10,000 Birds

JUNE 24, 2012

One of the really great things about living in the Arctic, and loving to watch and photograph birds, is that you can bird in the middle of the night if you so desire. I know you can bird in dark in New York and Newcastle, Weyburn and Walla Walla. I’m talking about full on, need sunglasses, no need for high ISO, birding.

Bald Eagle 173

Bald Eagle Breeding Raised Whales 173

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 4, 2016

British birders are very serious about birding and their birds. This is a very good thing; it means they publish a lot of books about birds (probably more at this point than U.S. This is a very good thing; it means they publish a lot of books about birds (probably more at this point than U.S.

Ireland 150

Ireland Birds Groups Falcons 150

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 2, 2014

Three owls have already had the devices attached and some pretty interesting data is being collected. So they are raising money to buy more. We at 10,000 Birds figured that you, our readers, are getting so much enjoyment out of the Snowy Owls that you would be more than willing to pitch in some money. That is not cheap.

Owls 219

Owls Research Science Collecting 219

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

MARCH 13, 2012

“ There is, perhaps, no better place in the world for birds than this country. Despite discovering dozens of bird species, he is however not remembered in any English names of birds. Wahlberg travelled even more extensively and amassed a huge bird collection. Image by Hugh Chittenden. Image by Adam Riley.

Mozambique 195

Mozambique South Africa Africa Collecting 195

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 8, 2011

This is particularly poignant if the bird has disappeared during the course of my birding days or “on my watch” as I like to think of it. Islands, for various reasons, experience more extinctions than continents (with Africa being the only continent not suffering a bird extinction!).

Madagascar 246

Madagascar Lemurs 2006 Owls 246

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 12, 2012

It is at the same time of year that the migratory shorebirds that spend part of each year in Broome are also breeding, but in the Arctic. The birds immediately flew down towards the dog and tried very hard to tease it and make it follow, but it had no intention in doing that.

Eggs 177

Eggs Dogs Shelters Family 177

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 242

China Birds Pythons Eagles 242

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 235

Birds Indonesia Breeding Charlotte 235

10,000 Birds

MAY 11, 2021

On April 16, 2021, the Diversity and Inclusion Committee of the American Ornithological Society (AOS), had a “ Community Congress on English Bird Names ” to discuss whether certain bird names should be changed and, if so, how quickly. Moreover, bird names exist within a larger culture, so changing them might have limited impact.

Birds 264

Birds Russia Hawaii Woodpeckers 264

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 224

Owls Science Barn Owls Penguins 224

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. You simply cannot bird the Delaware Bay and walk away unaffected.

Delaware 183

Delaware New Jersey Research Eggs 183

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 26, 2021

This book is essentially about those birds that breed on the continent south of the Sahara, a topic few birders are familiar with. A few years ago, in the American Birding Association FB group I posted a question: Where would you go if funds weren’t a problem? Some are incredibly rare and hard to find.

Congo 264

Congo Africa South Africa Madagascar 264

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 16, 2024

Counting the Birds I was in my teens when I undertook my first bird-survey: it was field work for the British Trust for Ornithology’s The Atlas of Breeding Birds in Britain and Ireland. The breeding and wintering birds of Britain and Ireland. A few years ago I helped with the BTO’s Turtle Dove Survey.

Ireland 231

Ireland Turtles Geese Farming 231

10,000 Birds

JULY 7, 2020

They looked out their windows and across their patios and up from their apartment terraces and saw–birds. This is a delightful book, large (8-1/2 by 11 inches), filled with Sibley’s distinctive artwork and an organized potpourri of research-based stories about the science behind bird’s lives.

2020 264

2020 Birds Groups North America 264

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 11, 2014

The Guan had never been seen in the wild after Polish Naturalist Wladyslaw Taczanowski collected one individual in 1876. Nineteenth and early twentieth century naturalists collected birds on long and arduous exploratory expeditions in the New World. Photo: Fernando Angulo Pratolongo. The amazing news went across the world.

Collecting 270

Collecting Peru Neglecting Hunting 270

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 14, 2020

Field guides listed two subspecies – delicata (which would eventually become the highly migratory Wilson’s Snipe ) and paraguaiae (breeding resident South American Snipe ) – which were extremely difficult to discern from one another in the field. A rehabber friend of mine sent me a photo of the bird asking for an ID.

