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Birding the Ndumo area, South Africa

10,000 Birds

It is not particularly big but has a reported 430 bird species including migrants, though during my short stay it seems I missed most of the key attractions among them. Pel’s Fishing Owl, where were you? Great White Pelican is not just the name of a non-existent glam-rock band but also of a bird species.

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2013 AOU North American checklist proposals

10,000 Birds

Let’s take a look at some of what lurks inside: Pygmy-owl split. Proposal 2013-A-2 would split the “Guatemalan Pygmy-Owl” ( Glaucidium cobanense ) of southern Mexico and northern Central America from the widespread Northern Pygmy-Owl ( G. gnoma ) on the basis of vocal differences and a discrete range.

2013 190
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Bring back the Blue Tit

10,000 Birds

I pushed for Wikipedia to adopt them, and then to follow the taxonomy, and given the dominance of Wikipedia in Google search results, this is no small thing. Then someone decided that the Canary Island birds were a separate species. Later, the North African ones were moved to the Canarian species. But the Blue Tit was different.

Iran 132
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Saving Jemima and Julie: a Book Review

10,000 Birds

— but there is apparently an entire literature about women who adopt wild birds and devote substantial portions of their lives and psyches to those birds thereafter, often for years and, necessarily, to the point of obsession. As she has done for many years and with more than twenty species, she adopted a baby bird, a blue jay.

Ohio 146
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Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America, Second Edition: A Field Guide Review

10,000 Birds

A Field Guide to the Birds: Giving Field Marks of All Species Found in Eastern North America was published in 1934 by Houghton Mifflin (note–Peterson was 26 years old), after being rejected by four publishers. Adding the 76 new species in the Hawaii section, this makes coverage of approximately 884 species.

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Happy New Year?

10,000 Birds

Combined with Christmas Bird Counts and (relatively) lavish year-end vacation time here in North America, the result is a time when we celebrate owls , finches , and sea ducks ; when the local corvids are cheerfully ticked again; when feeders are filled and the odd overwintering individuals from some surprising species are documented.

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Birds and People: A Book Review

10,000 Birds

As I explained to my nephews when they were younger, “The Burrowing Owls don’t think we’re their friends. People on one side of the rope, owls on the other.” Substitute Snowy Owl here if you’d like the modern version). The beautiful Bee-eater family, with its 26 species, is covered in a little less than two pages.

Birds 220