10,000 Birds

APRIL 2, 2024

The chapter titles of Feather Trails: A Journey of Discovery Among Endangered Birds represent both ends of the spectrum: “A World Full of Poisons,” “Malaria,” “Forest Intruders,” “Lead Shock,” “Shot.” Conservation. It’s not easy.

California Condor 199

California Condor Falcons California Birds 199

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 24, 2022

At some point, my stock of memories of birds seen outside of China will be used up, I am afraid. Even more than the African Grey Hornbill, they are forest birds. Any bird that apparently lives off turning around dung in search of insects deserves respect. Probably Wikipedia is more specialized on birds than the HBW.

South Africa 228

South Africa Africa China Seals 228

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 25, 2019

It has been a few years since I could share some good news about the Pied Oystercatchers breeding along the coast near Broome. Hopefully you won’t mind me writing a bit more this year about Pied Oystercatchers during the breeding season! The two eggs normally hatch at least a day apart and sometimes longer.

Eggs 141

Eggs 2000 Family Breeding 141

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 11, 2019

On Sunday morning, I was just lazily working on another post for 10,000 Birds – the (probably not much anticipated) part two of the most common birds in Shanghai. It was actually feared to be extinct until 2000, when four pairs of breeding pairs were discovered.

2000 135

2000 Eggs Collecting Breeding 135

10,000 Birds

JUNE 1, 2021

Audubon guides to birds have been around since 1946. The first guide bearing the National Audubon Society imprint was Audubon Bird Guide; Eastern Land Birds , written by Richard Hooper Pough, and illustrated by Don Eckelberry. Plate 28 from Audubon Bird Guide, Eastern Land Birds, by Richard H.

North America 279

North America America Birds California Condor 279

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 21, 2015

Heermann’s Gulls form large breeding colonies on arid islands in the Gulf of California, Mexico, from March through July. The largest colony exists on Isla Raza, where an estimated 90–95% of the total world population breeds 1. These factors have caused the IUCN to rate this bird as “Near Threatened” 2.

San Francisco 159

San Francisco North America Seals Sanctuary 159

10,000 Birds

JUNE 2, 2015

Producing a book about birds and nesting is a dangerous business. The truth is that there are few images cuter than baby birds in the nest opening their mouths and begging for food, but there are curmudgeons amongst us, myself included, who don’t like to admit this. And of birds courting and mating. We simply refuse to squee.

Eggs 263

Eggs Family 2006 New York 263

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 5, 2015

Egg harvesting to sell as food was intensive then, with thousands taken annually from the breeding colonies in Chile. Egg collection for local consumption still continues at lower scale. The initial decline in the Andean Flamingo’s population appears to have started as early as the mid 20th Century.

Chile 155

Chile Endangered Species Eggs Argentina 155

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 7, 2012

With populations plunging dramatically over the last decade, researchers from the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, Birds Russia, and a number of other conservation organizations made the always-controversial call to pluck eggs from the imperiled wild population and establish a captive breeding program as a final hedge against extinction.

Eggs 164

Eggs Russia Research Breeding 164

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 14, 2013

Like so many trips this one is more about the journey than the destination which brings us to why they have a guest post (hopefully the first of several) on 10,000 Birds. We hope that our journey will provide important information about many Neotropical bird species as well as inform conservation.”

South America 196

South America San Diego Mexico America 196

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 12, 2012

After 28 days of sharing the duty of sitting on three eggs we finally had the arrival of our first Pied Oystercatcher chicks for 2012 on Friday August 3rd. It is unusual for three eggs to be laid here in Broome and many eggs do not even hatch due to predation each season.

Eggs 178

Eggs Dogs Shelters Family 178

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 211

Trinidad Birds South America Research 211

10,000 Birds

MAY 29, 2011

Most of the breeding birds returning here will arrive within the next 10 days to two weeks. Right now it is almost all male birds, staking out territories, filling the tundra with song. Breeding is well underway and everywhere you look the Glaucous Gulls are, ahem, engaged or collecting grasses and sedges for nests.

Bald Eagle 126

Bald Eagle Iceland Owls North America 126

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 25, 2013

The Inaccessible Island Rail is perhaps the coolest bird that neither I nor anyone I will ever meet will ever see. Also from BirdLife International: In general it prefers areas where vegetation, boulders or other landscape features at ground level provide tunnels in which to shelter and to breed. Atlantisia Rogersi.

