10,000 Birds

AUGUST 20, 2015

This map shows the distribution of the World’s bird species, based on overlying the breeding and wintering ranges of all known species. I live in the southeast of Europe, for a while lived in the south of Africa and also have extensively birded western and central India. Which leaves only East Africa. And it shows.

Sri Lanka 257

Sri Lanka Botswana Africa Serbia 257

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 3, 2021

There was a time when I thought each bird species had its own individual song. Then I found out that there was this vocalization called a ‘call,’ so I thought each bird species had its own individual song (but just the males) and individual call. Bird communication is a complex and evolving science. How do they know?

North America 279

North America Research Birds Groups 279

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 11, 2012

I’m sure you’ve all heard of Africa’s famous Big Five , but do you know there is also an equally fascinating Little Five ? Africa is famous for its large, charismatic mammals, and the Big Five epitomize the most sought-after of these fantastic beasts. This blog post will discuss both the Big and Little members of these quintuplets.

Buffalo 213

Buffalo Rhinoceros Elephants Leopards 213

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 28, 2020

Every year along the Atlantic Coast of North America, from June to November, experienced birders anticipate the exciting possibility of finding rare, tempest-tossed seabirds blown in from the tropics far north of their usual range. Admittedly, I nearly overlooked the bird on the bottle of Tamarindo Gose by Montreal’s Brasserie Dieu du Ciel!

India 174

India Squirrels North America America 174

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 26, 2017

I have just returned from Costa Rica, the country about which I knew very little, despite it coming under my radar all the way back in 1999 when the “Africa – Birds & Birding” magazine published some of John Graham’s experiences from his visit in 1993. With its 920 species, Costa Rica has 2.6 to great birding.

Costa Rica 190

Costa Rica San Jose Serbia Europe 190

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 23, 2014

Larry starts us off right with an owl that makes birders drool: I was able to see and photograph many great birds in 2014 but my Best Bird of the Year would have to be the Great Gray Owl , the largest Strix in North America. The experience, the place, and the bird combine to make this my BBOTY. I also blogged about that dreamy day.

2014 197

2014 Costa Rica South Africa Birds 197

10,000 Birds

JULY 10, 2013

The 1,500 km route included a great diversity of habitat types, elevations along the west and east facing slopes of the Andes, jaw dropping landscapes, contrasting microclimates, cultural diversity and a potential list of well over 1,000 species. Official presentation of our team: The Zululanders from South Africa.

Peru 258

Peru Birds South Africa United Kingdom 258

10,000 Birds

JULY 23, 2012

Neither of us had ever seen any species of hedgehog and it is no wonder that we were both surprised and excited to see such a cool little creature. There are seventeen species of hedgehog found across Europe, Asia, and Africa, the only places where hedgehogs are native. concolor once that was split from the European Hedgehog.

Hedgehogs 170

Hedgehogs Hungary Opossums North America 170

10,000 Birds

JULY 22, 2014

It was not a kitty cat, even though all of its relatives in the Americas were. The majority of wildcats live today in Africa, and virtually none of them have provided the DNA from which supposed histories of domestication have been constructed by researchers. But they don’t live in North America. Unless we put them there.

Feral Cats 256

Feral Cats North America Feral Cats 256

10,000 Birds

MARCH 8, 2011

Growing up within an hour of one of the world’s premier shorebird destinations -- West Coast National Park in South Africa -- helped for sure. Getting to know the subtleties in differences between closely related species takes years of dedication and practice. For me, there’s a few things that drive this fascination.

Florida 200

Florida South Africa 2011 Africa 200

10,000 Birds

MARCH 29, 2015

Excellent 10,000 Birds posts have been written about Pico Bonito and Honduras by Corey and Carlos , so I’m going to focus on some of my most memorable experiences. Our group got to see another species that is a master of camouflage on our trip for the Honduran Emerald. Which is why seeing them was such a great experience.

Honduras 256

Honduras Birds Costa Rica Groups 256

10,000 Birds

APRIL 25, 2019

Several times, the answer was “Africa”, which, being a continent and not a country, I excluded from the statistics, but will further comment below. 4%: Mexico, West Papua (Indonesia), New Zealand, South Africa, Kenya. Africa is a huge continent with varied landscapes and rich biodiversity. 8%: Brazil, Panama. 17%: Ecuador, Peru.

Papua New Guinea 214

Papua New Guinea America Costa Rica Sri Lanka 214

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 210

Turkey Columbus Spain Fowl 210

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

This is like Sibley calling his bird guide “The Sibley guide to Birds of Massachusetts and North America” The latter sounds silly, right? Those were amongst the most annoying field guides to use on the “continent” as so many potentially confusing species were left out. So what is one to think of the former?

Europe 166

Europe Mammals Animal Birds 166

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 4, 2016

The book is produced by WILDGuides, Ltd, the excellent book company responsible for over a dozen photographic guides on Britain’s natural life ranging from dragonflies to plant galls as well as books on Africa, Australia and other areas we all want to visit, and was published this summer by Princeton University Press.

Ireland 150

Ireland Birds Groups Falcons 150

10,000 Birds

MARCH 31, 2014

The island contains 80,000 breeding Sooty Terns, in addition to 4,500 breeding Brown Noddies and another 100 breeding pairs of the huge Magnificent Frigatebirds, not to mention pelicans, herons, Black Skimmers , other tern species, and so much more. Banding is best done in teams split into three, potentially four groups.

Birds 184

Birds Florida Groups Breeding 184

10,000 Birds

MARCH 18, 2011

This species is not only usually the earliest, but the most common. What’s remarkable about this species is what we don’t see here: the extremely long migration that this species makes, with some individuals traveling from Sub-Saharan Africa to Greenland and back every year.

