish and Wildlife Service is down-listing the wood stork from endangered to threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). However, birds in the U.S. Photo: U.S.

North Carolina 192

North Carolina Bald Eagle South Carolina Florida 192

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 14, 2021

Geographic patterns of species richness for birds (1,558 species) in East Africa at 0.25° resolution (blue indicates low species richness, while brown indicates high species richness). At the time of writing, Uganda has 16 hotspots with 400+ so far eBirded species, of which one has almost 600 species.

Africa 193

Africa Kenya Uganda Tanzania 193

10,000 Birds

MARCH 9, 2014

They have been here for several months and are currently changing into their breeding plumage and fattening up. It won’t be long and we will watch them fly off into the sunset as they make their journey north to breed. It changes into its breeding plumage and heads off, but has never been seen back in Hong Kong!

Japan 173

Japan 2012 2013 China 173

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 7, 2020

The book is divided into three parts: “Introduction,” “Avifaunal Overview,” and “Species Accounts.” The authors’ detailed delineation of problems with the accuracy of NYC breeding bird surveys or with the limits of historical writings may test a reader’s patience. Most birders will go straight to the “Species Accounts.”

New York City 147

New York City New York Birds Breeding 147

10,000 Birds

MARCH 22, 2016

Baltimore Orioles spend their winters in Florida, Central, and South America, and migrate north to breed in much of the Eastern United States. It’s true that many know the bird because of Baltimore’s baseball team, but the species’ history with Maryland goes back much further.

Maryland 103

Maryland Baltimore United States Legislature 103

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 16, 2014

The Veliko Ratno Island birdlist is about 170 species long, of which more than 90 were observed from the Dorcol Promenade. Highlight species: Ferruginous Duck , Goosander , Red-breasted Merganser , Red-crested Pochard , Greater Scaup , Velvet Scoter , Black-throated Diver. In March and November, Common Cranes are a possibility.

Serbia 228

Serbia Birds Ducks Eagles 228

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 20, 2013

Twenty two species are distributed among six genera, depending on what happens to be extinct, and for the most part one grebe is like another. This makes Grebes vulnerable to climate change and the predation of invasive species. It is easy to see how Minks set lose in a welcoming habitat could eat an entire species.

2010 199

2010 South America 2011 Argentina 199

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 19, 2017

We are also very much in tune with the local beaches and the tides and which species you can expect at different locations on different tides. This is very useful if you are looking for a particular bird species or even an individual bird.

2017 102

2017 Taiwan 2012 2016 102

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 24, 2015

. “The Pygmy Cormorant is a strictly protected bird species in Serbia, as well as in the European Union. It belongs to a group of species of special conservation concern, which under the European Birds Directive requires Member States to designate Special Protection Areas (Annex I species).

Serbia 178

Serbia Protection Europe 2015 178

10,000 Birds

APRIL 17, 2012

Oil begins to wash up on the beaches throughout May and June of 2010 May 6, 2010 Oil washes ashore on the Chandeleur Islands off the Louisiana coast, an important nesting and breeding area for many bird species. January 27, 2012 Reports leak that BP chose to hide its own internal estimates of the scale of the spill.

2010 228

2010 Louisiana 2012 2011 228

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 17, 2014

On the first trip in 2012 we used public transport to get there and the train conveniently gets you to Macarthur Square shopping centre and you can then get a bus that drops you right at the entrance to the park. We encountered one crossing the road in 2012, but with the cooler weather this year there was less turtle activity.

Turtles 165

Turtles Australia 2012 Litter 165

10,000 Birds

APRIL 3, 2016

You are then able to position yourself behind the shorebirds and enjoy their magnificent breeding plumage! It may look quite overwhelming to have so many species together, but at this time of year it is a lot easier to identify them than it would have been a few months ago when they were all pretty much grey!

Taiwan 115

Taiwan New Zealand Breeding Japan 115

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 11, 2014

This is perhaps the best place in Florida to find a rare gull for the state and though I had no luck picking a vagrant California Gull out of the teeming hordes I did enjoy myself as much as I did back in 2012. But my failure to find a rare species doesn’t mean that I saw nothing of note.

Florida 188

Florida Panama Wildlife 2014 188

10,000 Birds

MAY 15, 2011

Will it come back in 2012? What species is shown? Though wood-warblers, the mostly brightly colored birds of the family Parulidae, are only found in the New World we felt that birders the world over would be pleased to see a plethora of posts about these striking and sought after species. Below is the logo.

United States 155

United States South America 2011 2012 155

10,000 Birds

JUNE 19, 2019

My first year on eBird, 2012, exactly 20 people submitted checklists for the entire state. I also presented this site and species in my first two posts on 10,000 Birds.) As I mentioned in my previous post, to this day no one knows where the species spends the winter. To date, eBird has only 561 registries for the species.

Mexico 126

Mexico Birds 2013 Lamb 126

10,000 Birds

APRIL 10, 2015

In February of 2013, I wrote a piece outlining my thoughts on which exotic bird species should be added to the American Bird Association (ABA) checklist. In 2014, the Florida Ornithological Society Records Committee (FOSRC) voted to add this species to the Florida state list. Egyptian Goose sightings submitted to eBird in 2011-2012.

