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Our Best Birds of 2020

10,000 Birds

Common Cuckoo is a fascinating bird, an obligate parasitic breeder that employs numerous strategies, including fraud and murder, to survive. It bears an iconic name associated with insanity and betrayal, but also with time and seasonality. A non-bird Best Bird of the Year? Preposterous! I saw the Cuckoo the second day of its visit.

2020 238
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De arte venandi cum avibus: San Martino Siir (2015) – Aglianico del Vulture DOC

10,000 Birds

Possibly the first documentation of a ship-assisted bird in history, undoubtedly sailing off the edge of the world. Of course, this fanciful story had been devised to explain the absence of nests in Europe by this Arctic breeder, but Frederick dismissed it as nonsense.

2015 113