Cyprus 145

Cyprus 2011 Deer New York 145

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 7, 2021

I birded savannas of Southern Africa, I birded India and Central America, and I always missed having a local mammal guide with me. No, Madagascar is the most famous for an endemic group of mammals: lemurs, sifakas, indri, aye-aye – in total, 112 endemic species and subspecies of lemurs alone! Yet, those bird guides are hefty.

Madagascar 253

Madagascar Mammals Lemurs Seychelles 253

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 3, 2020

I’ve been fortunate to see two Penguin species in the wild (African and Galapagos) and have dreamed of seeing more–maybe even all!–especially The goal of Around the World For Penguins is simple: Describe the 18 species of penguin and their breeding grounds “from the perspective of a traveller.”

Penguins 278

Penguins Georgia New Zealand Albatross 278

10,000 Birds

MARCH 11, 2011

Frigatebirds (Fregatidae) Five species of frigatebird ply the planet’s tropical skies and seas. Ringer Cormorants and Shags (Phalacrocoracidae) Cormorants are more speciose than other families in the order; 30-40 species range widely on every continent and many islands. Corey Mar 12th, 2011 at 8:29 pm Now wait just one second.

2011 155

2011 Pelicans Papua New Guinea Birds 155

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 2, 2012

And, to give his dream year a little more oomph, he created a grand once-in-a-lifetime goal: to track down and see every pitta species in the world in one year. That’s Pitta, people, not Antpitta, which is what I foolishly first envisioned, having never birded beyond the Americas.) And mosquitos. And leeches. And pit vipers.

Hunters 202

Hunters Sri Lanka Asia Solomon Islands 202

10,000 Birds

MARCH 1, 2011

One such controversial bird is the Veraguan Mango , a small hummingbird species that was, until very recently, believed to be a Panamanian endemic. Veraguan Mango by Carlos Bethancourt Although the Neotropical region supports fewer bird families than Africa, there are considerably more bird species here than anywhere else on earth.

Panama 216

Panama Costa Rica 2011 Cleveland 216

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 20, 2014

There is a total of 235 different bird species in Greenland, most of them are migratory birds with approximately 60 species breeding within the land. The Arctic terns are very enduring and have the longest bird migration from their way across the Atlantic Sea to western Europe and along the west coast of Africa to the Antarctic waters.

North America 180

North America Eagles Breeding Fish 180

10,000 Birds

APRIL 8, 2012

Catbirds are not the unfortunate result of unwise experiments with radioactivity. Catbirds are a group of rather distantly related species all named for the fact that they make sounds that remind some of a cat meowing. We can start first with what catbirds are not. They are not flying cats nor birds with whiskers.

Papua New Guinea 191

Papua New Guinea Ethiopia Guinea Cats 191

10,000 Birds

MARCH 4, 2014

Where did the Coney Island Gray-hooded Gull come from, Africa or South America? I kept wishing I had Rare Birds of North America , by Steve N. In this book, rare birds are species “for which, on average, only 5 or fewer individuals have been found annually in North America since around 1950.” And, not very often.

North America 259

North America America Birds United States 259

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 20, 2014

processed the entire genomes of 48 bird species and compared nearly 42 million base pairs of DNA (Hackett et al. Now we move on to the Neognathae , which also has two very deep branches that lead to all the other living species of birds. Erich Jarvis discuss key findings. ). were revolutionary for using 32,000 base pairs!) This is why.

Family 279

Family Birds Parrots 2014 279

10,000 Birds

MARCH 5, 2024

Not only is the book reproduction cleaner and the colors brighter, it is slightly cropped so that the bird jumps off the page at you, but also cropping out the species name. As I said before, the book plates utilize the species names used in the original books and drawings.

Australia 202

Australia Birds Europe Collecting 202

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 2, 2020

Its waterproof fold-able covers bring back childhood memories… I must have had some illustrated children book with similar covers – my fingertips remember the experience. For species with more than one subspecies in the region, the separate resident/breeding ranges of the distinct subspecies are indicated on the map. What I don’t like?

Japan 235

Japan Asia Birds 2000 235

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

Typically, at least here in North America, we think of migration as a north-south affair. In the High Arctic we find several migrating species that break that mould. They also migrate to and from the High Arctic, crossing the Atlantic to Europe, but they keep going, down across the Mediterranean into Africa.

Africa 204

Africa Somalia North America Nigeria 204

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 6, 2011

Adam will be leading 10,000 Birds readers on an amazing odyssey into Africa starting… now! To the uninitiated, Africa conjures up images of underdevelopment, poverty and hardship. I was fortunate to have been born and raised in Africa, and although I have traveled extensively around the world, it remains my home and in my blood.

Papua New Guinea 231

Papua New Guinea Madagascar Africa Equatorial Guinea 231

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 31, 2019

Perhaps you don’t know it yet, but with more than 1000 bird species, palm-fringed sandy beaches, developed tourism infrastructure, moderate prices and political stability, Thailand is a country you definitively want to visit. Among them are 20 endemics and near-endemics, and 58 vagrant species. And what do you need to pack?

Thailand 199

Thailand Zambia Birds Asia 199

10,000 Birds

MAY 15, 2011

It made us reach for our field guide for North America, but that really does not compare to the real thing. I did not get to appreciate all that America had to offer for the birder until I returned with my husband, Grant, in 1989. We have never been to South Africa, but it is a lovely book to look at and dream!

South Africa 159

South Africa United States Austin Alligators 159

4 The Love Of Animals

JULY 3, 2010

ADI, which has previously rescued and relocated animals in Europe, South America and Africa have described it as one of the most complex logistical operation they have ever undertaken but say it will be worth all of the effort when the animals walk free. The ADI rescue operation was backed by Bob Barker.

ADI 100

ADI Animal Defenders International Bolivia Lions 100