10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 6, 2023

As mentioned in many other posts on this blog, the avifauna of Trinidad & Tobago consists of several species and family groups occurring very interestingly, in threes. I hadn’t noticed this until I began compiling my own book on the birds of T&T some years ago, and I thought it rather uncanny. Well, kind of.

Trinidad 130

Trinidad Bats Falcons Groups 130

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

Birds of Belize by Steve N. Howell and Dale Dyer and Birds of Costa Rica by Dale Dyer and Steve N. An associated issue is that the Belize and Costa Rica guides share many of the same descriptions of species, written by Howell. Two books, two authors, two countries bursting with neotropical avian diversity. © 2023 by Steve N.

Costa Rica 212

Costa Rica Belize El Salvador Birds 212

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 19, 2022

Over the past couple of weeks I have spent some time exploring this section of my home island and have come to realize its tremendous potential in terms of birding. There aren’t many places in the world where one can observe rainforest-dependent species against the stunning blue backdrop of the ocean. Collared Trogon.

Trinidad 263

Trinidad Woodpeckers Bats Venezuela 263

10,000 Birds

JULY 27, 2023

When you have birded a single area as much and for as long as I have birded Michoacán, it becomes progressively harder to find first-time species (“lifers”) there. I had seen several species turn up in new and unexpected places there, but none of them were birds that I had never seen before.

Bats 130

Bats Mexico ALA 2020 130

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 13, 2014

Instead of going on about zip lines and other modern, adventure tourism attractions, the birding crowd talks about taking photos of Resplendent Quetzals , seeing dozens of hummingbird species, and the seemingly odd absence of raptors in Costa Rica but nope, we don’t really talk about extinction. Resplendence.

Costa Rica 217

Costa Rica Species Panama Birds 217

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 15, 2020

On the birding side of life, winter birds were still around, there will still chances at finding some rare owl or getting binoculars on an undulating bunch of crossbills but mostly, I was tired of the cold and just counting the days until Spring. In Costa Rica, February is a different birding story. Great Curassow. Great Potoo.

Costa Rica 234

Costa Rica Birds Panama Woodpeckers 234

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 4, 2021

When looking for birds in Costa Rica, the Central Valley isn’t the first place that comes to mind. Tongues and patches of green space host birds but most birders leave as soon as they can. Why linger when you can go where the birding is better? I can’t blame them, I would too.

Costa Rica 253

Costa Rica Sparrows Birds Rodents 253

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 2, 2024

Bird Day is a lovely, little jewel of a book. The idea is to portray one bird for each hour of the day in words and art, presenting the diversity, beauty, and wonder of avian life. Angell’s black-and-white illustrations bring sparks of energy and visual clarity to the fascinating bird behaviors described by Huber.

Chicago 178

Chicago Barn Owls Penguins New Zealand 178

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 22, 2020

I was lucky to visit India several times, but as a keen birder I carried along only a bird book, and even upgraded it to a new edition between the trips. Despite depicting 540 species/56 families, it is a lightweight book of 173 pages, easy to pack and carry. Larger species, that is, excluding dolphins and whales.

Asia 176

Asia Mammals Sri Lanka Bhutan 176

10,000 Birds

MARCH 8, 2023

I am here to write on birds, however, and I shall bat in my crease as the cricketers say. As a commemoration of this day, however, I do wish to share snapshots of several recent encounters I’ve had with female birds over the last couple of weeks. Previously I had only seen this species twice, and both were males.

Trinidad 222

Trinidad Bats 2020 Sanctuary 222

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 21, 2019

That’s where Costa Rica is situated of course and is partly why so many birds live here. It’s par for the course in December, Costa Rica, and unfortunately, often coincides with our annual bird counts. But, keep birding because cold fronts also bring in other stuff. It’s also why 60 degrees f.

Costa Rica 243

Costa Rica Birds Owls Bats 243

10,000 Birds

MARCH 17, 2021

The southwest peninsula of Trinidad is unfortunately rarely birded by visiting birders. Bonus points if you figured out that the out-of-focus bird here is a Solitary Sandpiper. We kept our eyes peeled for any birds of prey – Savanna Hawk , Grey-lined Hawk and Common Black Hawk were all expected. Such is birding.

