10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 3, 2022

Not just to bird, but equally to rest, reset and restart. And also, to bird. Three years ago I asked American birders which foreign countries they dream of birding, and with more than one fifth of all answers, Costa Rica turned to hold a very strong first place. It was close to 5 a.m., I was literally awake at 3 a.m.,

Costa Rica 258

Costa Rica San Jose Nepal Europe 258

10,000 Birds

MAY 17, 2016

I want to alert you to a recent study (from April) that looks at the plight of bird populations under conditions of climate change in Europe and North America. The study looked at common birds, and used data divided by either state (in the US) or country (in Europe). Stephens et al. Stephens, Philip, et al.

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North America Europe America United States 125

10,000 Birds

APRIL 6, 2023

Dave Gosney’s Finding Birds Series covers mostly the Western Palearctic and describes birding in various regions of Portugal, Spain, Morocco, France, Finland, Estonia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, etc., Based on a visit in spring 2014, this guide updates the previous Finding Birds in Greece.

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Greece Bulgaria Macedonia Gambia 216

10,000 Birds

MAY 31, 2024

The days are longer and warmer, flowers fill the meadows, and the birds are back. True, most of our migrant breeding birds start to return in April, but in May even the late arrivals – Turtle Doves, Swifts, Spotted Flycatchers and Nightjars – finally appear. There was a notable passage of waders, too, the same day.

Greece 182

Greece Turtles Breeding Europe 182

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 5, 2024

Well, 2023 has ended, so it’s time to look back at the past year’s birding. The pleasures of birding are many and varied, so this kind of post always involves a list. I will also return to several birds which have already appeared here. But Morocco’s example is by far the “housiest” of them all.

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Morocco Birds Turkey Mexico 192

10,000 Birds

JULY 13, 2023

Lake Kerkini National Park in the north of Greece is the very best birding area in the Balkan Peninsula and definitely among the top ten hotspots of Europe. Some 320 species have been recorded here, and in springtime it is possible to observe more than 150 bird species in a week.

Greece 242

Greece Pelicans Birds Stray Dog 242

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 19, 2024

There’s also a much greater variety of species of deer living here now than than there were four or five hundred years ago, for along with our native Roe and Red Deer we also have large populations of Fallow, Sika, Reeves’s Muntjac and Chinese Water Deer. Reeves’s Muntjac , a highly successful invasive species in the UK.

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Fur Deer Boars Estonia 228

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 23, 2024

There’s something wonderfully primeval about the Northern Bald Ibis: it has the look of a bird that really ought to be extinct. The fact that it’s not is quite surprising, as this curious bird has come very close to the brink. Sadly, they no longer breed in Algeria, while in Turkey no free-flying birds remain. (In

Morocco 240

Morocco Austria Algeria Germany 240

10,000 Birds

MAY 21, 2020

The coronavirus has locked us all in, literally, doing something that was totally unthinkable only a few months ago: it has prevented us from birding abroad! It can still be an entirely opposite end of a continent, but – if you are residing in Europe – the flight can be as short as one (from Germany) to two hours (from UK).

Serbia 317

Serbia Sanctuary Birds Bosnia 317

10,000 Birds

APRIL 26, 2024

I’ve been a regular visitor to the island of Cyprus for over 25 years, making around a dozen trips during this period, every one in search of birds. I made my most recent visit earlier this month, arriving with my three birding companions, Martin, Mike and Chris, on a warm spring evening.

Cyprus 235

Cyprus Breeders Falcons Hunters 235

10,000 Birds

APRIL 3, 2023

Chinese Penduline T**s are not particularly woke birds. White’s Thrush is described as “burly” on eBird – not entirely unjustified, I guess, but this description fails to capture the way the intricate patterns of the bird make for great camouflage and also for its own kind of beauty. Maybe the grandparents help.

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Birds Blackbirds Indonesia Bhutan 219

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 21, 2021

10,000 Birds is running a series of articles by and about tour guides, tour companies, eco-lodges, and other birding travel organizations. We want to help the birding tourism industry come back strong from the COVID pandemic. 140 birds). Kerkini is one of the most important wintering areas throughout Europe.

