10,000 Birds

JUNE 6, 2021

One bird species that we occasionally observe around Broome is the Yellow-billed Spoonbill, but we had not seen one for a few years until recently. We soon observed several bird species and then a Yellow-billed Spoonbill flew overhead. They are widespread throughout Australia , but it does not mean you necessarily easily observe them.

Breeding 243

Breeding Australia Cattle Family 243

10,000 Birds

JUNE 13, 2022

Apparently, the Rufous Whistler used to be known as the Rufous-breasted Thickhead due to its “noticeable breadth of cranium” The source website itself quotes its own source, the delightfully titled “The Useful Birds of Southern Australia”, R Hall, 1907. This is the most common swallow in Australia. .

Australia 204

Australia Birds Feral Cats Kangaroos 204

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 11, 2021

You can easily see that this blog post is trying to appeal to two very different target groups – birders and those who like independent/alternative music. I picked these cute Eastern Yellow Robins (Brisbane area, Australia). Next, band names referring to individual birds or bird families. The bird family, however, is not.

South Africa 235

South Africa China Germany Birds 235

10,000 Birds

MARCH 1, 2020

There is a variation in the plumage of Australian Magpies across Australia and as such they looked different in Victoria. Whenever I walked from Foster to Fish Creek or Foster to Toora I encountered several family groups of Australian Magpies. Late last year I mentioned the presence of Australian Magpies around Broome.

Australia 164

Australia Fish Groups Family 164

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 26, 2021

And apart from local people, primate researchers sometimes spot it, but it is a species seen by fewer than ten living birders. A few years ago, in the American Birding Association FB group I posted a question: Where would you go if funds weren’t a problem? Some are incredibly rare and hard to find.

Congo 264

Congo Africa South Africa Madagascar 264

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

DECEMBER 7, 2023

Several, like the mocker and the hummer, were members of families I hadn’t encountered before, either. It was a busy one, with birding trips not only to Europe, but also Central America, East, West and Southern Africa, South-East Asia and Australia. In the early 80s I led a trip to South Africa when we saw more than 400 species.

Sri Lanka 239

Sri Lanka Kenya San Francisco Greece 239

10,000 Birds

JUNE 2, 2020

It’s the bird family that most people don’t know is a bird family. For many years it was thought the two bird families were related taxonomically. It includes a table listing the species, subspecies, author and date of original description, which I found quite handy in sorting out the birds. Introduction.

Guinea 264

Guinea Birds Papua New Guinea Family 264

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 3, 2017

Apostlebirds- Struthidea cinerea have an isolated population in the Northern Territory which is quite separate from the population that runs down the east coast of Australia and can readily be seen in the town of Katherine and further afield. Grey Jumper, Happy Family, Lousy Jack and Twelve Apostles are names that can refer to them.

Australia 103

Australia Groups Family Species 103

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 8, 2013

If there’s one group of birds that just won’t let you be miserable it would have to be the Grey-crowned Babbler. They are usually in a group and our garden regularly has a family group of eight visit it. They are by far the most cheerful bird species you could have visit.

Australia 157

Australia Groups Family Experience 157

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 3, 2017

Are there birders out there who do not dream of birding Australia? Possibly birders who have already birded Australia (but, wouldn’t you want to go back?) The guide covers 747 breeding residents or regular migrants, 29 introduced species, and 160 vagrants, a total of 936 species.

Australia 108

Australia Birds Penguins 2015 108

10,000 Birds

JULY 21, 2022

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. The African Spoonbill is one of the six global spoonbill species, and the main African one (there are also some Eurasian Spoonbills in Africa).

Ostriches 147

Ostriches Parrots Birds Eggs 147

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 3, 2024

Called home to the Oregon Coast to operate the family motel, in her free time she leads Tufted Puffin walks and escapes to guide at birding festivals and explore the world as often as possible. Scissor-tailed Kites – while not threatened now – are a vulnerable species. Habitat degradation is a huge possible threat to the species.

