10,000 Birds

JUNE 28, 2018

In 1850, the Passenger Pigeon ( Ectopistes migratorius ) was the most abundant bird in North America and possibly the world. That year Congress passed the Lacey Act, followed by the tougher Weeks-McLean Act in 1913 and, five years later, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which protected not just birds but also their eggs, nests, and feathers 1.

Hunting 115

Hunting Hunters Gorillas Wolves 115

10,000 Birds

MAY 9, 2019

Just imagine a family excursion to Yellowstone to photograph grazing herds of elephants – equally wrong. When I started to bird, sometime in the last millennium, the common knowledge was that there were about 8,500 species of birds in the World (by some evolutionary miracle, nowadays we have 2,000 more). Map by Wikipedia.

Protection 162

Protection Elephants Owls Laws 162

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 11, 2012

They are not necessarily the biggest African animals, but represented those that were considered a real hunter’s worthy prey or “game” – the African Elephant, Cape Buffalo, Black Rhinoceros, Leopard and king of the jungle, the Lion (which of course doesn’t inhabit jungle but savanna!).

Buffalo 213

Buffalo Rhinoceros Elephants Leopards 213

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 23, 2015

The reactions of the birding scene to this addition have been rather varied. 2 – Inspite of being a hardy species by nature, a trait formed over millions of years of having to make a living where elephant and lion come to drink, they will indeed and on rare occasions escape human presence by taking off and flying away from an observer.

Florida 160

Florida Fur Lions Elephants 160

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 20, 2014

The magnificent history and diversity of birds on Earth came into sharper focus this month with the publication of 28 new scientific papers in Science and other journals. One of the central papers, Whole-genome analyses resolve early branches in the tree of life of modern birds (Jarvis et al. American Flamingo photo by Dick Culbert).

Family 279

Family Birds Parrots 2014 279

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 5, 2015

Shot an elephant. But we mustn’t let go of our humanity or forget the humanity of the people we disagree with. To quote Jon’s ending: Maybe there’s two types of people in the world: those people who favor humans over ideology, and those people who favor ideology over humans.

Hunters 171

Hunters Hunting Animal Cruelty Game 171

10,000 Birds

JULY 22, 2014

Will Raup is a birder from upstate New York who helped Corey learn a lot about birds when Corey was first starting out as a birder. When you think of invasives, you think of the birds that have been helped by human beings to get where they are, such as House Sparrow or European Starling. a Cattle Egret in Brooklyn.

Cattle 170

Cattle South Korea Suriname Seychelles 170

10,000 Birds

APRIL 29, 2015

In some ways the the flowering of the antelopes as an evolutionary group mirrors our own story, as they benefited and spread widely as the world’s forests gave way to savannah and plains, just like humans. With an elephant for scale.

Africa 173

Africa Hunters Goats Sheep 173

10,000 Birds

MARCH 12, 2011

As part of the Wildlife Conservation Society Birds of Brazil giveaway we asked readers of 10,000 Birds to name the bird in Brazil that they would like to see more than any other species. It is a really neat bird that I have not seen before. It would mean that I was birding in a really cool place! Come quickly!”

Brazil 216

Brazil 2011 Birds Wildlife 216

10,000 Birds

MAY 14, 2014

First off, it seems that New Zealand’s two iconic families of ratites, large flightless southern birds that includes emus, rhea, ostriches, cassowaries and the extinct elephant birds, are not particularly closely related. New Zealand’s birds and mammals come from a number of sources.

New Zealand 163

New Zealand Penguins Sea Lions Lions 163

4 The Love Of Animals

MARCH 17, 2011

Dogs are able to detect diseases such as cancer and diabetes and warn humans of impending heart attacks and strokes. In many ways, human emotions are the gifts of our animal ancestors. Chimpanzees and elephants grieve the loss of family and friends, and gorillas hold wakes for the dead. Empathy Among Elephants.

Emotional 100

Emotional Animal Whales Whaling 100

Critter News

DECEMBER 12, 2009

They were a part of the zoo’s breeding program for the rare birds. In November 2008, a virus killed a 15-month-old Asian elephant calf named Malti. She had been showing symptoms of the potentially lethal elephant herpesvirus, which leads to internal bleeding and heart failure.

Zoos 100

Zoos Animal Welfare Welfare Elephants 100

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 25, 2013

The gulls that spent months attacking any human on the place are content to loaf around and ignore you. And there aren’t just cool birds rocking up, migratory bats do too. Birding bats California Farallon Islands seabirds whales' A Hoary Bat. Jen and I looking at said bat (piccie by Adam Brown). A wave goodbye.

Whales 157

Whales Whaling Sharks Bats 157

10,000 Birds

MARCH 11, 2011

Which, naturally, got me to thinking about the newly erected order Suliformes, a development I mentioned in my December column, 2010′s Top 10 Developments in Bird Taxonomy and Systematics , but which I thought deserved further examination, for it’s one of those stories that defines the era in which we are living and birding.

2011 155

2011 Pelicans Papua New Guinea Birds 155

10,000 Birds

MARCH 25, 2015

The question is, can a bird guide actually make the jump and still work in a field situation? I had a copy of Sasol’s eBirds of Southern Africa on my iPhone (and iPad), but I had bought it to brush up on my African birds in my spare time, like on bus trips or particularly long meetings. You can use this in a number of ways.

Africa 154

Africa South Africa Zimbabwe Penguins 154

10,000 Birds

APRIL 10, 2012

Barbets are a group of medium sized, chunky, generally colorful, frugivorous, hole-nesting near-passerines, that are popular targets for anyone birding in the tropics. Benson to collect birds. They nest in colonies that sometimes number hundreds of birds, who excavate dozens of holes into the trunks of dead rainforest trees.

Ethiopia 240

Ethiopia Tanzania Africa Uganda 240

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 27, 2013

The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the rest of 10,000 Birds. I’m not just saying this to be an annoying gadfly on the backside of the birding and general wildlife community, although this is certainly a fringe benefit. With no permanent habitation inside its boundaries, human disturbance is low.

Lions 188

Lions Killing Hunting Hunters 188

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 5, 2011

I thought after my recent look at the more angelic end of the avian spectrum it would be illustrative to descend into the circles of birding hell in order to regard, through the safety of the Internet, one of the baser demons in the pantheon of the birding gods. This is seldom a good thing for the human being recognized.

Breeding 177

Breeding Collecting California Hunting 177

10,000 Birds

MARCH 13, 2012

“ There is, perhaps, no better place in the world for birds than this country. Despite discovering dozens of bird species, he is however not remembered in any English names of birds. Wahlberg travelled even more extensively and amassed a huge bird collection. Image by Hugh Chittenden.

Mozambique 195

Mozambique South Africa Africa Collecting 195

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

The descriptions of the territory’s birds, seals, whales, introduced mammals, invertebrates, and plants are written within the framework of the conversationist, so it is more than a field guide, it is a record of endangered wildlife and the efforts being made to protect it.

Georgia 174

Georgia Penguins Wildlife Whales 174