Sea Turtles 254

Sea Turtles Bats Turtles Trinidad 254

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 27, 2018

Lacking the benefit of heated shelters, birds must heed that warning or perish. The coming cold takes a big bite out of life and is why millions of birds flee south to where summer reigns eternal. Even so, warm, friendly weather can’t stop a birder from choosing Costa Rica’s best birds of Halloween. Laughing Falcon.

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Costa Rica Bats Birds Falcons 160

10,000 Birds

JULY 12, 2023

All fades under the blinding lights of new backyard birds, however. Regular readers will be well aware that I am a huge fan of sitting at home, sipping coffee, and birding. The benefits of long-term observation of the same birds have fertilized my psyche in ways I never thought possible. Interesting.

Trinidad 229

Trinidad Barn Owls Owls Reptiles 229

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 27, 2021

10,000 Birds is running a series of articles by and about tour guides, tour companies, eco-lodges, and other birding travel organizations. We want to help the birding tourism industry come back strong from the COVID pandemic.

Costa Rica 239

Costa Rica Sanctuary Bats Woodpeckers 239

10,000 Birds

JULY 2, 2020

The graveyard shift is on duty: several bats are chasing insects through the evening coolness. The next morning, through Yellowhammers and Eurasian Skylarks singing all around me, I went birding. Yes, yes, I know, not countable – it’s not a bird. Never mind, it’s not a bird. The Song Thrush becomes silent.

Serbia 264

Serbia Bears Birds Mammals 264

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 think we caught perhaps three bats.

Bats 154

Bats Birds Vanuatu Namibia 154

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 1, 2018

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. 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. (

Arizona 139

Arizona Tucson Birds North America 139

10,000 Birds

JUNE 20, 2020

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! Fancy bird like this Brown-hooded Parrot are common in many forested parts of the country. Like 99% of parrots, this is a colorful bird with a loud voice.

Parrots 268

Parrots Costa Rica San Jose Endangered Species 268

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 6, 2023

After leaving our hotel in the dark, we arrived at the small dock about half hour after sunrise – making one of many salient points about birding in Guyana: the country is vast! And so we did, but every subsequent sighting was of birds blitzing past. Brown-throated Parakeet , my only sighting of a perched bird for the trip.

Guyana 142

Guyana Trinidad Bats Falcons 142

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 31, 2019

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.

Costa Rica 156

Costa Rica Barn Owls Birds Parrots 156

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 2, 2014

With this weekend consumed by Halloween excitement, bats were more easily encountered than birds. Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend was a relatively common species though it was uncommonly cooperative. What was your best bird of the weekend? Birding best bird weekend' How did you fare?

2014 168

2014 Bats New York Birds 168

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 29, 2023

I was drawn to São Tomé because of the large number of birds named after the island, and in particular the São Tomé Grosbeak. This bird had been extinct for more than a century before it was rediscovered – a Lazarus species! I was soaking wet – there even was water behind my ear drums – but the birds were amazing.

Emotional 218

Emotional ALA Bats Birds 218

10,000 Birds

JULY 7, 2021

Whether it is birding tourism or simply spreading awareness about biodiversity, it is always with the aim of getting us humanoids to treat nature a little (ideally, a lot) better. As a rule, any tree which sprung up at the fenceline was left alone – as it was highly likely it was planted there by bird droppings.

Opossums 264

Opossums Barn Owls Hunting Reptiles 264

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 9, 2019

An expanse of habitat as vast as Murchison Falls NP in Uganda, as excessively generous in beauty and biodiversity, permits endless ways to experience both its birds and animals. The Masindi Hotel holds the distinction of being the oldest and most historic hotel in Uganda and has some terrific birds on premises. Mind boggling, I answer!

Uganda 185

Uganda Senegal Africa Game 185

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 12, 2024

Memorable encounters with Mammals: Part I Most birdwatchers enjoy seeing mammals, but the trouble with mammals is that they tend to be much more challenging to see than birds. I remember the guide on my first Kenyan birding safari remarking that “birding groups always see far more mammals than those who come just to see animals.

