10,000 Birds

AUGUST 5, 2021

And it is a great place for birding. China’s massive investment in infrastructure has indirectly benefited birders. This makes these sections ideal for birding, with a much-reduced risk of being killed by a passing truck. Still, not a bird that merits flying 2000 km from your hometown. A juvenile.

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China Birds Vietnam Fast Food 264

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 9, 2023

Apparently, she supported the research of a Romanian team on ectoparasites of birds from Meghalaya (India) – and for her troubles, the team thanked her by naming a species of feather mite newly discovered on Large Niltava after her. The Bar-backed Partridge is a species of partridge found in southwestern China and Southeast Asia.

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China Hunting Birds illegal 147

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 6, 2023

It is listed as Vulnerable, as its range is rather restricted, though it has been found outside of China as well, e.g., in Vietnam, though the HBW does not seem to have read that paper yet. Some ornithologists are so desperate to add papers to their resumes that they write about new records of Black-crested Bulbul subspecies within China.

China 147

China Vietnam Birds Monkeys 147

10,000 Birds

MAY 9, 2022

Up until a few years ago, Baihualing in Yunnan was both a great place to see birds and open to foreigners. Here are some of the nice birds foreigners could see at Baihualing, before it was blocked for foreigners. In a better world, non-Chinese would still be allowed to see these birds. Nationalism still sucks.

China 227

China India Birds North Korea 227

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 27, 2021

Yes, I know you are not interested in boring semi-autobiographical descriptions of individual birding trips. These are unrelated birds that have a socially polygynandrous mating system. When seen from the right angle, the females are quite attractive as well. But you may be interested in some of the most recent photos.

China 195

China Birds Sheep Monkeys 195

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 21, 2022

Julius Caesar apparently once said “I love treason but hate a traitor” My feelings with regard to a birding-related topic are similar – I love owls but hate owling. A great advantage of these quails is that they will live exclusively on the ground, & will not interfere with other birds.

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Lemurs China Owls Birds 227

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 11, 2021

This is just one of the usual blog posts from me, trying to get you to look at some of my bird photos via adding some semi-funny words. Let’s start with band names referring to birds in general (and let’s keep in mind that this blog post only mentions music deemed of sufficient quality by the almighty writer).

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South Africa China Germany Birds 235

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 12, 2024

” But of course, with this slight adaptation, it also works for blog posts and their writers, and allows me to plug another nice song by this underrated artist, before switching to birds. Maybe a source more focused on birds than the HBW might have provided more accurate information.

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Birds China Woodpeckers Breeding 184

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 4, 2023

By Louis-Jean Germain Influenced by his mother, Louis-Jean Germain has long been interested in art, and in recent years, he has become an avid painter of Asian birds. For the Chinese New Year 2022 holidays, my girlfriend and I decided to visit the remote areas of Guangxi in the South of China, at the border to Vietnam.

Birds 189

Birds China Emotional Vietnam 189

10,000 Birds

APRIL 13, 2023

In many ways, birding Wawushan is a nightmare for a solitary and crowd-hating birder like me. An unnamed bird guide called them “avoidless tourists”, which sums it up rather nicely. So, all this makes birding this place an occasionally less than pleasant experience.

Pandas 213

Pandas Birds Eggs China 213

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 10, 2022

In early 2021, I spent a lot of time going through my bird photos before finally submitting 50 of them to the “Bird Photographer of the Year” competition held in the UK. This photo: Clearly, a fake – if such a bird really existed, wouldn’t many more people know about it?

China 225

China India South Africa Homelessness 225

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 3, 2022

The name is a puzzle though – even the HBW states that the bird has “small or no crest” These photos were taken on Sep 26, indicating that the birds passed Shanghai rather late (according to the HBW, “autumn migration from early to late Sept”). The Japanese Paradise Flycatcher is listed as Near Threatened.