Greece 264

Greece Wildlife Boars Otters 264

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 3, 2020

If you are old enough, you will remember birding without a phone? Later I carried it because of a stash of bird songs I compiled in it. And now I carry it for the same reason, only now they are a part of the bird ID app. Anyway, I don’t even have an app for the European birds at the moment, but for the Birds of Southern Africa.

Serbia 288

Serbia Birds Ducks Cyprus 288

10,000 Birds

MARCH 30, 2015

Gustave Axelson has a nice breakdown of a recent genetic analysis of redpolls on Cornell’s All About Birds Blog : Mason and Taylor looked beyond the plumage into strands of the birds’ DNA in the most extensive look ever at the redpoll genome. Birds redpoll taxonomy and systematics winter finches' It sure looks like it!

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Species Switzerland Groups Europe 229

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 12, 2024

Memorable encounters with Mammals: Part I Most birdwatchers enjoy seeing mammals, but the trouble with mammals is that they tend to be much more challenging to see than birds. I remember the guide on my first Kenyan birding safari remarking that “birding groups always see far more mammals than those who come just to see animals.

Fur 207

Fur Bulgaria Otters Estonia 207

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

I am a birder, and I love birds. I don’t mind that they share the world with other creatures, and I have even developed an appreciation for mammals, reptiles and amphibians – but only so long as watching them doesn’t collide with my finding birds. For Europe, only very few books exist that cover the topic at all.

Europe 166

Europe Mammals Animal Birds 166

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 19, 2020

For several years I lived and birded in the south of Africa , and still have my battered second edition (1997) of the Sasol Birds of Southern Africa, the most trusted local field guide. Distribution maps show the relative abundance of a species in the region and also indicate resident or visiting status.

Africa 264

Africa South Africa Swaziland Lesotho 264

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 14, 2023

The voices are different however and one can distinguish between the two species through their vocalisations. Very occasionally though, one might stray down the eastern seaboard of the USA, but for the most part, those that breed in arctic Canada migrate towards Europe and swell numbers there during the winter.

Iceland 236

Iceland Stray Breeders Canada 236

10,000 Birds

JUNE 15, 2023

How much time do you devote to birding? How high is birding on your list of activities – is it the very first or merely one of? These are the types I recognise: Coffee Break Birding – 10-15 minutes, usually not planned ahead but squeezed out of your schedule. It is a good option if you know that there is that one special bird.

India 196

India Birds Africa Serbia 196

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 17, 2020

This is a bit of a dilemma for local authorities – on the one hand, they would presumably like to protect the birds, on the other hand, they also want to draw as many tourists to the place as possible. Still, it is a good place for birds, and given the gregarious nature of most of the Chinese tourists (similar to shorebirds?),

China 293

China Birds Fish Asia 293

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 10, 2023

Since then he has traveled the globe, his passion for birds growing with each new encounter. I had just ended my ten-day birding adventure in Ecuador (which is a story for another time) when I decided, since I had an amazing time, to prolong my trip a bit longer before heading back to Europe. An antpitta out in the open!

Colombia 237

Colombia Birds Raised Ecuador 237

10,000 Birds

MARCH 10, 2022

How high is birding on your list of activities – is it the very first or merely one of? These are the types I recognise: Coffee Break Birding – 10-15 minutes, usually not planned ahead but squeezed out of your schedule. It is a good option if you know that there is that one special bird. My kind of birding.

India 253

India Birds Africa Game 253

10,000 Birds

MAY 18, 2023

This park protects the largest remaining tract of dry deciduous forest in the west of India, offering visitors 37 species of reptiles, 38 species of mammals and, not to be forgotten – almost 300 bird species. We’re here for the birds!” The largest reptile is the Indian Mugger Crocodile.

India 147

India Lions Boars Mammals 147

10,000 Birds

JULY 9, 2022

They are places where we invest most of our birding time and rightly so; mature tropical forests are where we find the highest number of species. Tropical forest is a must but those mossy green mansions aren’t the only places where birds occur. Such field and edge birding becomes especially fun in urbanized areas.

Costa Rica 275

Costa Rica Farming Birds Sparrows 275

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 21, 2021

It is a well-known birding spot, and a low-budget alternative to Baihualing. While Baihualing is much better for birds, foreigners are currently prohibited from going there, presumably as we all carry Covid-19, even if like me we have been in China the whole year. Anyway, another topic I wanted to mention in this post is birds.

