10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 7, 2023

Because, let’s face it, when you get off that plane and look at those severe volcanic landscapes and then find yourself face to face with one of the islands’ four mockingbird species, you’re not going to think, “Oh, look, lava and a mockingbird.” The updating of the text is very important.

2006 258

2006 Tortoises Sea Lions Sea Turtles 258

10,000 Birds

JULY 6, 2021

In 2012, I reviewed The Jewel Hunter , an absorbing narrative in which author Chris Goodie travelled throughout Asia, Africa, and Australasia to observe and photograph every Pitta species in the world. Hummingbird species, on the other hand, number in the hundreds.

Costa Rica 264

Costa Rica Brazil Ecuador Bolivia 264

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

The species was named after John P. McCown , who first collected it in 1851, but is more known for being a Confederate general in the Civil War. I suspect there is little opposition to changing the names of species with particularly sordid namesakes. After much ado , the name was ultimately changed to Thick-billed Longspur.

Birds 246

Birds Laws 2020 Jordan 246

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 2, 2021

The fish owl is an endangered species, and before Slaght’s work, very little was known about it, especially in Russia. (It It is also native to Japan, where it is protected and protectively studied to the point where Slaght had trouble getting any information.). Farrar, Straus and Giroux, August 2020, 368 pages.

Owls 139

Owls Russia Fish Research 139

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 7, 2021

This may have been partly a leftover from the Victorian fascination with egg collecting (the infamous passion known as oology), but probably more from people’s burgeoning interest in the nests and eggs found in their gardens and fields, gateway artifacts to a newer hobby called birdwatching. The first is accomplished well.

Eggs 239

Eggs Birds United States Sparrows 239

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 6, 2020

In most every one of his books (or articles, like those that were collected in his last book, A Naturalist At Large ) he poses a question about the natural world — often a question, like the central one in White Feathers, that no one else has thought much about — and then solves it. I saw it because I looked up.”

Eggs 131

Eggs Emotional Bats 2014 131