Fur 183

Fur Bulgaria Otters Estonia 183

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 9, 2023

In total, there are eight species of hornbills in Borneo – the best place to see them seems to be the Kinabatagan River area (also known as Sukau). Another item they feed on is hunting edible bird nest swiftlets, which are quite common in edible swiftlet houses in Sabah, Malaysia ( source ).

Rhinoceros 126

Rhinoceros Singapore Transported Hunting 126

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 23, 2022

I was wishing I had a birding buddy with me as a mixed flock overwhelmed my abilities. Suddenly, a large bird, which seemed to have a bright yellow breast and black head, flew overhead to a point behind multiple branches. And then the bird was gone. But it wasn’t the day’s first FOY species.

Mexico 181

Mexico Guatemala South America United States 181

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 13, 2018

Although more than twenty thousand people around the globe who share the hobby or passion or obsession for watching the feathered ones also shared a collective day of birding on May 5th, we just had to do it again for fall migration. A “Tour de Birds” if you will. Violet Sabrewing, one of the species we saw.

Costa Rica 136

Costa Rica Argentina Bats Birds 136

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

The Durango Highway is arguably one of North America’s great birding roads due to the great variety of habitats, the spectacular mountain scenery of the Sierra Madre Occidental, and the numerous Mexican endemics one can target. There are many dusty side roads in this area, many of which offer productive birding.

Mexico 191

Mexico Costa Rica Arizona Birds 191

10,000 Birds

JUNE 22, 2011

Birds evacuate waste in many ways. Birds will barf them back up out of their mouths. Many are familiar with dissecting owl pellets, but several birds will caste a pellet including hawks, eagles, gulls, herons and heck, I once witnessed a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher hack up a small one. But the jawbone…that was from a bat!

Bats 203

Bats Dissection Owls Minnesota 203

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 18, 2020

And this doesn’t mean you are obsessed or a little bit too much into birds because keeping track of a year list actually comes with some side benefits. Yeah, many of us living the birding life do so anyways because we can’t help it. Lifers are in caps and the most outstanding species are in bold. Go birding!

Costa Rica 260

Costa Rica 2020 Morals Farming 260

10,000 Birds

APRIL 20, 2014

What are the world’s most distinctive birds? That question could be answered in several ways, but a new paper released this month — Global Distribution and Conservation of Evolutionary Distinctness in Birds (Jetz et al. The Oilbird today lives only in South America, but fossils of similar species are known from Wyoming.

Madagascar 276

Madagascar Comoros South America Ecuador 276

10,000 Birds

APRIL 2, 2014

When you read trip reports of birders going to remote and interesting locations to see interesting (and not so interesting birds, I’m looking at you LBJs), these accounts are typically written by people who have either gone with groups of like-minded people or those that have gone it alone.

Birds 183

Birds Bats Elephants Family 183

10,000 Birds

MAY 6, 2016

I asked a group of wildlife rehabilitators: “What are some of the Worst Bird Myths? Rehabbers are very responsive, although constantly living under the gun makes us sometimes vent about species that aren’t necessarily the ones in question. Bats just love to fly into human hair!” Feel free to vent!”. On to the avian world.

Wildlife Rehabilitation 177

Wildlife Rehabilitation Porcupines Raccoons Birds 177

10,000 Birds

JULY 22, 2017

Birds with white on them are much more likely to take the form of goodies like the Snowy Cotinga , or two species of tityras. Masked Tityra – the most frequently encountered small bird in Costa Rica with white plumage. The Caribbean slope of Costa Rica also differs from the islands in having a lot more bird species.

Costa Rica 100

Costa Rica San Jose Bats Birds 100

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 14, 2014

In September, I had the fantastic opportunity to travel to an increasingly popular destination for birding: Honduras. Chris Lotz, the owner of the international bird tour company Birding Ecotours , invited me to join him on a familiarization trip that included several highland sites as well as Pico Bonito Lodge.

Honduras 213

Honduras Costa Rica El Salvador Arizona 213