China 264

China Birds Zebras Germany 264

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 23, 2021

Fortunately, China still has lots of interesting birding locations left for me. But of course, it is also nice to remember past birding trips. One in November 2018 included a one-day birding trip in the Drakensberg area, a mountain range in the border area between South Africa and Lesotho. That does not make much sense, I know.

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South Africa Africa Lesotho Nigeria 252

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 25, 2022

Now, it is much easier for me to achieve first-time sightings of species in Europe than it is in Mexico, at this point of the game. So I might have assumed I would not see new species in the Palmones wetlands. The first gave me eight new species for Spain, of which four were lifers. But this time, I could.

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Spain Mexico Europe North America 194

10,000 Birds

MARCH 25, 2024

If you’ve birded in Spain, possibly more than once, and are considering another Mediterranean country to quench your thirst, look to the east. Steve Dudley, a bird guide and author of the Lesvos birding guide, once told me: “Greece is THE premier birding location in Europe for me [and for yours truly as well].

Greece 268

Greece Spain India Europe 268

10,000 Birds

MAY 20, 2021

It was an unexpected bird tour, without too much planning and aimed at a few target species, of which we saw most, but the main one eluded us… Early morning, leaving the last houses behind… and a Little Owl awaits us on a traffic sign. A fitting end to a sudden bird tour. Nutria) flew by us (this time, it was Q. who dipped it).

Serbia 255

Serbia Birds Romania Eagles 255

10,000 Birds

JUNE 23, 2022

The main attraction for birders here are the hornbills – I have written about them before , so this post will be more on the other birds I saw there in 2017. Anyway, it is a very cute-looking bird if you are big enough not to be among its prey of (mostly) insects.

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Birds Myanmar China Chicago 147

10,000 Birds

APRIL 5, 2022

Thank you, goddess of birding luck and text group people).* My inner self felt stuck in an area between disbelief and total joy and the voices near me were echoing this state of mind: “Oh My God,” “I never thought I would see this bird,” “Look at that bill!” “How did that bird get here?”

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Birds Compassion Eagles Science 264

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 13, 2022

The late November to early December was the beginning of a dry season and no one wore rubber boots, all birding was done in lightweight hiking shoes. In Inírida – on older maps Puerto Inírida, there is no need for cages, you can hear birds all the time! Birds The local birdlist has reached 462 species, and some 30 more are expected.

Colombia 257

Colombia Birds Cooking Fish 257

10,000 Birds

MAY 7, 2020

Like many of you, I had plans for this year’s spring migration: to bird the very best tour of the Balkans, heading for northeastern Greece. First, 800 km of driving from Belgrade through Bulgaria to very NE corner of Greece and the Dadia Forest National Park with its 36 species of diurnal raptors, out of Europe’s 38.

Greece 255

Greece Bulgaria Birds Serbia 255

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

At first, the nation only opened to countries in Europe and Canada. This means that yes, you can visit Costa Rica, you can come here for birding BUT you can’t just get on a plane and show up. This means that yes, you can visit Costa Rica, you can come here for birding BUT you can’t just get on a plane and show up.

Costa Rica 249

Costa Rica Birds United States Washington 249

10,000 Birds

MAY 27, 2024

Given how far Hokkaido is from Europe, it seems a bit surprising how many bird species wintering on this Japanese island have a name starting with “Eurasian” Or how many of these species I have also seen in my parents’ garden in Germany. It seems extra-pair paternity is very frequent in this species.

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Research Germany Iran Humane 130

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 6, 2022

They may be about bird eggs ( The Most Perfect Thing: The Inside (and Outside) of a Bird’s Egg , 2016), or a 17th-century ornithologist ( Virtuoso by Nature: The Scientific Worlds of Francis Willughby, 2016), or How Bullfinches learn songs from humans ( The Wisdom of Birds: An Illustrated History of Ornithology.

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Dissection Birds Research Europe 242

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 15, 2020

When it comes to one’s most exciting bird sightings, of course, it all comes down to context. I wouldn’t change my central Mexican endemics for any other region’s birds. So my favorites for 2019 includes a good number of birds that are rather common elsewhere, but were firsts for me.

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Austria Spain 2019 Birds 157