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Part Two: Birds as Bling

10,000 Birds

Last time it was birds and bling. Now it’s birds AS bling. Normally wildlife rehabilitators do not go around wearing birds on purpose. Swifts and swallows are notoriously hard to raise and/or rehabilitate, so rehabbers who don’t specialize in them tend to lose their heads when they’re successful. “I

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Birds and Bling

10,000 Birds

Wildlife rehabilitators are not known for our bling. People who work with wildlife wearing nice clothes? People who work with wildlife wearing nice clothes? asked Marge Gibson, when I asked a group of bird rehabbers about their bling experiences. Earrings are toast with my Wood Duck and Wild Turkeys.

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A Bird Rehabber Goes Birding. And Thwarts Mongooses.

10,000 Birds

This is the reason I’m birding in Tanzania with no field guide. The last time I visited my friend India, who lives in the hills above Karatu, I brought my own field guide and filled a notebook with bird names, descriptions, and sketches. You like birds,” he said, giving me a winning smile. Birding apps? I gasped. “I

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Wildlife Rehabber Misidentification

10,000 Birds

“Here’s an idea for a blog,” wrote Donna Osburn, a wildlife rehabilitator from Kentucky. What’s your best misidentification of a bird?”. Rehabbers are constantly receiving birds misidentified by their finders; and on occasion some of us even receive birds we misidentify ourselves. This is a great topic.

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Rehabber Slang Part 2, etc.

10,000 Birds

There is no excuse for putting a banner photo like this on a renowned birding site. It’s just that when summer is over and most wildlife rehabilitators are fried, this is the kind of thing that will make most of us fall to our knees, choking with laughter, tears spurting from our eyes. We do real birds.”.

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Mating and Feeding Behavior of the Northern Shoveler

10,000 Birds

They are dabbling ducks which feed by upending and, you guessed it, dabbling. Unlike most other dabbling ducks however, the Northern Shovelers strain aquatic vegetation, plankton, and tiny invertebrates through the comb-like edges of their shovel-shaped bill. References: 1 Birds of North America Online , 2 Defenders of Wildlife.

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Calling All Birders: Come To Hog Island!

10,000 Birds

I’d seen pictures of them, of course – the stocky, flamboyantly-beaked little seabirds who always seem to be wearing expressions of sympathetic concern – but I’d never seen one “in bird” (the avian equivalent of “in person”). We want all birds to be bursting with health, and we revel in our rare idle moments.

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