China 186

China Birds Ukraine Killing 186

10,000 Birds

APRIL 15, 2024

On the other hand, their white color and their considerable size made me see them as somewhat arrogant birds – the white Golf convertible of the bird world. ” Presumably, all readers of 10,000 Birds think that nature reserves are important – a paper tries to quantify that importance to some extent.

China 222

China Iceland Whales Whaling 222

10,000 Birds

APRIL 1, 2024

Birding Shanghai has its own specific annoyances apart from birds not showing up. Finally, there are specific restrictions for foreigners – I guess we might steal some vital state secrets that have some kind of relationship with the local birds. Tianmashan had two interesting birds in March. One, a Ryukyu Minivet.

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Chicago Birds Asia China 147

10,000 Birds

MARCH 4, 2024

It has a good chance of becoming the most photographed Shanghai bird in the past few years. Not bad for a bird with a humble background – its parents did not even finish high school. Right, unless you are a stranger attacked by a male conspecific. The scientific species name venustulus means lovely, charming.

Raccoons 130

Raccoons Birds Fox Turtles 130

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 11, 2021

Early August is a bit of a dead time for birding in Shanghai unless you like your birds as little white spots at the far end of a telescope. So, I asked around and was told that Qinghai is the place to go to for birds in China in August. Going to Qinghai usually starts with a flight to Xining, the capital. But it is not.

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Birds North Korea China Woodpeckers 247

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 30, 2023

Sepilok is one of the best places I ever spent time birding at – I did so for a week and could have easily spent more time there. So, in order to economize a bit, the Sepilok birds are described in three separate posts. Maybe the HBW should be administered by a university with a stronger interest in birds than Cornell.

Woodpeckers 218

Woodpeckers Birds Eggs India 218

10,000 Birds

APRIL 8, 2024

This post starts like every birding blog post should start – by showcasing some bulbul species. According to the highly successful book ” 7 Habits of Highly Successful Birding Blog Post Writers”, only about 50% of birding blog posts should start with bulbuls). Most likely, both parties are right.

Birds 147

Birds Owls China Research 147

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 28, 2021

Dulan County is a large county in east-central Qinghai, China. Being a mammal myself, I am understandably much less fond of this animal class than I am of birds. But I have to admit that seeing some of the wolves, foxes, asses, and sheep of Dulan county is nice, at least as long as they do not stand in front of some exciting birds.

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Sheep Mountain Goats Gazelles Birds 248

10,000 Birds

MARCH 21, 2022

Jianfengling National Forest Park is a park in the West of Hainan – the tourist websites claim that it is “the largest and best-preserved tropical original forest in China”, which – if true – is a rather sad statement given the wide inroads that commercial agriculture has made into the park. But then, who knows?

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Birds Egypt China 2002 255

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 31, 2022

The closest the poor writer of a blog has to a “Ius Primae Noctis” is the right to discuss things that are totally irrelevant to the supposed topic of the blog. Instead, I can just present another bird, the Greater Coucal. Let me start by saying that I am very glad that there were no Japanese T**s at Nabang.

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Bangladesh Birds China India 179

10,000 Birds

JUNE 20, 2022

T he Grey-capped Pygmy Woodpecker (Tengchong, China) is a tiny bit bigger and looks much soberer. The little red bit on the crown on this photo indicates that it is a male bird. A point in case: the Crimson-breasted Woodpecker (Tengchong, China). Supposedly, they smoke less than the Brown-capped ones, too.

Woodpeckers 241

Woodpeckers South Africa China Singapore 241

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 1, 2024

I was thinking of inventing a background story about a Chinese poet mentioning starlings (and other bird species) in one of his poems, and a rich Chinese fan of these poems pursuing the ambition of introducing all bird species mentioned therein to China, explaining the occasional occurrence of the starling in Shanghai.

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Birds Research Science Europe 199

10,000 Birds

JUNE 8, 2023

The HBW has comprehensively nothing on its breeding: “Breeding – No Information” I guess birds are not their main focus. I think the photo shows a male bird, as certain parts of the head seem more black than grey. I was a bit worried about the bird in the video but a friend assured me that birds do not get seasick.