Los Angeles 154

Los Angeles Miami San Francisco Florida 154

10,000 Birds

JULY 25, 2013

There are some seven birds among the 100 most endangered species on the planet on the list of fauna and flora listed as the rarest by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Zoological Society of London – and this morning, I am after one of those! He asks if the wind generators can influence the bird numbers?

India 237

India Gazelles Endangered Species Pakistan 237

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 1, 2013

The story of the cahow, a “Lazurus species” that was thought to be extinct for over 300 years and then discovered to be breeding on a tiny remote island in Bermuda, is part of modern birding legend. In 1951, there were 18 breeding pairs of cahows discovered on three tiny islands. These are magical experiences.

Birds 165

Birds Rats Breeding 2012 165

10,000 Birds

APRIL 10, 2016

Both the grey morph and white morph of the Eastern Reef Egret were present and also ten Sooty Oystercatchers and our pair of Pied Oystercatchers that breed a few kilometres to the north of Gantheaume Point each year from July. Most of the Red Knot are in very good breeding plumage now and they do stand out very well on the grey rocks.

Taiwan 100

Taiwan Breeding Japan 2017 100

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 20, 2012

The very first thing we notice about this large member of the Galliformes is that there is a wild version and a domestic version, and although the two are rather different, they are both given the same species name, Meleagris gallopavo. This is not entirely unknown among domestic animals, but many domesticates have no living wild version.

Turkey 199

Turkey Columbus Spain Fowl 199

10,000 Birds

MAY 28, 2017

Here is a map of all Black Woodpecker observations in Germany and Luxembourg during the breeding season 2012 – 2017, generated with the best data base in the world, ornitho.de (ignore the colours, they do not show concentration but denote “proof of breeding”, “likely breeding” etc.).

Germany 100

Germany Woodpeckers Luxembourg North America 100

10,000 Birds

JULY 21, 2014

There is another area of the Queens County CBC where a team will also likely see Monk Parakeets , Myipsitta monachus , but I am seriously determined to count that bird for my area, Coastal Flushing, a section of northeast Queens, New York, that includes Whitestone, home of one of the loudest invasive bird species in the U.S. And cell towers.

Chicago 196

Chicago New York City New York Illinois 196

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

There are 35 raptor species that have a presence in the United States and Canada, 56 (more or less) if you count by subspecies, and they are all covered in admirable, exhausting, unbelievable detail in B irds of Prey of the East: A Field Guide and Birds of Prey of the West: A Field Guide by Brian K. Species Accounts.

North America 186

North America Birds Mississippi Bald Eagle 186

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 5, 2016

All species are from the ABA area, and all groups must meet at least one of these criteria: (1) the group “represented a good opportunity to build core birding skills,” (2) the authors thought it was a group that needed “a refreshed treatment,” (3) the authors were intrigued by the group and wanted to present it using their unique format.

Birds 189

Birds Groups 2015 North America 189

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 21, 2016

I am not entirely sure whether most birders outside Germany know or realize that Germany still has a decent population of one of Europe’s most attractive and desired bird species: the Great Bustard Otis tarda. I’ve once seen Grey Partridges there, and the meadows have breeding Montague’s Harriers.

Germany 101

Germany Abandon Abandoning Abandonment 101

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 5, 2013

There were three profound questions my birding group discussed while we birded Trinidad and Tobago, back in December 2012: (1) How many Bananaquits could fit on a banana? (2) And, to make things even more confusing, why did Ian’s 2012 ffrench guide list the motmot under its old name, Blue-crowned Motmot? . I was confused.

Trinidad 190

Trinidad Birds South America Research 190

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 23, 2015

Since discovering our first Pied Oystercatcher nest on Cable Beach in July 2000 we have observed the breeding of these local shorebirds along the coast between Gantheaume Point in the south and Willie Creek in the north, which is a distance of 23 kilometres. The last time they successfully raised a chick was in 2012.

Feral Cats 158

Feral Cats Eggs Feral Cats 158

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 11, 2014

Up to the mid-20th century, Pygmy Cormorants were a common breeding species of wetlands around Belgrade… until the wetlands were drained and the birds were lost, at one moment – from the whole of Serbia. Their mortality was huge, but I realised how huge only when we did the December 2012 census to find only 1300 PCs.

Serbia 190

Serbia Protection Legislation Europe 190

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. The Gray Crowned-Crane is a new addition to the list of the world’s Endangered species, creeping up a category from Vulnerable.

Endangered Species 185

Endangered Species Species Morocco South Africa 185

10,000 Birds

JUNE 7, 2012

A lovely looking and distinctive sounding bird (so they say, I sadly have not seen one…yet), the Kirtland’s Warbler can only be found during its breeding season in Jack Pine forests 5 to 20 years old in the northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan. Fish and Wildlife Service endangered species list. Jackson, 2012. photo by Lynn C.

Michigan 223

Michigan Bahamas Endangered Species Research 223