10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 1, 2020

One good thing about birding during a pandemic–the forced restrictions on place and time translate into more time to observe what birds do. Bird behavior–endlessly fascinating, but so much still hidden and unknown. Extreme behaviors also push scientists to look at birds in new ways.

Research 245

Research Birds Science Costa Rica 245

10,000 Birds

MARCH 3, 2020

One of these days, Jeopardy will feature a category called “Field Guides” and the first clue will be: “This landlocked South American country finally got its own bird field guide in 2016, but it wasn’t available in the United State until 2019.” Bolivia doesn’t come up much in discussions of birding travel.

Bolivia 187

Bolivia Birds Brazil Switzerland 187

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 25, 2017

For the last several years, I have produced a small run of calendars for my fiends and family. The ones that will be in the calendar, the elite 12 are selected by not only the quality of the image, but most colorful, most unique, and in the case of a couple of birds cut out this year, species that appeared in last years Calendar.

2017 138

2017 Culling 2016 Birds 138

10,000 Birds

JUNE 7, 2018

I have observed this species many times (my eBird says 28 times this year alone) and never had one landing near me. Before (May 2016, by Zeljko Stanimirovic)…. Cover photo : Made at the same place and time of the year, I observed this young White-tailed Eagle coming from the same nest in 2016.

2016 184

2016 Eagles Birds Otters 184

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 4, 2016

While acquiring our fragrant Balsam Fir , I was distracted by a variety of birds flying over. For the sake of family peace, I left my bins at home, which meant that the tastiest species I could put a name to was Dark-eyed Junco , which I’ll be seeing a ton of over the coming months. What was your best bird of the weekend?

2016 124

2016 Birds Owls Experience 124

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 6, 2022

They may be about bird eggs ( The Most Perfect Thing: The Inside (and Outside) of a Bird’s Egg , 2016), or a 17th-century ornithologist ( Virtuoso by Nature: The Scientific Worlds of Francis Willughby, 2016), or How Bullfinches learn songs from humans ( The Wisdom of Birds: An Illustrated History of Ornithology.

Dissection 242

Dissection Birds Research Europe 242

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 17, 2022

Within 140 ac / 60 ha of Rancho Naturalista’s Reserve, there are 500 bird species – or 55% of the nation’s total! While I already visited Costa Rica once, I do not feel overly-confident with its birds. And Verbena attracts another specialty bird and a regional endemic (from Honduras to Panama), the Snowcap.

Costa Rica 260

Costa Rica Rats Parrots Raccoons 260

10,000 Birds

MARCH 6, 2016

Some birds are leaving, making room for welcome new arrivals. I noticed plenty of species I hadn’t seen all winter, but was most surprised by an energetic Northern Mockingbird. What was your best bird of the weekend? Tell us in the comments section about the rarest, loveliest, or most fascinating bird you observed.

2016 100

2016 Sanctuary New York Woodpeckers 100

10,000 Birds

MAY 3, 2016

I purchased my first Sibley— The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America —in 2003. Am I willing to give up the field guide which bears the mud and dirt of so many falls on so many birding trips? Am I willing to give up the field guide which bears the mud and dirt of so many falls on so many birding trips?

North America 177

North America 2003 Birds America 177

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 1, 2017

The year 2016 is done and gone and 2017 beckons us onward, bright and new and shiny, hopefully full of birds. Here’s hoping everyone has a wonderful 2017, full of amazing birds and experiences. Here’s hoping everyone has a wonderful 2017, full of amazing birds and experiences. How about you?

2017 124

2017 2016 New York Birds 124

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 6, 2016

Birds know habitat. They don’t read treaties or draw maps or build walls and, as far as we can tell (since we can’t talk to birds, yet), they have no concept of political boundaries. Robert Gallardo’s self-published Guide to the Birds of Honduras came out in 2015, and is the first bird field guide dedicated to that country.

El Salvador 235

El Salvador America Costa Rica Honduras 235

10,000 Birds

APRIL 30, 2017

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. Phillipps, Q. & van Balen, N. Brickle & F.

