10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 23, 2024

There’s something wonderfully primeval about the Northern Bald Ibis: it has the look of a bird that really ought to be extinct. The fact that it’s not is quite surprising, as this curious bird has come very close to the brink. Sadly, they no longer breed in Algeria, while in Turkey no free-flying birds remain. (In

Morocco 235

Morocco Austria Algeria Germany 235

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 4, 2021

Each of the dark marks in this photo from August, 2018 was a duck. I am sure this means millions of individual birds were displaced by this drought event. But it actually showed the extreme crowding, into the very small remaining area of water, of birds that should have been spread over many dozens of square miles.

San Francisco 264

San Francisco 2018 Mexico Ducks 264

10,000 Birds

JUNE 20, 2019

Its crown was so thick, I could spot the movement, but only rarely the bird itself and never the whole bird, once it would be only its back, once its head, once just legs… slowly, I was putting this puzzle together. The first birds to spot from the boat were Common Terns furiously defending their newly built nests on floating logs.

Greece 200

Greece Pelicans Buffalo Fish 200

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 1, 2019

Happy New Year, 10,000 Birds readers and writers, listers and photographers, friends and fellow travelers near and far! Writing a post scheduled for January 1st for a birding blog is a big responsibility. On the first of the year, every bird is a new bird! It was a United States lower-48 birding year for me.

2018 167

2018 New Jersey Michigan North Dakota 167

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 1, 2022

A paper titled “Crested Goshawk Accipiter trivirgatus may adapt well to life in urban areas across its range in Asia” already made the same observation in 2018. When not watched by people thinking of the chick as cute, it eats birds though. Swinhoe’s White-eye was just promoted to the rank of a full species in 2018.

Birds 147

Birds China Eggs Breeding 147