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Birding in a Hellmouth

10,000 Birds

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 155
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Poop From The Front End Of The Bird

10,000 Birds

He’s one of the managers of the specimen collection and loves a good dead bird mystery. He asked to take the pellet downstairs to do some comparisons to the collections. But the jawbone…that was from a bat! Oehlenschlager apologized that he couldn’t say the exact species of bat.

Bats 214
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In Defense of Bad Photos

10,000 Birds

Fortunately, I had managed a collection of very bad photos before the bird flew off. Of course, I can’t bat a thousand on the bad photo rankings. 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.

Mexico 193
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Isolation, a.k.a. Business as Usual

10,000 Birds

In fact, if I remember correctly, it was 2013 when I first noticed (from an office window) a huge collection of sticks at the crown of a large immortelle tree. 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.

Trinidad 232
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Birding Adventure in Mexico Part II: Durango Highway

10,000 Birds

This is where Gila Woodpecker and Yellow-breasted Chat meet Squirrel Cuckoo , Bat Falcon , and Black-throated Magpie-Jay. As the sun began to set, a flock of Mexican Parrotlets alighted in a tree with brilliant red bark, and we all noticed a Bat Falcon watching silently from a high perch above all the action down below.

Mexico 201
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What is a Jackbird?

10,000 Birds

The English language, or at least the adherents thereof with more time on their hands than sense, has bestowed us a great number of names to collective nouns for groups of birds. Conservationists pioneering translocation to a safe island managed to save the saddlback , but not the others.

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Mango loving birds

10,000 Birds

After we had collected the mangos that we could reach and brought them into the house to ripen we then started to enjoy a variety of birds eating the remaining mangoes that are too high to reach. Overnight the fruit-bats have been coming to the tree and invariably knock down the mangos from the top of the tree.

Parrots 167