Brunei 170

Brunei 2009 2016 2014 170

10,000 Birds

MARCH 23, 2020

Having finally found a Black Vulture for my Queens list , an important tick both because it was long overdue and because it was the tenth bird since my last set of predictions, it is time, once again, to look at what might be coming to my Queens list. Black Vulture – The bird that has been reported the most in Queens that I have never seen.

2018 167

2018 2015 Birds 2019 167

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 1, 2017

Birds of Kruger National Park covers the 259 species most frequently seen in the park, about half of the total number of birds documented there. Regular readers of 10,000 Birds may remember Jochen’s posts about keeping taxonomy out of field guides. The 224-page book is organized by habitat and behavior, not taxonomy.

Ecuador 184

Ecuador Wildlife Reptiles Birds 184

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 7, 2020

Happy New Year, 10,000 Birds readers and writers! Everyone is looking back on their best birds of 2019, so I thought it would be a good idea to look at a book that looks back a little further: Urban Ornithology: 150 Years of Birds in New York City , by P. The Bronx also has a special place in birding history.

New York City 161

New York City New York Birds Breeding 161

10,000 Birds

MARCH 1, 2016

India was not on my list of places to go in 2016. So, I birded India, land of Indian Peafowl , Saag Paneer (my favorite Indian dish) and Tigers. Neither are birds, but both involved a lot of birding.). I left feeling ecstatic over observing the birds. We still had our bins and our eyes and our patient guides.

India 189

India Tigers Birds Owls 189

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 2, 2016

All of these titles deal with birding in specific North American geographic areas: The Atlantic coast, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The photos show the forms of the bird seen on the east coast and are annotated with notes on plumage and other distinguishing field marks. It’s time for some short book reviews. Well, short for me.

Pennsylvania 181

Pennsylvania Texas Whales Whaling 181

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 4, 2016

British birders are very serious about birding and their birds. This is a very good thing; it means they publish a lot of books about birds (probably more at this point than U.S. This is a very good thing; it means they publish a lot of books about birds (probably more at this point than U.S.

Ireland 155

Ireland Birds Groups Falcons 155

10,000 Birds

APRIL 3, 2020

Being generally more charming and attractive to us humans, birds aren’t generally included among these unwelcome hordes. But there is one bird in history that has been associated – rather unfairly – with times of pestilence and disaster: the waxwing.

Farming 177

Farming New York Humane Europe 177

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 6, 2018

It actually makes a lot of sense, the geographic features of the isthmus between North America (including Mexico, because Mexico is part of North America) and South America cut across political lines, as do birds. It is the first bird field guide to every country of Central America (plus the islands governed by those countries).

America 214

America El Salvador Costa Rica Honduras 214

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 19, 2016

The year 2016 has been a pretty good year. I opened the year in California and even though I flew out in the evening on New Year’s Day I did see some species out there that I would otherwise not have seen for the year. Winter birding around New York City was just so-so but I did add one species to my Queens list.

2016 144

2016 Puerto Rico New York City New York 144

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 3, 2017

It was a good birding year. Many sad and unfortunate things occurred in 2016, but the birding was good. I started the year in Florida, traveled to India with the ABA in February, combined family and birding in an August trip to California, and in-between saw very good birds in New York and New Jersey.

2016 116

2016 India Ducks Birds 116

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 12, 2024

” But of course, with this slight adaptation, it also works for blog posts and their writers, and allows me to plug another nice song by this underrated artist, before switching to birds. The scientific species name of the Golden-throated Barbet is franklinii , commemorating Capt. Ok, I made that up.

Birds 196

Birds China Woodpeckers Breeding 196

10,000 Birds

JULY 4, 2023

I’ve been fortunate to encounter many owls in my birding life, sometimes because I’m looking for them, sometimes happily by happenstance. It’s also about human-owl interaction on an individual level and a wider sociocultural level, and ultimately how we can use all this for habitat and bird conservation.

Owls 231

Owls Science Barn Owls Penguins 231

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

Sometimes I just want to hug eBird, or more specifically, whoever writes the short species descriptions (even though I am not the typical hugging kind of person, trust me on this). The Plain Sunbird is the plain vanilla version of the otherwise often very colorful family (ok, a very low-budget sort of joke). “Dull, me?

