10,000 Birds

AUGUST 10, 2012

I like bats. So when I spotted a large, handsome Hoary Bat grounded at the side of the path while I walked Muir early one morning, my first thought – after I determined that it was not dead – was “how can I help?” A different Hoary Bat, on a better day. It turns out, helping a bat is hard. She also told me that mine wasn’t the only bat they’d dealt with recently. Bat photo courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management a.

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Bats Wildlife Rehabilitation 2012 Missouri 57

10,000 Birds

JUNE 18, 2015

You may not have heard about the Florida Bonneted Bat (Eumops floridanus) , and that is fine, not many know this bat even existed. This bat is rare and range-restricted in South Florida, which are some of the reasons it was recently listed as an endangered under the Endangered Species Act. The Florida Bonneted Bat is the largest of Florida’s bats weighing 1.2 Florida Bonneted Bat roosting in Palm Tree.

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Bats 2015 Florida Cuba 59

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 17, 2012

I cannot get the Hoary Bat out of my head. Hoary Bats roost in trees, not caves. They are solitary, and their roosting habits may be the reason for their frosted fur and (relatively, for a bat) high-contrast patterns of coloration – in the open, with no safety to be had in numbers, they need to blend with lichen and break up their outlines to avoid predation during the day. So the Hoary Bat is migratory. Mammals bats

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Bats 2012 Iceland Stray 69

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 4, 2012

They are very destructive to the valuable trees and the garden’s management have been trying to move the bats along with varying rates of success. The mass of body parts beneath thier favoured roosting branches show that they are very efficient bat cullers. Grey-headed Flying Foxes have been roosting in a large colony in Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens for many years now and their popularity with visitors is matched by a reciprocal loathing from the garden’s curator.

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Bats 2012 Fox Owls 75

10,000 Birds

APRIL 29, 2013

On Saturday’s nature walk at Oakland Lake, a small park in Queens, Desi and I got to enjoy the antics of a very active Little Brown Bat before our friend Kerry arrived to join us. It was nice to get the opportunity to watch and photograph a bat in bright sunlight, and this particular example of Myotis lucifugus was amazingly cooperative. Little Brown Bat Myotis lucifugus. ……… Mammals bats Oakland Lake Queens

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Bats 2013 North America Oakland 55

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

were the site which the nasty hemorrhagic fever Marburg jumped from Egyptian Fruit Bats to some unlucky tourists visiting the caves. Luckily, we didn’t enter the caves ( you may recall this wouldn’t bother me any ), but merely regarded them from the outside, which is why we never actually saw any of the large pythons that live there, growing fat on the bats, and also perhaps why the connection between the caves and this nasty virus wasn’t made sooner.

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Bats Pythons 2014 Burundi 74

10,000 Birds

JUNE 27, 2011

Louis Hoppmann III has been charged with animal cruelty after hitting a gull with a baseball bat on the aptly named Folly Beach in South Carolina. He claims he was just trying to scare the birds away from his food, but that sounds like a post-hoc explanation to me… a. Asides

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Bats South Carolina Animal Cruelty Cruelty 56

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 25, 2013

And there aren’t just cool birds rocking up, migratory bats do too. A Hoary Bat. Jen and I looking at said bat (piccie by Adam Brown). Birding bats California Farallon Islands seabirds whales Autumn, or fall, as Americans persist in calling it, is not a season I am experiencing at the moment.

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California 2013 Sharks Porpoises 55

Critter News

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

Bats are being targeted. I don't get it. The Brits are known for their animal rights activism, but there's been a rise in wildlife crime against all animals. Apparently they are seen as nuisances. Badgers are being caught for dog-baiting. A bird species is near extinction.

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Badgers 2009 Wildlife Bats 100

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 22, 2020

Strictly speaking, Mammals of South Asia is not a field guide, because some larger groups (rodents, bats) cannot be identified down to a species level following the concise descriptions and a single illustration.

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Mammals Asia 2020 Sri Lanka 70

Animal Person

APRIL 24, 2009

But alas, we' re too important and special to "manage," and every human pregnancy is treated as a sacred, blessed event, while we kill the kittens inside pregnant feral cats every day without batting an eyelash, and in fact we're relieved when we can catch one who's pregnant, as that's x number of cats who don't have to come into this world.

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Project Treadstone 2009 Feral Cats Spay 100

Animal Person

NOVEMBER 18, 2009

Compassion" has been so diluted that most people don't bat an eyelash at the idea of " compassionate carnivores." Why all the quotation marks? Because I've been thinking about the evolution of my own thinking--and languaging--regarding animal rights. Both animal rights groups and animal welfare groups use "compassion" frequently. Then again, so do people who kill animals for a living.

