10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 5, 2019

The full title of this exceptional book by Marie Read is Mastering Bird Photography: The Art, Craft, and Technique of Photographing Birds and Their Behavior. As a birder who photographs, rather than a bird photographer, this never occurred to me before and I find the idea intriguing.

Birds 197

Birds Ethics 2019 Experience 197

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 7, 2019

Watching birds, birding, is inexorably tied to autonomous motivation. Maybe that’s why birders just might be obsessive about it or at least, very much into the hobby, the birding way of life. We get serious about quality optics and spend hours studying field guides about birds because we really really want to.

Costa Rica 215

Costa Rica Cooking Birds Chickens 215

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 4, 2020

I Love Birds!: 52 Ways to Wonder, Wander, and Explore Birds with Kids. Her children’s books–which include the charming Mama Build a Little Nest , other picture books, and chapter books–evince an easy familiarity with birds, their science and birding ethics. How many birds do you see?

Los Angeles 264

Los Angeles 2019 Birds 2014 264

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 4, 2015

10,000 Birds readers love terrific bird photography but hate bird abuse. He was first drawn to birding after realising that even the most urbanised spaces could harbour relatively high levels of bird diversity, and now spends time exploring other birding habitats around the region.

Eagles 269

Eagles Singapore Fish Ethics 269

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 3, 2021

There was a time when I thought each bird species had its own individual song. Then I found out that there was this vocalization called a ‘call,’ so I thought each bird species had its own individual song (but just the males) and individual call. Bird communication is a complex and evolving science.

North America 279

North America Research Birds Groups 279

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 3, 2019

There’s a place in southeast Shanghai at the junction of the Yangtze River estuary and Hangzhou Bay called Nanhui Wetland, where you can find thousands of migratory birds, making their stops along the East Asian–Australasian flyway, and some nifty residential ones. The text is brief and sometimes non-existent.

China 143

China Birds 2018 Ducks 143

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 7, 2016

Years ago, I became a wildlife volunteer and advocate because of a cat who caught a bird. Back then, I didn’t know enough about birds, but I knew a lot about cats. I surprised her and she dropped the bird before vaporizing again. They simply helped me with my bird. That was my first trip to California Wildlife Center.

Cats 216

Cats Stray Cat Stray Wildlife Rehabilitation 216

10,000 Birds

MAY 3, 2016

I purchased my first Sibley— The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America —in 2003. Am I willing to give up the field guide which bears the mud and dirt of so many falls on so many birding trips? Am I willing to give up the field guide which bears the mud and dirt of so many falls on so many birding trips?

North America 168

North America 2003 Birds America 168

10,000 Birds

JUNE 2, 2015

Producing a book about birds and nesting is a dangerous business. The truth is that there are few images cuter than baby birds in the nest opening their mouths and begging for food, but there are curmudgeons amongst us, myself included, who don’t like to admit this. And of birds courting and mating. We simply refuse to squee.

Eggs 263

Eggs Family 2006 New York 263

10,000 Birds

MAY 7, 2019

But, sometimes an appreciation of birds and birding requires more than a reference book with images of birds and facts about their identifying field marks. There are large avian handbooks and small ‘how-to bird’ guides, and quite a few excellent books of both types have been published.

Birds 115

Birds North America Breeding America 115

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 1, 2015

Birding for the Curious: The Easiest Way for Anyone to Explore the Incredible World of Birds by Nate Swick brings birding back to its roots—a simple, joyous way to enjoy nature using our eyes, ears, hands (for sketching), and brain. There are now no excuses except a lack of curiosity. And, nobody wants to admit that.

Birds 263

Birds North Carolina North America Owls 263

10,000 Birds

MARCH 18, 2020

Going birding is even more of a no-brainer now than before. Many moons ago, when I used to work in the (supposedly) booming petrochemical industry in Trinidad, most of my time was actually spent birding. I racked up a staggering number of life birds in the surprisingly rich surroundings during my four-odd years slaving for The Man.

Trinidad 227

Trinidad Battery Industry Bats 227

10,000 Birds

MAY 19, 2015

Birds are a subset of dinosaurs (See: Honey, I Shrunk the Dinosaurs. Prior to the extinction of all of the other dinosaurs, resulting from a cosmic impact event about 65 million years ago, the ancestors of modern birds were different from modern birds in many ways, but also similar in many ways. So how did beaks evolve?

Alligators 219

Alligators Chickens Research Birds 219

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 108

Australia Birds Penguins 2015 108

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 21, 2014

However, the vast majority of Java’s endemic bird species inhabit what is left of the island’s rain forests, and birders therefore tend to limit their visit to Java to a few selected national parks in mountainous regions – which is where the Brown Prinias are not to be found. A small brown bird. Yes, indeed.

Burma 162

Burma Laos Birds Indonesia 162

10,000 Birds

APRIL 15, 2015

I must admit that I was astonished as I had never considered Ghana a potential birding destination, nor knew of any birders who had ever been there. My clients insisted that they wanted to go to Ghana as they had heard that the birding was great. We also knew we had discovered Africa’s next hot birding destination.

Ghana 196

Ghana Hunters Guinea Gambia 196

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 21, 2011

Dave was nice enough to write the following guest post about the upcoming conference which we hope many 10,000 Birds readers will attend (Corey is going to be there for sure). For me, the most influential birder was the person who fueled my own birding addiction. In other words, Dave rocks. You may already be aware of this.

