10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 26, 2019

Not all birds are created equal. These are the kinds of birds even those barely cognizant of nature recognize, appreciate, and aspire to. These are the kinds of birds even those barely cognizant of nature recognize, appreciate, and aspire to. Central Africa has one of those birds.

Uganda 269

Uganda Africa Birds Penguins 269

10,000 Birds

MAY 7, 2020

Like many of you, I had plans for this year’s spring migration: to bird the very best tour of the Balkans, heading for northeastern Greece. From there some 200 km to the Kerkini Lake National Park with its 310+ bird checklist, stopping en route at the Mt. And off birding I went. The next day, the wind was swaying the treetops.

Greece 239

Greece Bulgaria Birds Serbia 239

10,000 Birds

MARCH 21, 2021

The highway across Roebuck Plains heading south continues to offer great birding opportunities. They are ground-dwelling birds and there is plenty of food for them at ground level. If I zoom in on the larger flocks of Whiskered Terns you only get to see a handful of the thousands of birds! Whiskered Terns feeding.

Cattle 262

Cattle Breeding Family Birds 262

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.

Singapore 147

Singapore Birds Mountain Goats Giraffes 147

10,000 Birds

JULY 18, 2022

Not professionally – these people come in SUVs and probably never recapture their gas money from the fish they catch (though come to think of it, neither do I with my bird photos). This is ok as birds do not have teeth anyway). This Cattle Egret has just read a paper stating that it would be 3.6 End of side note.

Birds 162

Birds South Korea Japan Abandon 162

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 23, 2014

The day before we headed south to Perth to circumnavigate Herdsman Lake and see the amazing bird-life there we did a short drive out of town at home in Broome. The road north was closed beyond a certain distance, but the road south remained open and always offers excellent birding opportunities when this happens.

Barn Owls 162

Barn Owls Seals Birds Cattle 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.

North Dakota 142

North Dakota Birds Sparrows Blackbirds 142

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 1, 2022

On that glorious day, I observed ten critically endangered birds, representing 8% of their Costa Rican, or 2% of their global population!! In my previous post , I dealt with Rancho Naturalista Lodge itself and birding within their private reserve. But, let’s start at the beginning. A group (maybe 4-5 ex.)

Costa Rica 241

Costa Rica Nicaragua 2019 Farming 241

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 20, 2019

It is always hot in Kununurra and you can easily observe many of the bird species around town from your air-conditioned vehicle. Another significant flock of birds were to be found “caged” in! Despite the high fence, Barbed wire and all of the danger signs the birds had all chosen to roost inside the fenced area.

Cattle 105

Cattle Research Family Rights 105

10,000 Birds

APRIL 13, 2015

Ethiopia, a landlocked country situated in the Horn of Africa, has firmly established itself as one of Africa’s top birding destinations. Its great diversity of habitats hosts an incredible bird count of over 900 species, including Africa’s 2nd highest list of endemics and near-endemics (after South Africa).

Ethiopia 245

Ethiopia Sudan Leopards Birds 245

10,000 Birds

MARCH 1, 2016

So, I birded India, land of Indian Peafowl , Saag Paneer (my favorite Indian dish) and Tigers. Neither are birds, but both involved a lot of birding.). Once we donned our booties and took the brief tour of the tomb, we climbed up to a terrace overlooking the Yamuna River and started birding in earnest.

India 189

India Tigers Birds Owls 189

10,000 Birds

MARCH 22, 2011

home about advertise archives birds conservation contact galleries links reviews subscribe Browse: Home / Birds , Terminology / Cow Birds Cow Birds By Rick • March 22, 2011 • 1 comment Tweet Share So what do Buffleheads and Bitterns and Hornbills have in common? They’re all named for livestock.

Cows 142

Cows Cattle 2011 Birds 142

10,000 Birds

JULY 22, 2017

Birds with white on them are much more likely to take the form of goodies like the Snowy Cotinga , or two species of tityras. Masked Tityra – the most frequently encountered small bird in Costa Rica with white plumage. The Caribbean slope of Costa Rica also differs from the islands in having a lot more bird species.

Costa Rica 100

Costa Rica San Jose Birds Bats 100

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 15, 2022

This actually benefits our local wildlife, because the rainwater then gets trapped in the borrow pit and in some instances it will sustain the wildlife right through our dry months when there is no rainfall at all. This particular borrow pit is right beside the highway around seventy kilometres from Broome and is always worth stopping at.