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Compassion 2009 Psychology Tnr 101

Critter News

JUNE 20, 2010

For example, there was a higher-than expected number of bats passing away each year between 2004 and 2008, but the zoo didn’t do anything to decide why. Instead, it brought a new bat species into the exact place in the year 2009 — twenty-five of those creatures also passed away. We've written about the Calgary Zoo here before. Not a stellar reputation. Now, the results of a long-awaited audit shows that this place truly sucks and needs a lot of improvement. From eCanadaNow.com.

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Zoos 2010 Bats Goats 100

Animal Person

APRIL 26, 2009

And is video of a cow being pummeled to death with a bat worse than a cow being "processed" in a slaughterhouse? Vamsee Juluri, Professor of Media Studies at the University of San Francisco, takes me back to graduate school when he writes of the importance of the stories we tell ourselves in " Use Free Speech to Celebrate Animal Life, Not to Enjoy Their Suffering."

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2009 San Francisco Cruelty Vivisection 100

Critter News

MARCH 28, 2010

They’ve had to earn degrees in economics and sociology to learn to marry their causes with the human one – explaining, for instance, that humans depend on bats to pollinate or on coral reefs to support other marine life that is advantageous to mankind. "Earth Hour" was held yesterday. People were supposed to turn their lights off for an hour. I like this opinion piece from the Christian Science Monitor which calls for an "Endangered Species Hour."

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Endangered Species Science 2010 Species 100

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 23, 2018

A bat flew over my house a few days ago. That sentence may sound like the beginning of a horror story, but this bat bade well, serving as a reminder to those of us in the frosty north that winter eventually ends. Another sure sign of spring turned up just the next morning in the form of two Common Grackles stalking my lawn. Make no mistake, areas like mine have plenty of cold and snow still in store for the next month or two.

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2018 Bats Pennsylvania Birds 40

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 26, 2018

As October winds down, dark minds turn to bats and other creatures of the night. But don’t spend all weekend in the shadows. Birds are flying fast and far these days, and you don’t want to miss them. Somehow, I booked myself for another weekend of work, but I’m hopeful I can catch one of the last straggling shorebirds in these parts. Corey will be birding in and around Queens. How about you? Where will you be this weekend and will you be birding?

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2018 Bats Birds 43

10,000 Birds

JULY 15, 2014

But did you know that there is a bat that specializes in eating birds that are migrating at night? Giant Bats Snatch Birds from Night Sky. But researchers have now found evidence of a giant European bat that is plucking migrating birds out of the night sky. Several months ago, a group of bat researchers spent the night recording the sounds of a marshy Spanish forest.

2014 65

2014 Bats Los Angeles Feral Cats 65

4 The Love Of Animals

NOVEMBER 3, 2011

An autographed batting helmet from Philadelphia Phillies player and 2011 MLB All-Star Shane Victorino. The Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) is hosting an online charity auction until November 9th, 2011. Items up for bid feature a variety of one-of-a-kind experiences and merchandise. Proceeds from the sales will support ongoing programs such as chimpanzee preservation, and many more.

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2011 Wisconsin DC Philadelphia 100

10,000 Birds

MAY 2, 2013

Keep your eyes to the skies and you may see more than you expect (like bats against a bright blue sky !). No time to talk… it’s May! Birds are on the wing in a big way. Corey and I will both be patrolling our respective corners of New York state in search of the newest avian arrivals. How about you? Where will you be this weekend and will you be birding? Share your plans in the comments below. Whatever your plans this weekend, make time to enjoy SkyWatch Friday.

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2013 Bats New York Birds 61

10,000 Birds

MAY 28, 2014

There were opportunities to go to far flung places like the islands of the Pacific or the coast of Canada or the Yorkshire Dales… Anyway, as I was obsessed by Africa at the time, I leapt at the opportunity to go to Namibia to collect samples of bat DNA for a biogeography project. I would be going into caves, which were in my mind holes in the sides of cliffs, like you’d find in a good Far Side cartoon, and catch bats. I think we caught perhaps three bats.

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2014 Bats Vanuatu Namibia 55

10,000 Birds

JUNE 22, 2011

But the jawbone…that was from a bat! Oehlenschlager apologized that he couldn’t say the exact species of bat. It was either a big brown bat or a hoary bat. Big brown bat hibernates in Minnesota and was just emerging and the most likely candidate, but if the pellet was from last fall, then hoary bat would have been possible-they migrate and wouldn’t have been back to our state in mid April. But a bat?

