10,000 Birds

MAY 1, 2018

You can blame the nice people at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, who took it upon themselves to send me a review copy of the Peterson Field Guide to Moths of Southeastern North America by Seabrooke Leckie and David Beadle. Moth plates from Peterson Field Guide to Moths of Southeastern North America. Let that sink in.

North America 100

North America America Oklahoma Missouri 100

10,000 Birds

APRIL 2, 2019

I like observing them, reading about them, grappling with species and subspecies identification, and even—on a good day—talking about sparrow taxonomy. Peterson Reference Guide to Sparrows of North America covers 61 species of the New World sparrow family Passerellidae that breed in Canada, the United States, and northern Mexico.

North America 155

North America Sparrows America United States 155

10,000 Birds

MAY 4, 2021

Marybeth learns as she birds, embraces listing goals as a means of engaging with community, unabashedly enjoys a little competition, struggles to balance her absolute joy in birding with unexpected, life-and-death family obligations. Adventures of a Louisiana Birder: One Year, Two Wings, Three Hundred Species. And there are the birds.

Louisiana 264

Louisiana Species Mississippi Alabama 264

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 3, 2023

It covers 403 species: 172 nonpasserine species and 231 passerine species in the Species Accounts, 198 species beautifully illustrated by the author in the Plates section. The scarcity of information on the young of some avian species is astounding. Woodpeckers are a family of focus for Tuttle-Adams.

Wildlife Rehabilitation 267

Wildlife Rehabilitation Birds Family Collecting 267

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 1, 2023

The official Ontario bird checklist, produced by Ontario Field Ornithologists , June 2022 listed 506 bird species**, putting it in the top tier of U.S. Small Species Accounts: Each species is allotted one page (with certain exceptions) offering basics–bird names and size, one or two photographs, and a one-paragraph description.

North America 222

North America Birds Owls Canada 222

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 18, 2012

A recent proposal ( 555 ) to the AOU’s South American Classification Committee deals with newly published information about relationships within the sandpiper family, Scolopacidae, and what it means for the classification of these wonderful, fascinating birds. But let’s take a look at how things are shaping up for the future.

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Family North America Netherlands New Zealand 183

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 20, 2013

For those of us in the Americas, nine-primaried oscines are among our most familiar and beloved birds: finches; sparrows, juncos, and towhees; warblers; blackbirds, meadowlarks, and orioles; cardinals and grosbeaks; and tanagers. Some scientists have lumped them all into one enormous family (e.g., Keith Barker, et al.,

Family 183

Family Blackbirds Groups Sparrows 183

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 6, 2015

Here are some things I’ve learned from the Peterson Reference Guide to Owls of North America and the Caribbean by Scott Weidensaul: The Burrowing Owl is the only North American owl species where the male is larger than the female, albeit, only slightly larger. The 39 owls include five endemic Caribbean species.

North America 231

North America Owls America Dominican Republic 231

10,000 Birds

JULY 20, 2022

The exploration of triads within the avifauna of Trinidad and Tobago has taken me through various families and species groups on this blog. On the smaller island of Tobago there are three species of woodpeckers and three species of woodcreepers – one of each is found on Tobago but not Trinidad.

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Woodpeckers Trinidad South America Hunting 250

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 29, 2013

So naturally, I got to thinking about kinglets, and their Palearctic kin, the “crests,” and where they belong in the avian family tree. The family Regulidae comprises six small, hyperactive species that range through the great boreal and temperate forests North and Middle America, North Africa, and Eurasia.

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Family Guatemala Mexico Japan 186

10,000 Birds

MARCH 15, 2021

That’s because this fascinating part-Caribbean, part-south American country holds well over 800 species of avifauna making it without doubt one of my top three countries in all of the continent to visit. Before I delve into some of these avian treasures let me give you a few non-birding reasons to visit this gem of South America.

Guyana 278

Guyana Otters South America Colombia 278

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 30, 2011

Not that I don’t enjoy seeing new species myself, it’s just that they are an easy target and I am nothing if not lazy and mean spirited. But there is one kind of tick that I genuinely do enjoy, and as I do more and more birding it becomes harder and harder to get; new families.

