10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 16, 2020

It was the month of March, 2017, when I went to Lake Cuitzeo to check up on our migratory waterfowl and shorebirds one last time before they travelled north to breed. But that time, I was shocked to find that about half the birds I had expected were missing — along with half the lake. Just part of one flock.

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Rights 2017 2020 Blackbirds 264

10,000 Birds

JUNE 8, 2011

Yellow-headed Blackbirds ( Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus ) are robin-sized blackbirds found in prairie and mountain meadow wetlands of the western and central United States and Canada. You can hear the Yellow-headed Blackbird call by clicking on the sound link courtesy of Xeno-Canto.org. Yea, I’m bad!

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Blackbirds Breeders United States Canada 177

10,000 Birds

APRIL 18, 2020

Our garden birds have taken to using the jumps and markers as lookout posts from which to drop on unsuspecting worms and insects. Lady Helen’s thundering progress kicked up the turf and brought opportunities for our resident Eurasian Blackbirds. The post Birding from home appeared first on 10,000 Birds.

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Birds Blackbirds Game Eagles 173

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 4, 2021

Construction is still ongoing at Nanhui, there are constant rumors that key birding sites will be made inaccessible … you have to take every Nanhui visit as it is your last (yes, another clichee). Still, there were a few birds there this September. Still, there were a few birds there this September. A juvenile male.

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Birds LACS France Japan 249

10,000 Birds

APRIL 26, 2020

Alas, these gentle rains may not always speed spring migrants on their way to breeding grounds far from the equator. We got out to Lucien Morin during a break in the rain and saw nothing more seasonal than Red-winged Blackbirds claiming their individual patches of marshland. What was your best bird of the weekend?

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2020 ALA Blackbirds Birds 175

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. Dale Dyer put in years working on his paintings for Birds of Central America , both in the field and in the museum. Howell utilizes the IOC World Bird List (v.11.2, Why are these issues? © 2023 by Steve N.

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Costa Rica Belize El Salvador Birds 233

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 8, 2019

Birdwatchers tend to like the rare, the exotic – yet many common birds are exciting as well. With that in mind, I would like to introduce what might be the 20 most common birds of Shanghai. If the Black-crowned Night Heron wasn`t fairly common in Shanghai, I think local bird watchers would plan weekend trips around it.

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Germany Cattle Blackbirds Birds 136

10,000 Birds

JULY 2, 2020

A Eurasian Blackbird is checking for the remaining maize seeds. A Common Chaffinch is singing, while one male Blackbird chases the other from his precious maize seeds. 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.

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Serbia Bears Birds Mammals 264

10,000 Birds

JUNE 6, 2022

So, the next blog post on Shanghai birds may turn out to be a lot more interesting, though of course with regard to bird migration, May is more interesting than June … As I am unlikely to see a live gannet any time soon, I might as well point you to the song “Nigel the gannet” by The Burning Hell now.

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Birds Sparrows China Abandon 147

10,000 Birds

MARCH 27, 2021

That unwanted yet predictable final bit of killing cold weather was and is why most of the colorful insectivores, the true birds of summer, remained far to the south until May. Baltimore Oriole- one of the more common wintering birds in Costa Rica. Typically, in Costa Rica, this swamp beauty is a bird of wetlands and mangroves.

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Costa Rica West Virginia Baltimore Virginia 264

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 10, 2022

For some reason that I do not quite understand myself – given that I really rather dislike children and am not too positive about the rest of humanity either – I recently put up a little display of bird photos inside my Shanghai compound, which I share (as the only foreigner) with about 1700 Chinese. Some Birds of Shanghai.

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Birds Fish Germany China 162

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 2, 2018

If you like birds on posts, if seeing “little brown jobs” posing nicely in the distance as you drive or walk along a dirt road only to have it fly away as you approach makes you deliriously happy, then North Dakota is the place for you. I wanted to see prairie birds and I wanted to experience a new state. Scott Barnes, N.J.

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North Dakota Birds Sparrows Blackbirds 152

10,000 Birds

JUNE 9, 2022

With the lockdown lasting until the end of May (ironically thus pretty much including the whole spring migration – the divine sense of humor is a rather malign one, I am afraid), June still had the freedom of birding anywhere in Shanghai, not just inside a smallish compound. Accessorizing for birds.