Science 221

Science Transported Shelters South Africa 221

10,000 Birds

APRIL 11, 2013

Peripatetic ornithologist Nick Sly has long been a friend of the blog here and has contributed such classics as Green-rumped Parrotlets from Egg to Adult and Forpus passerinus and the Ornithologists of Masaguaral. Would you support research on birds with just a click on Facebook? Juncos breed in much of the U.S.

Panama 226

Panama Research Investigation Chickens 226

10,000 Birds

APRIL 2, 2019

My review copy (well, actually a contributor’s copy—more on that later) was waiting for me when I returned from the ABA birding tour of Thailand and Malaysia (more on that in a separate post) in early March. The book does not include House Sparrow, an Old World sparrow that belongs to a completely different bird family. Mexico border.

North America 164

North America Sparrows America United States 164

10,000 Birds

JULY 3, 2012

Of course, I jest a bit in the above paragraph because as a sometime New Jersey birder I have birded the Delaware Bay and seen sights such as the memorable image below, in which thousands of Red Knots, Dunlins, and Short-billed Dowitchers fly up as if connected telepathically. million in the late 1990’s.

Delaware 186

Delaware New Jersey Research Eggs 186

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 20, 2023

This is the second part of a post showing some birds seen at Nonggang in December 2022, along with the usual (mostly irrelevant) comments. The poor bird’s Latin species name is macgrigoriae , apparently (HBW) named after Jane Grant McGrigor, the daughter of Maj. Sir James McGrigor (1771-1858) Director Gen.

China 248

China Birds Pythons Eagles 248

10,000 Birds

JULY 4, 2023

I’ve been fortunate to encounter many owls in my birding life, sometimes because I’m looking for them, sometimes happily by happenstance. It’s also about human-owl interaction on an individual level and a wider sociocultural level, and ultimately how we can use all this for habitat and bird conservation.

Owls 231

Owls Science Barn Owls Penguins 231

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 22, 2024

When not climbing, he collected species, and thus a number of birds are named after him. Three of them can be found on Mount Kinabalu, and local bird guides speak admiringly of colleagues who have seen all three of them on one day (we only managed two). Like the broadbill, Whitehead’s Spiderhunter is a Borneo endemic.

Birds 240

Birds Indonesia Breeding Charlotte 240

10,000 Birds

MARCH 13, 2011

This involves the sighting of these birds both here and overseas resulting in some incredible life stories. She also monitors Pied Oystercatchers breeding along a 23km stretch of beach by bicycle and on foot. These do lay eggs on land and are (reasonably) mobile once they hit the beach. Get yours today!

Australia 154

Australia 2011 Sharks Deer 154

10,000 Birds

APRIL 17, 2012

Oil begins to wash up on the beaches throughout May and June of 2010 May 6, 2010 Oil washes ashore on the Chandeleur Islands off the Louisiana coast, an important nesting and breeding area for many bird species. The babies that hatched from these eggs were released on Florida’s east coast.

2010 251

2010 Louisiana 2012 2011 251

10,000 Birds

APRIL 4, 2022

Strangely, one of the easiest birds to see on Chongming recently is the non-native Black Swan. Once the egg has been laid, the female is chased away and the males hatch it.” A juvenile, if I am correct – and a rather rare bird in Shanghai, this being rather at the southern end of the wintering breeding range.

Birds 230

Birds China Pythons Breeding 230

10,000 Birds

APRIL 7, 2020

The proprietor of our ecolodge guides my small group of birders up a steep slope where we see, just at the point where a scope view deteriorates into pixels, a huge bird—a Chaco Eagle, also known as a Crowned Eagle—on a huge nest. McWilliam realizes he’s dealing someone special, a career falcon egg-thief. Author Joshua Hammer.

Falcons 232

Falcons United Kingdom Zimbabwe Eggs 232

10,000 Birds

JUNE 7, 2022

The Eurasian Wryneck is the woodpecker that doesn’t look like a woodpecker, the bird with the portmanteau name that is also a medical condition (and which may remind some people of a Nora Ephron essay). They are slim and small-headed birds and their bills are fine, not strong and dynamic. copyright © 2022 Gerard Gorman.