Family 164

Family Wombats Uganda Fiji 164

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 25, 2015

A new paper out this month attempts to paint the most comprehensive picture yet of the origins and diversification of the American sparrows, wood-warblers, blackbirds, cardinals, tanagers, and their kin, an enormous group of birds more than 800 species strong. We now know a lot more about who is a tanager vs. a sparrow vs. a cardinal.

Sparrows 261

Sparrows North America South America Blackbirds 261

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 16, 2012

Many of us in North America are facing the imminent departure of “our” hummingbirds for the next few months, though across the Gulf Coastal Plain, a few western hummingbirds are staking out winter homes, and hardy Anna’s Hummingbirds will do just fine along the Pacific Coast and in Arizona all winter long.

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Family Ecuador Costa Rica United States 206

10,000 Birds

APRIL 28, 2021

They’ve not wasted any time, having drifted northward from mainland South America only a few weeks ago. Perhaps his first attempt at raising a family – I’ll be checking on him in a few days! Some species have already fledged their young and are in the process of feeding the juveniles. Sounds like a party.

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Raised Breeding South America Family 264

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 3, 2022

Few places boast so many different bird species in such a small area — over 900 species (more than Europe, or all of the United States and Canada combined), including 75 different families, like 51 species of hummingbirds, 48 warblers, and 45 tanagers. It was close to 5 a.m., I was literally awake at 3 a.m., even 1 a.m.,

Costa Rica 252

Costa Rica San Jose Nepal Europe 252

10,000 Birds

MAY 25, 2022

Towhees are large, ground-hugging sparrows that occur only in North America. Earlier this month, I came across a family of Spotted Towhees (Olive-backed) with a couple of other strange aspects. The first was strange only on a personal level, as I had never before seen a juvenile of the species. But it still shows no spots.

Mexico 219

Mexico North America 2015 Sparrows 219

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 29, 2022

The stars of the bird world take many forms and fame is often related to location but some species, some cool groups of birds are accorded priority no matter when or where they are seen. One such star avian family is the Setophagidae, the birds known as wood-warblers. 13 Warbler Stars from the North. See our eBird list here.

Costa Rica 283

Costa Rica Nashville Tennessee Turtles 283

10,000 Birds

JUNE 16, 2021

The Trogon family (and order, since the order only includes one family) is quite widespread, being found in all the tropical (and some subtropical) regions of the world. Honesty requires that I confess to having seen none of these species. These species are visually very similar, with subtle differences in their tail patterns.

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Mexico Indonesia North America Arizona 192

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 30, 2015

When it comes to individual North American species, the old reliable trick of naming them after physical traits is in full effect. From his name is derived the name of the order Piciformes , the family Picidae , and the genus Picoides (as well as the genii Picus and Piculus , which include no North American members). Black-backed.

North America 155

North America Woodpeckers America Family 155

10,000 Birds

JULY 7, 2021

So I contacted him for the exact location, which turned out to be a beautiful 14-acre property that belongs to his family, and he kindly invited me over. and Canada and winter in northeastern Mexico, while the sedentary wrens of central Mexico, Central America, and South America are now to be identified as Grass Wrens.

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Barn Owls Owls Mexico Leopards 262

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 20, 2022

Instead, they usually just describe species seen at a specific location, with the vague notion that these descriptions might be interesting to other birders. It looks quite distinct compared to some of the other recently discovered species. I guess my sympathy is more with the Plain Bunting, if such a species existed.

China 218

China Birds Vietnam Asia 218

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 8, 2020

Guiding aside, Howell is a research associate at the California Academy of Sciences and the author of many books, including Petrels, Albatrosses, and Storm-Petrels of North America (Princeton). We have tended to a liberal (= realistic) direction when recognising species.” Well, this is one interesting claim. And now – the photos.

Chile 210

Chile Birds South America North America 210

10,000 Birds

MAY 6, 2023

Between March and May, we say goodbye to more than half our duck and wood warbler species, as well as about half of all our shorebirds, vireos, hummingbirds, buntings, sparrows, and orioles, and many members of other avian families. And there is some sweetness in these bittersweet months. They are our summer consolation prizes.