Los Angeles 208

Los Angeles Birds Woodpeckers Owls 208

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 5, 2023

The photos in this post were taken in 2015 and 2016 – I was not only an amazingly attractive, almost young person then, but also a surprisingly bad photographer. I also only managed to see rather common bird species at Shennongjia, a nature reserve in Hubei province, China. Yes, it looks kind of plain.

China 187

China Birds Eggs Woodpeckers 187

10,000 Birds

JULY 21, 2021

Of course, I also go there several other times each year; I have, after all, seen 160 species at this endemic-rich site. The reason for this annual pilgrimage is a single species, the Sinaloa Martin. All sightings southeast of the species’ Puerto Vallarta-to-Los Mochis breeding area are of migrating birds.

2016 264

2016 2015 Nicaragua Mexico 264

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 4, 2020

Here are some of the things I learned reading Birds in Winter: . Birds who store food in advance of winter (corvids, t**s, and nuthatches) have a larger hippocampus (the brain structure that regulates memory) than non-storing birds do. Author Roger F. The book is organized logically by seasonality.

Research 181

Research Birds Hoarding Sweden 181

10,000 Birds

JULY 7, 2021

Whether it is birding tourism or simply spreading awareness about biodiversity, it is always with the aim of getting us humanoids to treat nature a little (ideally, a lot) better. A brief personal digression: I moved back into the house I grew up in back in 2014, my parents vacated at the end of 2016. Birds have also benefitted.

Opossums 264

Opossums Barn Owls Hunting Reptiles 264

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 1, 2020

I should add that the Big Owls taking over NYC social and even hard print media, dominating conversations with my nonbirder friends and family, are not the only owls in the five boroughs, but like a musical, the closer you are to Broadway, the closer you are to fame and fortune (and maybe even a higher quality rodent for dinner, who knows?).

New York City 206

New York City Birds Owls Fox 206

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 7, 2017

I’ve never been to the Indonesian Archipelago, but I really like the birds there. Lynx Edicions, the ornithological (and now mammal) publisher that gave us the Handbook of the Birds of the World , has now published Birds of the Indonesian Archipelago: Greater Sundas and Wallacea , by James A. So, this is no ordinary bird guide.

Indonesia 140

Indonesia Brunei Birds Malaysia 140

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 4, 2017

I managed to actually beat my year list total, as accounted by eBird, by one bird. I saw Painted Wolves again, my favourite species ever. I also managed to go to 10 different countries, so rather than arbitrarily pick my top 10 birds of the year, I’ll arbitrarily pick a top bird from each country. I bought a house.

United Arab Emirates 100

United Arab Emirates 2016 Ethiopia New Zealand 100

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 27, 2016

Another good reason to write in advance is if you are going on a break to see family and you don’t know if time will allow you to write. Not only that, but you may get time to go birding and you would not want to be sitting at a computer if you could be outside with the birds! They appear to be more abundant than in 1994.

Ducks 141

Ducks Birds 2016 Dogs 141

10,000 Birds

JUNE 6, 2017

The Peterson Field Guide to Bird Sounds of Eastern North America by Nathan Pieplow is innovative, fascinating, and challenging. The guide covers 520 species of birds regularly found in the eastern United States and southeastern Canada, including, interestingly, a number of exotic species. But, first the basics.

North America 182

North America America Birds New York 182

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

I recently asked whether Puerto Rico should be part of the American Birding Association’s ABA Area. Both Puerto Rico and the USVI have active birding communities that are currently excluded from full membership in the ABA family. Although different territories, they are nearby and share many of the same birds.

Puerto Rico 170

Puerto Rico Virgin Islands Hawaii United States 170

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 1, 2016

This is the thing—no matter how devoted you are to birds and birding, once you get to Africa, you can’t resist the mammals. This means you need to pack a mammal guide in addition to your bird guide. Species that belong to the famous “Big Five” get special badges. Believe me, I tried.

Rhinos 249

Rhinos Mammals Animal White Rhinos 249

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 7, 2018

What do you do when you are a bird guide in a Central American country incredibly rich in birds and other natural resources but which has no birding field guide? selling original art plates, and sponsorships and donations from birding and conservation companies and agencies from the U.S., You write your own. Gallardo did.

Honduras 107

Honduras Birds 2015 Family 107