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Altruism, Albatrosses, and Vicious Young Men

10,000 Birds

They emerged from their bloody rampage leaving fifteen adults dead, and fifteen destroyed nests with either smashed or missing eggs. The young men had severed the birds’ legs in order to remove the tags. In the following days harrowing photos of dead birds and severed body parts were posted on social media pages.

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Count Your Chickens (In the Florida Keys)

10,000 Birds

We birders are very particular about the birds that we count. We can count introduced species that have met the criteria of the “Bird Police” for the area to which they are introduced. There are lots of birds we can’t count. There are lots of birds we can’t count. We can’t count caged birds.

Chickens 204
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Birding the Kruger Park (2): Bateleur area

10,000 Birds

The one bird I did not see here, however, was the Bateleur Eagle … One highlight in the area is the Saddle-billed Stork , likely to be the tallest species in the stork family. This bird is represented in an ancient Egyptian hieroglyph. Can’t say that it is a particularly obvious name from seeing the bird.

Ostriches 147
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From Today's New York Times

Animal Ethics

Would we say these people were slaughtered in a “people friendly” manner? Confinement is confinement, mutilation is mutilation, and slaughter is slaughter. In my 40s, I became a vegetarian because I was saving sick and injured birds, and I just couldn’t eat them and save them. Animal agriculture is inherently inhumane.

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Reasons Consistently Applied

Animal Ethics

One cannot produce eggs or dairy products on a large scale without the wholesale exploitation of animals. Layer hens spend their entire lives permanently confined in battery cages with 6-9 other hens and have only half a square foot of living space per bird. These birds are some of the most abused animals in agriculture.

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Birding Tengchong, Yunnan, China in 2017

10,000 Birds

I visited Tengchong in late 2020 and wrote about it – but I also went there earlier, in 2017, and this post shows some photos I took during that trip, along with the usual comments that seem to be much more about ridiculing my fellow humans (especially ornithologists and the like) than providing useful information on birds.

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The Wryneck: Biology, Behaviour, Conservation and Symbolism of Jynx torquilla: A Book Review

10,000 Birds

The Eurasian Wryneck is the woodpecker that doesn’t look like a woodpecker, the bird with the portmanteau name that is also a medical condition (and which may remind some people of a Nora Ephron essay). They are slim and small-headed birds and their bills are fine, not strong and dynamic. copyright © 2022 Gerard Gorman.