South America 175

South America Pigs Mexico Species 175

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 2, 2021

The text goes far beyond just those two birds, however, as Doug works his way through the puzzles presented by the incredibly wide diversity of bird behavior, even within species, citing current research and new and old theories, reasoning out the most likely and unlikely answers. Why are all the real tanagers in tropical America?

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Science Albatross Research Birds 225

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 17, 2022

According to the HBW, there are 41 species of African Barbets and 34 species of Asian Barbets. There are also 14 species of New World Barbets and 2 species of Toucan-Barbets (all in South America). T he Golden-throated Barbet (Baihualing, Yunnan) has an interesting species name, franklinii.

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South Africa Africa India China 217

10,000 Birds

JUNE 11, 2023

If you have much interest in birds, you may well have seen videos of the very comical mating dance of male Red-capped Manakins , a species whose range stretches from southeast Mexico to South America. For example, highland Michoacán has two gorgeous trogon species. This tree’s roots can be pretty cool, too.

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Mexico Woodpeckers South America Species 177

10,000 Birds

APRIL 5, 2019

But come spring, an even luckier few may even find a fellow survivor of their own kind with whom to start a family, unwittingly causing contentious debates among birders about the countability of established feral populations in the process. What’s in a name?

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North America Vermont America Farming 113

10,000 Birds

APRIL 5, 2022

It also summarizes the vagrancy status of every bird family in the whole wide world, which makes it fun to read as well as superbly educational. per cent of individuals of a species at a given time” and a vagrant bird as a bird that shows up outside of this range (p. The Family Accounts are the fun part of the book.

Birds 263

Birds Compassion Eagles Science 263

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 16, 2019

However, as DNA and morphological studies have indicated, despite the barbets of Asia and Africa looking quite like the ones in the Americas, they aren’t closely related to each other. The two families of New World barbets, the Capitonidae and the Semnornithidae, are actually more related to toucans. and the Prong-billed Barbet.

Costa Rica 176

Costa Rica Colombia South America Ecuador 176

10,000 Birds

APRIL 13, 2022

Wood-Wrens , birds of the family Henicorhina , are very small wrens of Central and South America that like to live very close to the ground, in dense forest underbrush or elfin forests. It’s a long drive, at least an hour of steadily climbing twists and turns; but there are high-altitude species I can only see there.

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Mexico South America Species America 201

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 18, 2021

All sorts of exotic and beautiful species may be seen. This would sound attractive even to me, except for one fact: almost all of those exotic and beautiful species are common down here in central Mexico. Southeastern Arizona is unusual, precisely because its species mix is as much Mexican as it is American.

Arizona 264

Arizona Mexico Los Angeles Dallas 264

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 24, 2018

It is a common bird of humid, lowland forest in Central and South America where it is usually found in the lower storey. It belongs to the Parulidae family, but along with the rest of the Basileuterus genus is non-migratory. This is a Golden-crowned Warbler , Basileuterus cucilivorus. The Rufous-capped Warbler, B.

South America 100

South America Argentina Stray Arizona 100

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 15, 2018

A couple of the biggest of bird families are restricted to the Americas. Just about anywhere a birder ventures, the miniscule members of the latter family can be seen, and in most tropical locales, it’s not just one species. Costa Rica is no exception. Purple-throated Mountain-gem. The female.

Costa Rica 223

Costa Rica Nicaragua Panama Honduras 223

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.

North America 279

North America Research Birds Groups 279

10,000 Birds

JUNE 20, 2022

Or would be, had I encountered more of them – so far, I have seen only a very small share of the approximately 233 woodpecker species, and got decent photos of an even smaller number – not much more than 10% of all of them. So, writing a post about them is easy.

Woodpeckers 242

Woodpeckers South Africa China Singapore 242

10,000 Birds

APRIL 15, 2020

I had a very nice visit with his family — so nice that I didn’t get to do all that much birding. I think I do a pretty good imitation of several other species, but, unlike the Trogons, they never seem to think the same.). I’ve shown this species before, but they keep begging me to take adorable pictures.

Mexico 176

Mexico South America United States Mammals 176