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The Hidden Qualities of House Sparrows

10,000 Birds

In its natural old-world range, the House Sparrow offers an interesting identification challenge and has vagrant potential since it is a polytypic species with a highly complex taxonomy. The genus Passer has several well-recognized and recognizable species in Europe, and still holds several enigmas.

Sparrows 234
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Phillipps’ Field Guide to the Birds of Borneo: A Book Review

10,000 Birds

Did I dare dip my toe into this catalog of tantalizing species? Kinabalu (at 13,455 feet the highest peak in southeast Asia), and human development that has resulted in freshwater rice fields, secondary forest, and oil palm plantations, this means that Borneo offers an incredibly high degree of biodiversity. Now, I’m not so sure.

Brunei 182
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Best Bird of the Year 2014

10,000 Birds

I got to see a beautiful female and owlet on a trip to a secret nest location near Howard Prairie Lake (human-made nest structures have enhanced local breeding for these huge owls whose nest success is boosted to 83% on artificial platforms vs. 66% at natural sites). The experience, the place, and the bird combine to make this my BBOTY.

2014 202
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The Domestic Turkey and the First Thanksgiving

10,000 Birds

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 216
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What the Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds: A Book Review

10,000 Birds

” Writing about owls means writing about roughly 250 species (I counted 245 on the 2022 Clements spreadsheet, but I might have missed a few, and we all know that each classification system is different). The chapters on courtship and breeding and roosting and migration are the longest, which isn’t surprising.

Owls 231
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Birding the Kruger Park (2): Bateleur area

10,000 Birds

The one bird I did not see here, however, was the Bateleur Eagle … One highlight in the area is the Saddle-billed Stork , likely to be the tallest species in the stork family. Habitat loss, as documented by hieroglyphs. Hence, this species has earned the German colloquial common name “Nimmersatt”; meaning “never full”.

Ostriches 147
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Birds of Paradise and Bowerbirds: An Identification Guide?A Book Review

10,000 Birds

Greeney, also part of the Helm Identification series, it focuses on two avian families, combining the information necessary for identification with the latest research on taxonomy and behavior, particularly breeding behavior, and the latest conservation news and status. Introduction.

Guinea 264