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Singapore Birds Mountain Goats Giraffes 147

10,000 Birds

JULY 18, 2014

Sometimes bird rehabbers who end up with tiny, semi-feathered little mystery birds end up playing a game called “Name That Bird.”. Hence: Name That Bird. Aha, Georgia, so it’s too small for a Carolina Wren and there aren’t any House Wren s in your area during breeding season.”. Blackbird mentality.

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Wildlife Rehabilitation Birds Georgia Kentucky 240

10,000 Birds

MARCH 17, 2021

The southwest peninsula of Trinidad is unfortunately rarely birded by visiting birders. Yellow-hooded Blackbirds and Yellow-chinned Spinetails were ubiquitous as expected, along with a few shorebirds in some isolated ponds. Bonus points if you figured out that the out-of-focus bird here is a Solitary Sandpiper. Such is birding.

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Sea Turtles Bats Turtles Trinidad 271

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 10, 2022

In the more normal years, I would spend January visiting the very best wildfowling spots along the Danube and seeing the best birds there are, so in February I would be well saturated with birds and feeling: Still winter? I observed White-tailed Eagles likely a few thousand times, and this didn’t strike me as the dark young bird.

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Otters Croatia Eagles Protection 264

10,000 Birds

MAY 30, 2012

When I worked for a wild bird specialty store, I was always baffled by the question from customers in spring, “When do I take my feeders down?” Most bird species cannot live by black oil sunflower seed alone. One of my all time favorite bird feeding moments involved a Blue Jay family. This is what you do.

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Blackbirds Birds Baltimore Breeding 242

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 3, 2019

What qualifies a bird to be included in the top-5? This version extended the list a bit and it turned out that almost every fourth bird was an one-monther. Somewhat unfairly, the second criterion was that I described the observation at 10,000 Birds. My first criterion was that I observed it only once during the year 2018.

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2018 Serbia Falcons Greece 119

10,000 Birds

JUNE 21, 2013

Birds, of course! ( The City of Henderson, which must be run by very enlightened individuals, has turned a bland old waste water treatment facility into a birding destination known as the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve, which is well worth a visit should you ever find yourself in southeastern Nevada. As Clare well knows! )

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Las Vegas Nevada Birds Blackbirds 219

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 17, 2017

There should be thousands of birds at this time of the year, Dimitris Michalakis from the Karla Lake management authority told me. In the northern section, the water was deep, interspersed by reed-islets, but the only birds were a few Little Egrets and Black-headed Gulls. Lesser Kestrel. I am trying to count them all!

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Greece Killing Pelicans Eagles 203

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 5, 2020

Just under a fortnight ago, I saw a report on the local bird alert of a sighting of a group of approximately 20 Nacunda Nighthawks at a wetland not more than 20 minutes from where I live. Striated Heron in breeding plumage – extra plumes and blue lores. Such is birding, such is life.

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Livestock Ducks ALA illegal 236

10,000 Birds

JUNE 12, 2019

That is because Lago de Cuitzeo receives a huge number of migratory waterfowl and shorebirds, with smaller numbers of sparrows, buntings, and other migratory birds in the areas around the lake’s shore. Not only are the species numbers good, but the spectacle of so, so many individual birds can be thrilling.

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Ducks Blackbirds United States Pelicans 117

10,000 Birds

MARCH 3, 2020

One of these days, Jeopardy will feature a category called “Field Guides” and the first clue will be: “This landlocked South American country finally got its own bird field guide in 2016, but it wasn’t available in the United State until 2019.” Bolivia doesn’t come up much in discussions of birding travel.

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Bolivia Birds Brazil Switzerland 187

10,000 Birds

JULY 7, 2012

Have you ever enjoyed one of those brilliant birding expeditions, the outing where every target species takes its cue with machine precision? Of course we’ve all experienced the excruciating opposite of such an excursion, but when waves of new birds practically clamor for attention in quick succession, the feeling is exhilarating.

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Trinidad Birds Fast Food Cattle 187

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 5, 2012

So, to cut things short, there is sickness all around me, and I have thus decided to have my February post whistle to that tune as well and give an update to the mysterious die-off amongst our Eurasian Blackbirds that occurred around my home turf in Heidelberg last summer – blogged about here.

