10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 8, 2011

” But the tanager brand is changing. Most of these birds are small, finch-like species with thick, conical bills for cracking seeds or eating insects. ” For these reasons, it is perhaps no surprise that bird bills have played a prominent role in their classification.

2003 213

2003 Sparrows Family South America 213

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 5, 2013

There were three profound questions my birding group discussed while we birded Trinidad and Tobago, back in December 2012: (1) How many Bananaquits could fit on a banana? (2) 3) What was the best guide to the birds of Trinidad and Tobago? The bird guide question was a conundrum.

Trinidad 196

Trinidad Birds South America Research 196

10,000 Birds

JUNE 27, 2017

From Florida to Maine and back again I toured urban forests, marshes, estuaries, and more, stopping along the way to visit family and friends. One particular resting place brought me to familiar birding territory: Pleasure House Point, Virginia Beach. As for me, I loved birding there just as much now as I did four years ago.

Virginia 100

Virginia Branding 2013 Blackbirds 100

10,000 Birds

JUNE 28, 2019

I brushed the screen of my tablet and the image of a small bird, bold in black and gray and chestnut, filled the screen behind me. No brand recognition at all.” ” Glancing at the man who’d interrupted, I remembered exactly how his family first made their money and decided to move ahead quickly. “Exactly!

Branding 159

Branding Falcons California Condor Birds 159

10,000 Birds

MARCH 11, 2011

Which, naturally, got me to thinking about the newly erected order Suliformes, a development I mentioned in my December column, 2010′s Top 10 Developments in Bird Taxonomy and Systematics , but which I thought deserved further examination, for it’s one of those stories that defines the era in which we are living and birding.

2011 153

2011 Pelicans Papua New Guinea Birds 153

10,000 Birds

JUNE 20, 2011

Paul is a great trip leader, an often hilarious character, and a member of the repeat winners of the World Series of Birding, the Nikon/DVOC Lagerhead Shrikes. Here he shares the story of how he became, um, interested in an odd part of the birding world. All he asked was for a description of my “obsession with pooping birds.”

Birds 171

Birds Delaware Iceland 2006 171

10,000 Birds

MAY 16, 2022

Not as interesting as birds, but easier to get photos of – see a few at the end of this post, just put there in an uncaring way as I really went to St. Lucia for the birds. I sometimes wonder why green birds are relatively rare. On the other hand, “at the same time birds want to blend in, they also want to stand out.

South Africa 202

South Africa Africa Saint Lucia Birds 202

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 24, 2020

Whisky Month at Birds and Booze: This January, Birds and Booze at 10,000 Birds is setting its sights on whiskies all month long. This boldness isn’t restricted to exchanges with other grouse, either: in some locales, members of this circumpolar family are astonishingly foolhardy around humans.

Sheep 199

Sheep Branding Ireland Fowl 199

10,000 Birds

JUNE 4, 2019

Last year I reviewed The Feather Thief , an enjoyable tale centering on the use of feathers in the Victorian art of salmon fly-tying, and how that led to the theft of priceless bird skins by one obsessed young man. The late Victorian age was not a good time to be an egret!

Industry 119

Industry Virginia Portland Campaign 119

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 22, 2015

A mozzie bites me, so I take the “Expedition Plus Insect Repellent” from my rucksack (when I think about it now, any local brand would probably be equally efficient, but they lack the word “expedition” which immediately turns you into a proper explorer) and start spraying my hands and neck. Very dusty Swarovski CLs.

Tigers 246

Tigers India Killing 2012 246

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 2, 2012

It’s my fantasy and it’s yours: Quit the job, say good-bye to the family, and bird. British birder Chris Gooddie, my new birding hero, not only dreamed the fantasy, he lived it. That’s Pitta, people, not Antpitta, which is what I foolishly first envisioned, having never birded beyond the Americas.)

Hunters 194

Hunters Sri Lanka Asia Solomon Islands 194

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 4, 2015

It is important when writing for respectable media sources, such as this site, not to jump to conclusions or resort to resort to stereotypes, even when dealing with birds. It simply wouldn’t do to describe all American wood-warblers and pointless fairy-birds or shorebirds as depressingly dreary indistinguishable blobs.

New Zealand 150

New Zealand Birds Branding Family 150

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 20, 2024

One night while camping in the Himalayas, the birding friend hears a Satyr Tragopan calling. He leaves the camp to look for the bird, and has never been seen again. Birders will ask: did he see the bird? Is birding a dangerous sport, an extreme sport even? She died in a car accident during a birding trip.

Mozambique 221

Mozambique Birds Ghana Namibia 221

10,000 Birds

MARCH 5, 2024

I don’t remember where I first learned about Elizabeth Gould–possibly when I was birding Doi Angkhang, Thailand and saw a stunning little bird named Mrs. Gould’s Sunbird–but I have been fascinated by her story and her art for the past five years. And I’m so happy I did. Twelve years!

Australia 189

Australia Birds Europe Collecting 189

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 5, 2017

The point is, the field guide I grabbed without hesitation was the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America, 7th Edition by Jon L. No other field guide to North American birds does rarities so comprehensively and so well. (To I miss the shorebird and get it a few days later, but that’s not the point of this story.

North America 184

North America America 2017 Birds 184

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 1, 2024

Personally, I wish the species the best of luck in this endeavor. (Of Then again, why would anyone name a bird after a botanist, let alone one I only just made up right now? However, the fact that there are 30 subspecies seems to indicate that the species has a slightly overblown estimation of its own importance.

Birds 192

Birds Research Science Europe 192

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 6, 2013

We can bird all over the world, and although we are not guaranteed a field guide to every single region and country in the world, there are a whole lot more of them than in the mid-1970’s, when world birders like Phoebe Snetsinger often had to put together their own checklists and guides. I couldn’t wait to give names to all my new species.

Ireland 173

Ireland France Breeding Eggs 173

10,000 Birds

MAY 15, 2011

I had spent several holidays with my family in the USA in the 1980′s and then worked in Maine during the summer of 1985-beware the poison ivy and the snapping turtles! It has the common names of the birds in English, Afrikaans and Eastern Bantu and Native languages!

South Africa 158

South Africa United States Austin Alligators 158

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 10, 2020

Whiskey Month at Birds and Booze: This January, Birds and Booze at 10,000 Birds is setting its sights on whiskeys all month long. In the above preface to Whiskey Month at Birds and Booze, we’re promised “rugged Celtic landscapes of Scotland and Ireland and the birds that inhabit them”.

Ireland 193

Ireland Branding Species Industry 193