Senegal 205

Senegal South Dakota Gambia Birds 205

10,000 Birds

MARCH 24, 2013

The Emu Dromaius novaehollandiae is Australia’s largest bird standing at up to 2 metres (6 foot 6 inches) tall. There had been good rains the previous year and as a result of that there were numerous family groups. Emu family on the other side of the fence.

Australia 181

Australia Investigation Family Groups 181

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 9, 2011

One common feature of the relationship between early explorers and colonists and the birds of the New Worlds was the tendency of said explorers to name birds after familiar birds from back home (although of course there was the counter notion that the same species deserved a new name – I’m looking at you loons/divers).

New Zealand 160

New Zealand Australia Penguins Family 160

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 26, 2015

Australia’s capital, set in the eucalypt-studded Great Dividing Ranges, has not got a fantastic reputation as an exciting place to be, but in truth its an attractive garden city with a lot of green spaces, parks, and other pleasant paces that make it a nice place to live. A great place to wander around looking lost with binoculars!

Stud 157

Stud Kangaroos Parrots Australia 157

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 14, 2012

True geese belong to the tribe or sub-family Anserini within the larger family Anatidae that encompasses ducks, geese and swans. The Cape Barren Geese of Australia are sometimes placed with the true geese and swans, sometimes with the shelducks and sometimes within a separate tribe called Cereopsinae.

Geese 183

Geese Ducks Botswana South Africa 183

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 22, 2022

Colorful bills and heads seem quite popular among Letaba’s bird species – see the African Jacana (blue and black) … … the Striated Heron (yellow and blue) … … and the Yellow-billed Stork (yellow and red). The Latin species name vermiculatus (worm-like) refers to the markings on the upperparts.

Zimbabwe 147

Zimbabwe Birds South Africa Benin 147

10,000 Birds

JULY 4, 2023

” 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). These are behaviors that are most likely to vary across species and topics that make for compelling stories.

Owls 220

Owls Science Barn Owls Penguins 220

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 18, 2012

They are one of the most attractive of Australia’s parrots, and one of the most common, benefiting from the planting of attractive flowering shrubs. The lake was filled with families of Dusky Moorhens and Purple Swamphens (or Pukeko as we call them in New Zealand), all tending small groups of black chicks.

New Zealand 172

New Zealand Ducks Australia Japan 172

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 1, 2012

More than a few groups of birds around the world have been given names with wren in it, almost as if the sight of a very small and active bird automatically associates with the small Winter Wren of England where most of the namers originated. But there is one exceptionally brightly coloured exception to this, the fairy-wrens of Australia.

Australia 175

Australia New Zealand South America Asia 175

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

Otto Finsch, when describing the species in 1874, wrote “I scarcely remember a bird which has puzzled me in respect of its generic position so much as this curious little creature” It has variously been considered a fairy-wren, and Australian robin, a bird of paradise and most recently a monarch-flycatcher.

Horses 166

Horses France North America Fiji 166

10,000 Birds

APRIL 8, 2012

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. Birds called catbirds include two species in the New World family, Mimidae, four from the bowerbird family, Ptilonorhynchidae, and one from the Old World babblers, Timaliidae.

Papua New Guinea 188

Papua New Guinea Ethiopia Guinea Cats 188

10,000 Birds

MARCH 31, 2013

We had last experienced this cheerful family of birds in Katherine in the Northern Territory over 13 years ago, so although the population is isolated there they had the same characteristics. They roam in family groups varying from eight birds upwards and have a certain confidence about themselves as they strut around the bush.

Investigation 166

Investigation Australia Family Collecting 166

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 3, 2014

Royal National Park, south of Sydney in Australia, is one such place. The tricky thing for me is that Royal NP is in the south of Sydney, and my family lives in the north of the city. Alas this was not to be, and this species remains one of my nemesis birds. One of Australia’s prettiest parrots, the Crimson Rosella.