2011 81

2011 Dissection Bats Minnesota 81

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 25, 2019

We’ve hit that part of October where bats hold more fascination. Good thing that Halloween hits just as migration activity seems to fall off a cliff. Still, don’t believe that the only possible treats in your near future have to be accompanied by the threat to tricks. Late October often sees oddball vagrants popping up where you’d least expect them.

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2019 Bats Birds 43

4 The Love Of Animals

JULY 28, 2009

But there were many things that I didn’t realize she needed right off the bat. This is a very important article from Worst Case Scenario: Dogs. Here is a snipet, but to read the entire article visit the link above. Everyone knows that young puppies keep you up all night, have to be let out to go to the bathroom every couple of hours, have accidents all over the house, chew on everything they can get their paws on (including cats), and don’t like being left alone at ALL.

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2009 Puppies Bats Dogs 100

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 2, 2014

With this weekend consumed by Halloween excitement, bats were more easily encountered than birds. How did you fare? Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend was a relatively common species though it was uncommonly cooperative. A juvenile White-crowned Sparrow is an expected bird in late fall in New York State but it is always nice when one sits still for a digiscoping session.

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2014 Bats New York Sparrows 64

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 27, 2018

Bat Falcon. Dressed to kill, the deadly Bat Falcon eats more than bats. The final days of October are naturally spooky, at least in the north. It gets darker earlier day by day. The Maples and Oaks are in a rush to drop their remaining leaves and “shut down” for several months.

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Costa Rica 2018 Egypt Bats 67

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 30, 2016

At least one weekend a year, bats–particularly the vampiric kind–command more attention than birds, at least from most people. Nature lovers, on the other hand, find time for wildlife watching every weekend. Just be sure to choose a Halloween costume that doesn’t obscure your vision too much! I saw lots of different kinds of woodpeckers this weekend, but that big, honking Pileated always wins out over the others for Best Bird honors.

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2016 Cattle Bats New York 57

10,000 Birds

APRIL 8, 2019

As Kaufman shows, however, to birds and bats, they can be death machines. Eastern red bats, for only one example, may actually be attracted to wind turbines; and unlike birds, they are often killed by “barotrauma” – their inner organs explode from the drop in air pressure as the blade sweeps past.). How blessed can one guy be? Not only is Kenn Kaufman a world-class birder and all-around naturalist who makes his living doing what he loves.

2019 67

2019 Ohio Legislature Bats 67

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 16, 2021

Bat Falcon – Falco rufigularis; Tirimbina, 9-Jan. 2021 is already well underway, are you birding? I hope so because watching a flock of redpolls bound through wintery airs that echo with the calls of crows is nature connection magic.

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Costa Rica Philadelphia Baltimore Parrots 64

10,000 Birds

MAY 29, 2014

Keep your eyes to the skies for raptors attacking bats ( it happens !). The month of May is almost over, and its passing must be considered bittersweet. For some birders, the last few weeks were nothing less than the culminating event of a long year’s anxious wait. Migration can be that brilliant. But now we ease into a different phase in the phenological calendar, one focused more on the birds that stay than the ones that simply pass through.

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2014 Bats Birds 65

10,000 Birds

JUNE 20, 2020

This is the only parrot in the Central Valley with a short tail, white crown, and bat-like flight whereby the wings are flapped below the plane of the body. Costa Rica is a country situated well south of the Tropic of Cancer and like most places without a winter, parrots are an essential part of the local avifauna. With 18 species of native Psittacids to choose from, birding in Costa Rica is always a thrill, especially for someone who grew up in parrotless Niagara Falls, New York!

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Parrots 2020 San Jose illegal 67

Animal Ethics

MARCH 29, 2008

Migratory birds protect forests and crops from insect pests; butterflies, bats and other migratory species are important pollinators. To the Editor: Re “ Thinning Yellowstone’s Bison Herd ” (news article, March 23): Yellowstone National Park bison, executed when they migrate outside the boundaries of the park, have plenty of company. Around the world, animal migrations are disappearing because of conflicts with development, agriculture and other human activities.

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New York Times New York 2008 illegal 40

10,000 Birds

MARCH 18, 2020

If it was any indication of where my passion lay, instead of racing home like the proverbial bat out of hell, I stayed put to monitor this supposed nest. I’m certain many birders would agree with me on the fact that the imposed self-isolation and social distancing requirements suit us just fine. Long walks far away from large crowds? Ears filled with birdsong and no industrial hum? Sign me up! Going birding is even more of a no-brainer now than before.