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Birds China Research Tenant 130

10,000 Birds

MARCH 5, 2020

That does not make it sound like a very promising or important bird habitat. Shanghai is located on the coast of the East China Sea and lies right on the East Asian–Australasian Flyway. The birds passing through Shanghai include many rare and endangered birds. And yet it is. So, there is some hope.

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Wildlife Reserve Asia China Birds 170

10,000 Birds

JUNE 23, 2022

Hongbenghe is a very small village in Yunnan, right next to the border with Myanmar. The main attraction for birders here are the hornbills – I have written about them before , so this post will be more on the other birds I saw there in 2017. One road simply ends here, giving the place a real end-of-the-world feeling.

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Birds Myanmar China Chicago 147

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 6, 2022

While these birds are very much liked by Chinese birders, the species could unfortunately not be named the National Bird of China as the Latin species name of the bird is Grus Japonicus. it would not be the national bird of the USA either. Incompetent photographers can always blame the bird.

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Birds Eggs Bald Eagle Owls 211

10,000 Birds

JUNE 11, 2020

One of the many things I did not know about Delhi is that it is the capital city with the second-largest number of bird species (after Nairobi). So when I went there for work last year, I added three days of birding to the trip. Not the most exciting bird in the world, I guess, but still worth showing in a democracy. Black Ibis.

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Cattle India Birds Sanctuary 211

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 1, 2022

Shanghai parks are rather crowded and noisy places, but the goshawks – who unlike me have lived in China all their lives – apparently do not mind. When not watched by people thinking of the chick as cute, it eats birds though. Coming from somebody who has exiled himself to China, this is not exactly a compliment.

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Birds China Eggs Breeding 147

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 23, 2021

Given the strict covid prevention measures here in China, I have not left the country in almost 2 years now. Fortunately, China still has lots of interesting birding locations left for me. But of course, it is also nice to remember past birding trips. That does not make much sense, I know. Or they are afraid of flying.

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South Africa Africa Lesotho Nigeria 241

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 7, 2021

One of the minor challenges of writing a blog post for 10,000 Birds is to come up with a title. Now, I usually go for the most boring ones imaginable, such as “Birding XY in [season]” Underpromise and overdeliver, as I would say if I was a McKinsey consultant (I swear to god I never was one). Do they eat dead fish?

China 263

China ALA Fish Mammals 263

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 8, 2022

I did not find much about this bird online except for a paper with the exciting title “A new quill mite Torotrogla emberizae sp. A study found that for Plain Prinia , egg characteristics in a mainland China location with many cuckoos make it much easier to spot cuckoo eggs than in a Taiwan location with few cuckoos ( source ).

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Birds Eggs Bangladesh China 216

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 10, 2022

Well, they mainly feed on birds, which may explain their low popularity. For the White-throated Rock Thrush , Wikipedia gives the slightly puzzling statement “The bird’s population is unknown, but is not increasing or declining.” Even if they look as charming as this Northern Boobook. Unfortunately, it is true though.

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Birds China Eggs Owls 204

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 31, 2023

And now for something completely different – birds. That keeps away about 80% of the pesky bird photographers away from the males (though probably also a fair share of the female birds – can’t have it both ways). Mind you, no long tails in this season. Here is a mugshot of a Long-tailed Shrike.

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Birds China Taiwan Raised 130

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

JUNE 22, 2023

In June 2023, I again went to Balangshan, a mountain about 3 hour’s drive from Sichuan’s capital Chengdu – and again with Alpinebirding , fortunately no longer for them to partly deal with confusing covid restrictions but only to help me find birds that I am too incompetent a birder to find on my own. Evidence-based!

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Birds China Science Research 130

10,000 Birds

MARCH 3, 2022

At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into.” So, still room for improvement.

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Raccoons Birds Oregon China 224