Australia 177

Australia Ducks Parrots New Zealand 177

10,000 Birds

APRIL 4, 2018

We are spending some time here on my wife’s family property right on the water. The field guide I have been using touts 66 species of waders, including Sandpipers, Plovers, Oystercatchers, and Snipe. This picture shows a good sized group of mostly Bar-tailed Godwits flying just at sunset. Here is a closer shot of the Brown Teal.

New Zealand 100

New Zealand Groups Alaska Laws 100

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 10, 2014

This outstanding member of the wattlebird family is unique among songbirds in having different shaped beaks for each of the sexes. We’ll also keep our eyes open for several members of the New Zealand wren family. This species, the smallest, is endemic to North Island and should be fairly common in the wet lowland forests.

New Zealand 207

New Zealand Ducks Australia Mountain Goats 207

10,000 Birds

JUNE 27, 2014

Parrots captivate me more than any other bird family. For one, they are remarkably diverse with a little over 380 species spread over every continent except Europe (only introduced) and Antarctica. However, they do not occur evenly across their familial distribution. I am a self-proclaimed psittacophile. Most do not.

Parrots 168

Parrots Brazil Mauritius Dominica 168

10,000 Birds

APRIL 27, 2014

There are excellent birding opportunities along the highway throughout the year and the area still remains flooded from the rains over our Wet Season and it has been a breeding site for several species of birds. All three species of Ibis were present with Glossy Ibis far outnumbering the Straw-necked Ibis and Australian White Ibis.

Birds 165

Birds Geese Falcons 2014 165

10,000 Birds

APRIL 7, 2015

Every section is excellent, Going from back to front, the Species Natural History section is where to go for answers to all your questions about penguins and then some. The introductory Penguin Who’s Who introduces each species visually. And that’s just the top section!

Penguins 205

Penguins New Zealand South Africa Albatross 205

10,000 Birds

MARCH 5, 2017

Early in the Wet Season we had noticed the arrival of unusually high numbers of Magpie Geese and they are a species that don’t always make it to the Broome area if it is not a wet year. This was the first of many Magpie Geese families that we were to come across. Magpie Goose family-two adults.

Geese 100

Geese Breeding 2014 Eggs 100

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 23, 2014

When you monitor a species of birds over many years you learn a lot from your observations and you soon become aware of the fact that some birds are just better at parenting than others. They are still grouped together with their parents and there is a short “peep” as I approach. Three 3 month old Pied Oystercatchers.

Eggs 165

Eggs Raised Breeding Family 165

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 21, 2012

While New Zealand is famous for its endemic oddities, once upon a time New Zealand also had many birds from groups and families that are no longer found here. There were once two species of goose, a merganser, and a pair of raven species. Right from the beginning the species was something of a mystery. And eagles.

Eagles 102

Eagles New Zealand Bald Eagle Collecting 102

10,000 Birds

JUNE 4, 2017

Our recent bush-walking has involved some long muddy walks and are always productive as far as birds and wildflowers go and we have found several species nests. Our most recent encounter of an Australian Painted Snipe family was four birds that we accidentally flushed from under the shade of a bush near an ephemeral lake.

Breeding 100

Breeding Eggs Raised 2017 100

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 14, 2012

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. We have both resident and migratory species, and this post will briefly discuss each of the 20 species of African bee-eaters.

Africa 265

Africa South Africa Gabon Uganda 265

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 7, 2014

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. One species alive today offers a glimpse of such behavior: the Nicobar Pigeon ( Caloenas nicobarica ). .’s

Solomon Islands 278

Solomon Islands Guinea Mauritius Humane 278

10,000 Birds

MAY 14, 2014

First off, it seems that New Zealand’s two iconic families of ratites, large flightless southern birds that includes emus, rhea, ostriches, cassowaries and the extinct elephant birds, are not particularly closely related. More than came over from Australia, and a few more from the Pacific islands like New Caledonia.

New Zealand 163

New Zealand Penguins Sea Lions Lions 163