10,000 Birds

JUNE 23, 2022

I saw two Pitta species at Hongbenghe, both among the slightly less glamourous among the pitta family: The Blue-naped Pitta … … and the closely related Rusty-naped Pitta. It seems that this is another species for which the standard phrase of scientists anywhere, “more research needed”, applies.

Birds 147

Birds Myanmar China Chicago 147

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. I get my own idea of the lunacy of Gooddie’s quest when I talk to a friend who has birded Asia and Africa. Each chapter of The Jewel Hunter reads like a mini-travel novel.

Hunters 188

Hunters Sri Lanka Asia Solomon Islands 188

10,000 Birds

JULY 22, 2014

That was a wild cat, a wild Wildcat, the cat that lives in the wild because that is where it is from and where it belongs, at the southern end of its pan-African range that extended at one time well into Europe and Asia. In North America, you’ve got Bears at the large end, Cats in the middle, and at the smaller end, the Mustilids.

Feral Cats 253

Feral Cats North America Feral Cats 253

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. Jonas D’Abronzo.

Costa Rica 264

Costa Rica Brazil Ecuador Bolivia 264

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 The fish owl is Jonathan Slaght’s grail and also, more prosaically, his dissertation topic. He wanted to do research that would have a conservation impact. So, Blakiston’s Fish Owl it was.

Owls 132

Owls Russia Fish Research 132