10,000 Birds

JANUARY 25, 2019

I’m hardly the first person to observe that it’s all too easy to get overwhelmed by bad environmental news, and the title Endangered and Disappearing Birds of the Midwest sounds like a pretty major downer. Endangered and Disappearing Birds of the Midwest by Matt Williams – Indiana University Press, $29.00.

Indiana 125

Indiana Downers Iowa Illinois 125

10,000 Birds

JUNE 9, 2014

On Saturday I awakened at 3:30 AM, tiptoed out of the house as quietly as I could, and headed north and west to Sullivan County, the first of three counties I planned to visit in a series of surgical birding strikes to see (or hear) the birds I had thus far missed this year as they migrated through New York City.

Breeding 152

Breeding New York Breeders Downers 152

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 2, 2011

Any day of birding in New York State that includes a sighting of a Vesper Sparrow is a better-then-average day. Grassland birds have been hit the hardest across the northeast and Vesper Sparrows like closely cropped landscapes and eschew taller grasses, so they have been hit particularly hard. What has caused the decline?

Sparrows 165

Sparrows North Dakota United States Downers 165

10,000 Birds

MARCH 2, 2012

But two days ago, this Debbie Downer got her comeuppance! You see, as I walked across the park with Muir, my attention was drawn upwards by a large flock of birds coming in to settle in a mountain ash. He took it in good spirits.

Downers 169

Downers Montana Fish Wildlife 169

10,000 Birds

APRIL 21, 2011

Readers of 10,000 Birds who pay attention will remember him from when he showed Patrick and me some really cool damselflies out in Suffolk County. Its debatable which one is a better bird for Florida. To be honest, this was actually a bit of a downer for me. As I viewed the bird through the camera, confusion entered my mind.

Florida 162

Florida New York Downers New York City 162

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

A lot of folks, including this very blog, are using this as an occasion to memorialize not just the Passenger Pigeon but the extinct birds of the Holocene as a group. In 1952, at least in the US, no one wanted to be a Debbie Downer. A species, wiped off the earth, never to exist again. Good, I say. Then the 80s happened.

California Condor 193

California Condor United States Guam Whales 193

10,000 Birds

JULY 5, 2016

But, by December 2013, my eyes, and the eyes of birders across the country, were fixed on Neil and where he was headed next, and if—that huge if—he would see “The Bird.” L ost Among the Birds: Accidentally Finding Myself in One Very Big Year is Neil Hayward’s story of his Big Year, and it is well worth the read. Please—don’t do that!

2013 104

2013 Arizona Birds San Diego 104