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2020 Battery Industry 2013 67

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 15, 2020

Sometimes, this one forages for insects and bats near street lights adjacent to forest. Growing up in western New York, February was one of the more tedious of winter months. It might be the shortest month but the continuing cold, snow, and dreary weather made it seem like one of the longest. Stomping the slush from winter boots, shoveling the sidewalk, extracting the car from a tomb of snow, those were some memories of February in the 80s.

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Costa Rica 2020 Panama Bats 67

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 29, 2015

Bats flying out of the Lazareva Cave, (c) Jovica Sjenicic. By now, the evening becomes chilly, so I join local cavers in the warmth of their container-bivouac with a bit of an overstatement of a name – “The Research Centre”, for a mug of coffee and a chance to observe a colony of bats flying out of the Lazareva Cave into the clear night sky of Saint Michael’s Summer. Following some bird call, I walk across the hanging deck bridge.

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2015 Bats Squirrels Woodpeckers 79

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 1, 2018

Up to 256 bird species, deer, black bears, foxes, big cats, Gila Monsters, and 16 species of bats call this area of southeastern Arizona home. ( Coronado National Forest. Santa Rita Mountains. Madera Canyon. Pre-Internet, I got all my birding info from print magazines; and WildBird was my go-to back in the day. One particular issue had a feature on the birds of Madera Canyon, Arizona.

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Arizona 2018 Tucson Bats 63

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 21, 2019

Those were some interesting additions to a day of birding that also gave us more expected ones like Bat Falcon, Black-collared Hawk, Bare-crowned Antbird , and 125 other species. It doesn’t get cold in Costa Rica. At least that’s how I see it but then again, since I grew up in a place that goes Arctic for a few months of each year, my personal position on “cold” might not coincide with the one held by folks in the tropical zone.

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2019 Costa Rica Bats Texas 64

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 31, 2012

Next time you find the light fading and resign yourself to a night sky filled with owls and bats, remember that some diurnal denizens like to stay out late too. Red-tailed Hawks have a habit of hunting well into the night if there is any available light and the getting is good. Gophers that live near streetlights beware. I suppose their light gathering abilities work well enough in dim conditions to create some overlap with the nightly arrival of their nocturnal relatives.

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Gophers 2012 Bats Owls 60

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 31, 2019

Bat Falcon! In January, we moved to a new place at a slightly lower elevation yet still located in the Central Valley rather near the main airport. As with any home inhabited by birders, we have kept track of all species heard or seen, night and day. Although that may sound as if we stand out there at all hours like a bino wearing sentinel watching the trees, most of our birding is typical yard list stuff; just keeping eyes and ears out for whatever avian things come our way.

2019 67

2019 Costa Rica Barn Owls Tennessee 67

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 19, 2011

Today starts the World Series where we face the formidable bats of the Texas Rangers and hope that the starting pitchers remember how to pitch and that the bats stay hot and the relievers as cold as penguins on ice. Forgive me for a momentary lapse from relatively straightforward bird-blogging. My St. Louis Cardinals, the storied National League franchise, have won their 18th National League pennant in convincing fashion.

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St. Louis Milwaukee 2011 Bats 56

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 20, 2015

Flight has evolved multiple times; it has emerged in lizards, snakes, fish, bats, maybe bats again, distant relatives of primates, regular primates, rodents, and a few other unlikely taxa, in a rather half baked fashion, not “true” flight. We are on the threshold, just stepping across it really, of understanding one of the most important evolutionary events that ever happened. I speak of flight, of course. This is a key feature of birds.

2015 75

2015 Rodents Primates Bats 75

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 8, 2013

It’s not just eagles, either; other bird and bat species also fall victim to the turbines.) As mentioned earlier in these pages , wind farms and eagles don’t always go well together—the birds, which often scan the ground for prey instead of looking straight ahead while they’re flying, thus don’t see wind turbines until it’s too late. (It’s

2013 58

2013 Eagles Farming Obama 58

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 29, 2019

The dirt road winds along hillsides, next to vineyards and through the pine forest with a lot of bat boxes. In a warm Catalonian March (I was about to say Spanish, but among quite a few flags, I haven’t seen a single Spanish one), Barcelona was filled with sunlight and full of Rose-ringed and Monk Parakeets , two charming but alien and invasive species.

2019 72

2019 Terrapins Rats Eagles 72