10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 11, 2011

Recently, I’ve reviewed a number of well-designed and interesting books on birds. Today, I bring you an equally lavish look at a group bipeds that are perhaps a little more confusing: people. People who are into birds. If one has to be inside, after all, bird-patterned wallpaper is better than nothing.

Collecting 179

Collecting Science Hunters Parrots 179

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 20, 2013

Handing out T-shirts at the registration desk with a summer intern from the Field Museum (one of the conference’s sponsoring groups) gave me a good feel for who was around and what ornithologists are like. Exhibitors ranged from book publishers to purveyors of telemetry equipment to local bird and wildlife groups.

San Diego 182

San Diego Ostriches Chicago Colorado 182

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 205

Trinidad Birds South America Research 205

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.” We were ecstatic!

South America 191

South America San Diego Mexico America 191

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 29, 2023

It depicted a Common Loon ( Gavia immer ) sitting on eggs on a seemingly crude nest. It seemed to draw you in and I could easily imagine standing beside him, staring as he did at the bird, watching it curve its neck downwards. The title read “Birds of the Northern Forest”, paintings by J.F. He died on July 27, 2008.

Birds 229

Birds Woodpeckers Canada Collecting 229

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 158

North America Sparrows America United States 158

10,000 Birds

JULY 1, 2014

I enjoy collecting children’s books about birds and nature that I come across in the expected (book stores) and unexpected (academic library conference reports) places. The Taínos named the birds Iguacas, after their call. Spanish settlers arrived in 1493 and called the birds Coterras. The birds thrive.

Puerto Rico 241

Puerto Rico Parrots New York City 2013 241

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 225

Owls Science Barn Owls Penguins 225

10,000 Birds

MARCH 13, 2011

Currently she does full time voluntary work for the local Australasian Wader Study Group, which aims to understand and analyze the factors determining shorebird numbers in a rapidly changing world. This involves the sighting of these birds both here and overseas resulting in some incredible life stories. Get yours today!

Australia 153

Australia 2011 Sharks Deer 153

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 236

Birds Indonesia Breeding Charlotte 236

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.

Falcons 224

Falcons United Kingdom Zimbabwe Eggs 224

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 222

Birds China Pythons Breeding 222

10,000 Birds

JUNE 27, 2018

– Birds are indeed dinosaurs, yet, are indubitably not. Knowledge is knowing that a bird is a dinosaur. According to cladists, every organism is a member of any group of organisms that includes it. Cladistics is not a way of looking at groups of organisms. And that makes total sense and is a great thing to know.

Monkeys 145

Monkeys Gorillas Whales Whaling 145

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. There are variations on that theme, of course.

Breeders 210

Breeders Breeding Birds Groups 210

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 179

Mammals Rodents Birds Reptiles 179

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 110

Australia Birds Penguins 2015 110

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

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 244

Eggs Birds United States Sparrows 244

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 161

United Kingdom Brazil Eggs Abandon 161

10,000 Birds

MAY 3, 2012

We now interrupt all talk about birds and migration to consider dragonflies. Together they comprise Ondonata, an order of insects that, like birds, are beautiful in flight and challenging in identification. Unlike birds, they do not vocalize; unlike butterflies, they are totally predatory, not a vegetarian amongst them.

United States 241

United States Costa Rica Massachusetts North America 241

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

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 180

Ireland France Breeding Eggs 180

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 5, 2014

In birding, we like to think that we don’t need much ‘stuff’. Another book, maybe a bird finding guide. Our ‘stuff’ allows us to bird more, better, further. It defines our birding lives when it’s not threatening to overwhelm our cars and homes. I expected a picture book; I got a collection of essays!

Collecting 173

Collecting Mauritius Egypt Cyprus 173

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 9, 2012

Weavers are truly magical birds, combining bright plumages with ingenious weaving talents and cheerful, noisy social lives. This blogpost will introduce you to the various genera of birds that are considered to be weavers. Image taken by Markus Lilje/Rockjumper Birding Tours in Cameroon. Image taken by Adam Riley in Ghana.

Tanzania 233

Tanzania Buffalo Kenya Namibia 233

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 223

Woodpeckers Birds Eggs India 223

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. She also laid eggs in Melba Finch nests.

South Africa 197

South Africa Africa Birds Cape Verde 197

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 7, 2017

Larger, denser with avian information than your typical field guide, a Crossley Guide bursts with bird images, photographic plates that verge on the surreal of birds in all plumages and poses against real-life habitats, informing, sometimes overwhelming us with visual and, if you can take your eyes off the images, textual information.

Ducks 125

Ducks North America Geese Hunters 125