Cattle 216

Cattle Birds Zebras Wildlife 216

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 29, 2016

Costa Rica is situated right between two oceans. The pair of seas are close enough for the occasional adventurous frigatebird to just soar way up and right over to the other salty basin. But, if you want to go further afield, fear not, there is some wonderful lowland forest birding up near Nicaragua and down south by Panama as well.

Costa Rica 165

Costa Rica San Jose Panama Birds 165

10,000 Birds

MAY 3, 2022

It stops those thousands of migrating birds flying across the Gulf of Mexico and directs them right onto the trees, fields, sanctuaries, beaches along the Bolivar Peninsula, where they hopefully find food and fresh water. And us, the birders who travel here from March to May to worship the birds as they seek to survive.

Houston 217

Houston Texas Sanctuary Sparrows 217

10,000 Birds

MAY 22, 2011

Last weekend we went exploring to see what bird-life had moved into the area during the Wet Season and as always we had a great day out with plenty of surprises. I made a suggestion of cutting off one corner a bit as it looked quite shallow-yes, right! It seems the most likely answer, but who knows!

Cattle 160

Cattle Birds 2003 Geese 160

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 10, 2020

On the northern birding calendar, October is a time for sparrows, cool weather, and tired fall leaves. In Costa Rica, the tenth month is when birds pass through in droves. but there are other birds, many stopping to stay, many others moving to South America. In Costa Rica, a lot of those birds fly right overhead.

Costa Rica 271

Costa Rica South America Colombia Paraguay 271

10,000 Birds

JUNE 20, 2014

As I bird, walk the dog or run errands, puffs of white float down on the breeze. They have only a brief window to find the right spot to send down roots – a spot with the combination of moisture, sunlight, and fine silty soil they need. Despite this, they are in some ways quite fragile.

Montana 166

Montana Cattle Deer Humane 166

10,000 Birds

JUNE 27, 2019

I’m a long-time champion of the IOC World Bird List as a standard for bird names. They give short shrift to New Zealand’s birds, lumping them with odd names no one here uses because the names are shared elsewhere and God knows America isn’t going to take a hit for us. But the Blue Tit was different.

Iran 131

Iran Barn Owls New Zealand Europe 131

10,000 Birds

APRIL 3, 2011

There is a lot of bird movement around Australia at the moment due to the weather, so time to go and investigate! Last weekend we drove just out of town to where the road has been flooded and observed thousands of birds that have taken advantage of the very wet “Wet&# that we have experienced and bred like crazy.

Investigation 140

Investigation Birds Cattle Ducks 140

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 30, 2017

Only, once I got there, I discovered that the coffee, while good, can’t compare to the birds. Our group saw over 400 birds on our 15-day tour of the Pantanal, Cerrado and the Amazon (Cristalino Lodge). I have a thing for birds with large eye-rings (also for birds with ‘spectacles,’ a similar look).

Brazil 154

Brazil Birds Los Angeles Tigers 154

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 28, 2013

We follow the tire tracks in an off-white, salty soil and then, without a word of warning, our guide/driver turns into the bushes, driving left and right… until one and then another Short-eared Owl flushes in front of us. Rao Travel, and the post-conference bird tour by Arpit Deomurari. Acknowledgements.

India 229

India Birds Eagles Boars 229

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 15, 2015

“The estuary and the delta of the River Kalamas form the most important wetland of northwest Greece”, so the “ Birding in Greece ” guidebook claims for the area where I am heading, a bit late since I overslept this morning. Yet, beside a few Little and one Great Egret , a raft of Eurasian Coots , no birds. It is getting a bit hot.

Greece 235

Greece Dogs Pelicans Fish 235

10,000 Birds

JULY 10, 2014

Since I have started to bird by kayak, it took me a lot of time to realise that paddling is not the synonym for birding and that I can bird without a paddle, although I cannot paddle without a pair of binoculars. Hence, I had the be equally grumpy to explain to them that I had an equal right to be there (equal right?

Serbia 243

Serbia Stray Dog Protection Botswana 243

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 5, 2012

It also used to be a rather common bird in the South of Germany, but the German population has crashed and collapsed (almost?) You can also position a marker to point out where exactly a certain bird is within the grid cell, but this requires a few extra clicks and most observers don’t bother. What on earth?