Philadelphia 190

Philadelphia Birds Ethics America 190

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 6, 2015

I was birding one of my favorite places yesterday, Wakodahatchee Wetlands in Palm Beach County, Florida, and, as generally happens, people were asking me about the birds they were admiring. Small), it provides a friendly and authoritative way for people interested in the birds around them to learn more quickly and easily.

Colorado 243

Colorado Florida Birds New Jersey 243

10,000 Birds

MARCH 15, 2011

These will be a series of shorter posts that will be scheduled while I’m traveling and filming for Nikon’s Birding Adventures TV. On the contrary, if you are a traveling birder, you might just find your next birding destination right here on 10,000 Birds. And this place has birds to boot!

Portugal 176

Portugal 2011 Deer Birds 176

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 154

2011 Pelicans Papua New Guinea Birds 154

10,000 Birds

JULY 19, 2013

From Owls in the Family to Wesley the Owl , the narrative in which a human interacts with another species and learns a bit about life along the way has long been a popular and affecting one. This is a pretty good model of the modern environmental ethic of self-restraint and respectful watching.

Stray Cat 171

Stray Cat Stray Zoos Owls 171

10,000 Birds

APRIL 23, 2014

But spotlighting brings you the things you don’t see so much of when birding. Sometimes in a forest you’d be forgiven for thinking there was nothing but birds, monkeys and squirrels (and mosquitos, obviously), and then at night you start seeing civets, wallabies, and tarantulas. Trips Borneo ethics night'

Badgers 154

Badgers Wildlife Reptiles Monkeys 154

10,000 Birds

APRIL 16, 2017

It was a beautiful April day, and the park—part salt marsh preserve and part recreational—was crowded with families celebrating the holiday week. Yes, it was one of those rare birds that is foraging right in front of you, in this case in a bed of small purple flowers, too close to photograph. The bird’s toe was stuck in a mussel.

California 178

California New York New York City New York Times 178

10,000 Birds

MAY 22, 2013

Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp (Duck Stamp) sales were at their peak in the 1970′s with 2.1 Ninety-eight cents of every Duck Stamp dollar goes directly into the Migratory Bird Conservation Fund to purchase wetlands and wildlife habitat for inclusion into the National Wildlife Refuge System. Let’s look at some facts.

Ducks 182

Ducks Wildlife Hunters Hunting 182

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. Maybe a spotting scope. And a long lens camera. You get the idea.

Collecting 173

Collecting Mauritius Egypt Cyprus 173

10,000 Birds

JULY 3, 2018

He roots the theft in the history of collecting bird skins, in the brief life history of Edwin Rist, in the secretive world of classic fly tying, and in his own efforts to follow up on a police investigation that got the man but not all of the loot. That’s pretty much the reaction of anybody hearing this for the first time.

Collecting 104

Collecting Iraq Ostriches Science 104

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 18, 2013

This is a beautiful volume, and one of its primary strength is the lavish selection of illustrations, including both family photos and drawings that adorned Burgess’s stories in various venues. So it is pleasing to report that a new biography, Nature’s Ambassador: The Legacy of Thornton W.

Woodchucks 171

Woodchucks Buffalo Massachusetts Fox 171

10,000 Birds

MAY 15, 2014

Our bird guide, Georgos Spiridakis, is driving slowly along this dirt track, checking the mud all the time. It is still early spring and the leaves are small, not fully developed, so we manage to see them too, and we did it very ethically, without provoking a response by the mobile phone.

Greece 163

Greece Pelicans Breeding Buffalo 163

Animal Person

FEBRUARY 26, 2010

It wasn't long before The Humane Emperor came on the scene, and is still around, telling folks that with a little mental acrobatics you can include forcible breeding, captivity, separation of family, killing of day-old chicks, and of course, untimely death in the definition of "humane." That one left me speechless. "My Respectfully?

Chickens 100

Chickens Slaughter Slaughtered Animal Rights 100

Animal Person

JUNE 8, 2009

Beloved family pet Dalmatian, Pepper, is stolen, and after several weeks of searching is discovered to have been experimented on at a hospital and died on the table when researchers tried to implant her with an experimental cardiac pacemaker. Tags: Activism Current Affairs Ethics Language. Let's deconstruct: Part I: Where's Pepper?

Animal Welfare 100

Animal Welfare Monkeys Animal Welfare Act Vivisection 100

Animal Ethics

APRIL 3, 2007

Prior to Jesus' death on the cross, animal sacrifices were a common and vital part of every family's worship experience. Lambs, goats, birds were sacrificed at home, at temples and on altars themselves. When Jesus died on the cross, He didn't just save us humans—He died for the animals, too. The animals took the place of humans.

Lamb 40

Lamb Goats Humane Animal 40

Animal Ethics

JULY 15, 2009

Ninety-seven percent of all poultry are raised in sheds containing over 100,000 birds, and hog facilities routinely house thousands of hogs in the same building. Meanwhile, protect yourself and your family from such germs by refusing to purchase or consume any meat produced on factory farms.

Vegetarian 40

Vegetarian Factory Farm Factory Farming Factory 40