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Germany Blackbirds 2006 Denmark 162

10,000 Birds

APRIL 14, 2018

It eventually warms up but in the meantime, it’s good birding anyways. “Good” in this case means lots of birds on the move. Flock after flock of blackbirds, ducks, geese, raptors flapping their way north. The birds also need it because this is when they build nests and breed.

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Costa Rica Blackbirds Texas Geese 100

10,000 Birds

MARCH 19, 2014

I had the pleasure of heading to the Winter Wings Bird Festival in Klamath Falls, Oregon last month and it was a good time. When you go to a bird festival to lead a field trip and you don’t live in the area, you are typically assigned a local guide who knows the best routes and what areas are going to be the birdiest. .”

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Bald Eagle Eagles Oregon Blackbirds 210

10,000 Birds

JULY 16, 2012

Several years ago, I was asked to visit my nephew’s preschool class and talk about birds. Jake lives in southern Florida, so he and his friends had to be interested in learning about these birds, which they saw everyday, right? How old were the baby birds? I chalk it up to the original baby bird book, P.D.

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Birds Owls Switzerland Lions 230

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 2, 2018

Happy Second Day of the New Year, 10,000 Birds friends! I came late to bird feeding. Jim Carpenter is the founder of Wild Birds Unlimited, the popular bird feeder and seed franchise. There is a lot of information out there about feeding birds—web pages, pamphlets from bird feed retail stores and Audubon centers.

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Birds New York City Squirrels New York 185

10,000 Birds

JULY 10, 2012

With the proliferation of those erstwhile invaders, House Sparrow , European Starling , and Rock Pigeon , there a lot of homogeneity among these species, which is a shame because what parking lot birds generally lack in beauty they more than make up for in charisma. But there’s still some regional biases for those who pay attention.

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North Carolina Fast Food Sparrows Birds 194

10,000 Birds

MARCH 15, 2012

John from A DC Birding Blog , and Patrick from The Hawk Owl’s Nest at Jamaica Bay at 8 AM Saturday morning for some birding. The Red-winged Blackbirds that were busy staking claims to breeding territory by singing from bushes, trees, and marsh plants were not groggy at all.

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New York Honduras Jamaica Geese 167

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 29, 2013

These two water management wetlands are amongst the very best birding and photography locations in south Florida. link] From the tangled scrub at the entrance to Green Cay my guests emerge on the boardwalk, cooing and ahing at the tameness of all the birds. And this is where magic happens from time to time. If not THE best.

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North America Factory Alligators Trafficking 238

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 4, 2011

He was a careful and vigilant bird, traits that had saved him from the hawks and the cats on so many occasions while those around him had perished over the years. But something happened, and it happened many times: Something has been killing our Blackbirds. Blackbirds are just there, everywhere, and always.

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Blackbirds Germany Shelters Rodents 154

10,000 Birds

MARCH 25, 2015

Blue-winged Teal breed over a large portion of North America but occur irregularly or at low densities in many portions of their range. The highest breeding densities occur in mixed-grass prairie and parklands of north-central U.S. and the prairie provinces of Canada, where the species is often the most abundant breeding duck 1.

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Sacramento Wildlife North America Ducks 152

10,000 Birds

MAY 12, 2017

When I was a kid, and couldn’t travel, I thought patch birding sounded dreadfully boring. Species #75 for Socrates Sculpture Park is Red-winged Blackbird. Because the European Goldfinches presently found in New York are believed to all be escaped cage birds or, at best, a handful of their first-generation descendants.

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New York New York City Illinois Wisconsin 107

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 9, 2015

There are many charismatic endangered birds that capture people’s hearts and imaginations: the colossal California Condor , the evocative Red-crowned Crane , and the adorable Spoon-billed Sandpiper come to mind. This is a short series that brings attention to these incredible birds, and my various adventures to try and see them.

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Brazil California Condor Parrots Texas 229

10,000 Birds

JULY 20, 2015

New York City in July provides limited opportunities for birders to see birds. That said, there are still chances to observe birds and my favorite way to do so in the summer is at the beach. I saw a Willow Flycatcher , several Northern Mockingbirds , and a bunch of Yellow Warblers. You won’t regret it! ….

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New York City New York Blackbirds Collecting 165