Cattle 118

Cattle Germany Iran Breeders 118

10,000 Birds

JUNE 4, 2020

While entering our double kayak I asked Andrew Hester, a local bird expert, if bilharzia is present in the shallows of the Ngotwane Dam, further down the river. A few paddle strokes down the river and on the right bank there were four Impala antelopes ( Aepyceros melampus ). or a croc was swimming right under the bottom of the kayak….

Botswana 193

Botswana Africa 2001 Fish 193

10,000 Birds

MAY 8, 2013

Birds are supposed to have feathers and birds without feathers look incomplete, like they left home with shaving cream on their ear and toothpaste spots on their shirt. The smellier the better, particularly as, unusually for birds, many species can boast a robust sense of smell. T urkey Vulture, photo by Dawn Puliafico.

California Condor 185

California Condor Turkey North America Jordan 185

10,000 Birds

MAY 28, 2018

Just stepping away from the birds for a minute, because you can’t really do any kind of story about Kruger National Park, and not at least mention the animals. The best I could do to mix both the birds and the animals was in the picture at the top of this story. The mighty rhino along with the Cattle Egret.

South Africa 115

South Africa Africa Rhinos Mongoose 115

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 25, 2018

The auto tour at Colusa NWR also boasts several other pretty special birds, like this White-faced Ibis ( Plegadis chihi ) … and a Black-crowned Night-Heron ( Nycticorax nycticorax ) roost. Check out this image of a Great Egret ( Ardea alba ), Snowy Egret ( Egretta thula ) and Cattle Egret ( Bubulcus ibis ) together.

Wildlife 101

Wildlife Sacramento Bald Eagle Falcons 101

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 20, 2018

The pressure is on if you can only get certain species during the first month of the year but if you just want to add any old birds to the year list, everything is fresh! Since I’m in no big hurry to reach any number of species in 2018, my year birding is going to be a fresh one hopefully touched with a good dose of Zen.

Costa Rica 161

Costa Rica Birds Parrots Woodpeckers 161

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 15, 2012

You do need to be careful of cattle wandering across the highway, as the grass always looks greener on the other side! The puddles right against the highway had Glossy Ibis on them and they were unconcerned about the traffic-though there really isn’t much in the outback! Here we had an Australian Owlet-nightjar ! What a treat!

Investigation 169

Investigation Cattle Australia Humane 169

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 8, 2013

This park protects the largest remaining tract of dry deciduous forest in the west of India, offering visitors 37 species of reptiles, 38 species of mammals and, not to be forgotten – almost 300 bird species. We’re here for the birds!”. Yes, we did – so what? Lions aside, carnivores are represented by Leopard, Hyena, Jackal, etc.,

Lions 231

Lions India Mammals Boars 231

10,000 Birds

MAY 14, 2015

Loess bluff with numerous bee-eaters and one Northern Wheatear and, cut into a low grassy ridge, the set of tracks veers right. Further on a wire sits a somewhat large-headed small-crow like bird. I am coming closer – the bird is quite tolerant – and taking a few photos. Their scientific name is not turtur for nothing.

Factory 231

Factory Stray Dog Turtles Serbia 231

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 11, 2019

Birders know that the pairing of farms and birds represents more than mere bucolic romance – it’s a match borne out of a real avian dependence on these man-made landscapes. And of course, there are Cattle Egrets ( Bubulcus ibis ) and several species of cowbirds that rarely stray too far from livestock.

Vermont 120

Vermont Belgium Farming Europe 120

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 24, 2012

It seems that they especially enjoy being around cattle, which helps lead to the number one cause of nest failure, trampling (the number two reason is predation). It was nice just to be in the presence of such cool little birds but I wish I had gotten better shots of such a rare and awesome species.

Kazakhstan 128

Kazakhstan Cows 2009 Endangered Species 128

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 30, 2011

They consistently disappointed me by not being butterflies or small birds, and I associated them with an oppressive sun and being a long way from the garden hose and getting a headache for want of a drink. But who?* “Birds”, says the all-knowing Internet. So, which birds? And there were so, so many of them.

Montana 168

Montana Cooking Texas Cattle 168