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Birding the Kruger Park (5): Pafuri area part 1

10,000 Birds

One study found that birds living in Botswana had elevated levels of lead in their bloodstreams during hunting season, presumably coming from lead bullets used on animals killed by hunters. .” (HBW). Other – sadly rather common – reasons are habitat loss due to agricultural expansion and the use of some veterinary drugs.

Elephants 147
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The Bee-eaters of Africa

10,000 Birds

The wonderful family Meropidae contains 27 dazzling species, of which Africa is endowed with no less than 20 species, the balance occurring across Asia and with one as far afield as Australia. These beaters usually take the form of grazing herds of game and domestic animals, and large flocks of carmine bee-eaters may gather overhead.

Africa 262
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The Ole’ Bucket List

10,000 Birds

I actually have many targets, in a way, a I want to see lots and lots, but there is one species that the reason that the trip is even happening, the animal that has been pretty much the top of my animal bucket list for well over a decade. My animal bucket list hasn’t changed much either, for similar reasons.

Sharks 170
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When birds attack!

10,000 Birds

It’s actually a member of the family Artamidae, which includes the woodswallows (not actually swallows), the butcherbirds (not actually shrikes) and the peltops (which actually are peltops, since there are no others). Australian Magpies, like every other animal in Australia, are also dangerous.

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Frogs and Toads of the World: A Book Review by a Fairy Tale Junkie

10,000 Birds

As Mattison says, “Frogs are unlikely to be mistaken for any other type of animal.” For example, I was going to add “no tail” to the list of features above, what all frogs share, when I remembered that there are indeed a small family of Tailed frogs, four species in New Zealand and two in North America (though, the tails are quite tiny).

Reptiles 182
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The complete guide to Dodo relatives, living and dead

10,000 Birds

Not, as Linneaus thought, an ostrich, nor even, as later scientists concluded, a distant cousin of pigeons deserving of family rank, it was an honest-to-goodness pigeon, deeply embedded within the family Columbidae. The Dodo lived on Mauritius, an island east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.

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Birds of Kruger National Park and Wildlife of Ecuador: Two WILDGuides Reviewed

10,000 Birds

Both men lead trips for tour company Tropical Birding (Barnes is a founder), and they have also co-authored Wildlife of Madagascar (another WildGuide volume, 2016), Birding Ethiopia (with Christian Boix, 2010) and Wild Rwanda (with Christian Boix, 2015). Warbler Rainfrog is one of the few rainfrogs that prefers disturbed habitats.

Ecuador 166