Trinidad 274

Trinidad Welfare North America Emotional 274

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. In the latter, three or more adult individuals contribute to the raising of offspring.

Breeders 210

Breeders Breeding Birds Groups 210

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

Unfortunately, these features that make island ecosystems so unique have also lead to a disproportionate number of extinct island birds relative to continental ecosystems. This bird was in serious trouble by the mid-19th century due to the adults being killed for food and young being taken for pets. Nests were in hollows in palm trees.

Cuba 252

Cuba Parrots Collecting Columbus 252

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 13, 2014

Instead of going on about zip lines and other modern, adventure tourism attractions, the birding crowd talks about taking photos of Resplendent Quetzals , seeing dozens of hummingbird species, and the seemingly odd absence of raptors in Costa Rica but nope, we don’t really talk about extinction. Must be a joke, right?

Costa Rica 228

Costa Rica Species Panama Birds 228

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 162

New Zealand Raised Endangered Species Rats 162

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 6, 2019

As the growing season wanes and summer gives way to autumn, winemakers in Spain – and across the Northern Hemisphere – will be watchful for that perfect moment when the fruit is at its absolute peak – a sign that the hectic work to collect a year’s worth of product in just a few days can finally begin. Good birding and happy drinking!

2017 114

2017 Spain California Condor California 114

10,000 Birds

JULY 26, 2012

But as I and others have said before, it does raise a very practical question about what field guides, which have for the most part been slavishly devoted to taxonomic order, are going to do. waters every year after breeding. The split is based on evidence of very limited gene flow between the populations despite geographic overlap.

Falcons 174

Falcons Parrots California Breeding 174

10,000 Birds

MAY 30, 2013

Curiously, some eagles were also observed by the Ada Ciganlija Island, within Belgrade – in the breeding season! The biggest number of these birds ever seen at once was nine, in the spring of 1910. These large birds need secluded spots to raise their young, and Serbia seems to be lacking such places.

Serbia 215

Serbia Eagles Hungary Cooking 215

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 5, 2011

I thought after my recent look at the more angelic end of the avian spectrum it would be illustrative to descend into the circles of birding hell in order to regard, through the safety of the Internet, one of the baser demons in the pantheon of the birding gods. Did I say firm? I meant squishy. Warm, damp and squishy.

Breeding 177

Breeding Collecting California Hunting 177

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. While one bird sits, its mate feeds out at sea for a week or so.

United Kingdom 161

United Kingdom Brazil Eggs Abandon 161

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 7, 2014

The lack of people does not mean we have any less extinct or threatened bird species than other countries. Even the first explorers to Australia documented there was a risk of extinction of birds and animals into the future and subsequently decided to collect as many specimens as possible! Preface,p.xxiv.

Species 176

Species Australia Birds Parrots 176

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 1, 2019

Happy New Year, 10,000 Birds readers and writers, listers and photographers, friends and fellow travelers near and far! Writing a post scheduled for January 1st for a birding blog is a big responsibility. On the first of the year, every bird is a new bird! It was a United States lower-48 birding year for me.

2018 167

2018 New Jersey Michigan North Dakota 167

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 17, 2022

According to a local African superstition that I just made up, it is not harmful to eat toxically colored birds if you eat them in the dark. Colonial history reflected in bird names. Unfortunately, the Fork-tailed Drongo is not the honest and god-fearing bird one could wish for.

South Africa 197

South Africa Africa Birds Cape Verde 197

10,000 Birds

APRIL 7, 2015

Penguins are also bellweathers of climate change; dwellers of remote areas you’ve (probably) never heard of; creatures who have developed unique, innovative ways of adapting to the harsh environments where they breed and rear chicks and the water environments in which they feed and swim.

Penguins 209

Penguins New Zealand South Africa Albatross 209

10,000 Birds

JULY 4, 2022

To be precise, “Birding Shanghai from June 10 to June 30, 2022” – but that is even less of an exciting title than the one above. The reason for this post only covering the period from June 10 being that an earlier post, “Revenge Birding”, was about the first 9 days of June. You should try it too.

Birds 197

Birds Sparrows Protection Humane 197