Woodpeckers 253

Woodpeckers Hungary Thailand 2014 253

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 18, 2014

The vast majority of the 10,000+ living species of birds are passerines, and the vast majority of those have a similar system of breeding: Mom and dad bird make a nest and share parental responsibilities roughly equally, if not identically. …because cooperative breeding facilitates defense against brood parasites.

Breeders 216

Breeders Breeding Birds Groups 216

10,000 Birds

JULY 16, 2013

But there is one Cape bird that stands head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to character – the African Penguin. The early threats of guano harvesting and egg collecting have been replaced by the more ominous threats of oil pollution and overfishing of their favorite food source – pilchards.

Penguins 232

Penguins South Africa Africa Sharks 232

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 3, 2017

Are there birders out there who do not dream of birding Australia? Possibly birders who have already birded Australia (but, wouldn’t you want to go back?) or birders who live there (but, how can you bird it all?). So, I welcomed the opportunity to review The Australian Bird Guide.

Australia 111

Australia Birds Penguins 2015 111

10,000 Birds

JULY 10, 2012

Although extinction is a natural phenomenon, experts have determined that the current rate of bird extinction is somewhere between 1,000 and 10,000 times the background rate. Globally, 1,313 bird species of a total of count of 10,064 are threatened, a frightening 13% of the total.

Endangered Species 206

Endangered Species Species South Africa Morocco 206

10,000 Birds

MARCH 25, 2024

According to the eBird description, it is everything I am not: a “neon-colored, noisy, highly social bird” Shudder to think (not the bird part though). Next, this post has a long section on babblers, a very ill-defined category of birds. But some of them look pretty interesting.

Burma 213

Burma Birds Vietnam Laos 213

10,000 Birds

JULY 21, 2011

I was looking out a car window the other day and noticed that of all the wildlife most of it was bird. A squirrel skittered by … a squirrel is not a bird. So the thought occurred to me that there is a lot of bird on the landscape, in terms of numbers of individuals as well as sheer biomass. Paul islands, studied by Darwin.

Mammals 182

Mammals Rodents Birds Reptiles 182

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 9, 2013

The purpose of the trip was nothing to do with birds, it was to get some badly needed rest and relaxation. Mt Bruce, since you ask, is the Department of Conservation’s premier endangered bird breeding centre. Long-finned Eels swam in the rivers, and in their pens the breeding Blue Ducks where whistling away.

New Zealand 163

New Zealand Raised Endangered Species Rats 163

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 7, 2021

Once upon a time, bird field guides included nests. Decades later, Richard Pough’s Audubon Bird Guide, Eastern Land Birds (I happily own the 1948 edition) included nest and egg descriptions for each species as well. But somewhere along the way, nests and eggs got dropped from our field guides. Harrison. (A

Eggs 250

Eggs Birds United States Sparrows 250

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 6, 2016

At Sea With the Marine Birds of the Raincoast opens with the unexpected appearance of a Laysan Albatross. Having shown us the bird, the boat, and the water, Fox then introduces herself: “Albatrosses, petrels, fulmars, puffins and gulls live out their lives along these transect lines; my job is to count them all.”.

Fox 100

Fox Albatross Geese Bald Eagle 100

10,000 Birds

APRIL 30, 2011

Each year 120,000 birds visit the island to breed from March through August in burrows that riddle the landscape. A pair of birds in a nesting burrow share the parental responsiblities and change shifts under the cover of darkness. After mating, a single egg is laid and incubation duties are shared by both parents.

United Kingdom 162

United Kingdom Brazil Eggs Abandon 162

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 7, 2023

For birders, the Wolongshan area is like a poorer cousin of Balangshan – due to the lower elevation, the bird species here are more common and thus less interesting. I can confirm that the Indian Blue Robin – as stated by the HBW – tends to sing from deep cover – not ideal behavior for a bird photographer.

Hamburgers 229

Hamburgers Birds Science China 229

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 4, 2015

Well, a New Year has arrived and of course that means a new list for birds! It makes you aware of how a “common bird” can elude you for days or weeks! The adult Pied Oystercatchers were still at their non-breeding site at Gantheaume Point and will no doubt lay their first eggs for 2015 in the first week of July.

2015 196

2015 2014 Ducks Ponies 196