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. This bird may be “common”, but it is also stunning. That’s the Kingfisher at the right; on the left was one of the area’s many European Stonechats. But this time, I could.

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Spain Mexico Europe North America 185

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 25, 2023

Cedar Waxwings have come back to central Mexico. But in 2020 I personally saw thousands of Waxwings in a dozen or so sites, and every one of my birder friends across the country had a similar experience. Certain kinds of birds, such as finches and Snowy Owls , may go for years without travelling outside of their normal ranges.

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Mexico 2020 2012 Parrots 147

10,000 Birds

MARCH 4, 2020

And while it was to be a work (ministry) trip, I had still managed to schedule it right during the migratory peak along these two major corridors. So I am writing these words on Tuesday night in my home in Mexico, rather than waking up in Paris prior to flying to Istanbul. The post Consolation species appeared first on 10,000 Birds.

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Species Mexico Jordan Turkey 162

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 3, 2021

You know how you plan your regular Monday birding outing in spite of a category 2 hurricane making landfall on the coast, 135 miles away, because the rain bands are supposed to finish impacting your area at around 7:00 a.m.? And then the hurricane stalls, and the rain continues until noon, but you go birding anyway? Which I did.

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Blackbirds Shelters Ducks Mexico 231

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 6, 2024

Work brings me regularly to Monterrey in Nuevo Leon, northern Mexico. And if you like birding, it’s a good place to spend time before or after meetings and explore. And if you like birding, it’s a good place to spend time before or after meetings and explore. It was David’s first time birding.

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Parrots Woodpeckers Industry Fast Food 164

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

We all have them: families of birds that are maddeningly similar, forever leaving nagging doubts about our identifications. Someday I will get up the nerve to write about the ten, yes, TEN Empidonax species I believe I have seen in my little corner of Mexico. New World Warblers in non-reproductive plumage. But you will not see it.

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Mexico Argentina Experience Experiments 142

10,000 Birds

JUNE 16, 2021

They also remind me why I love birding in Michoacán. I would love to know how the order spread across these regions, since that spread must have involved either crossing oceans or the frigid regions that these birds avoid. Both are large, stocky birds, with a large head and long, squared-off tail. Those are good numbers.

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Mexico Indonesia North America Arizona 191

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 12, 2016

There are a lot of side benefits to birding. But, while we are making sacrifices for the avian quest, we also experience side benefits much less trying in nature. In tamer forests right above the falls at Niagara, I once had the benefit of meeting an adult son with his loving mother in the middle of the forest.

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Birds Costa Rica Chickens Goats 157

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.

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Birds Ethics 2019 Experience 197

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 2, 2022

I dipped on one of my favorite birds from this area, the Lesser Roadrunner , as well as the marvelous Sparkling-tailed Woodstar (a long-tailed hummingbird). But the day did provide me with a parade of some of Michoacán’s most colorful birds, some of them migratory, and others local specialties.

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South America Sparrows Mexico Bears 202

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 7, 2020

Last week I wrote about my first experience with a new site that a friend thought looked promising when he saw it on Google Maps. My friend was right. This experience of finding an entirely new, but very birdy, site is nothing unusual for me. And E-Bird only listed a couple of high-quality sites back then.

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San Francisco 2020 Experience Experiments 164

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 13, 2021

“This beautiful and singular bird, although a constant resident in the southern extremities of the peninsula of Florida, seldom extends its journeys in an eastern direction beyond the State of North Carolina. It is rarely seen in the interior of the country at any distance from the waters of the Atlantic, or those of the Gulf of Mexico.

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New York South Carolina North Carolina Massachusetts 264

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 1, 2019

We see a closer shot of the river itself, hawks flying across the span, and then we see that brown line again, close up, a wall of brown panels filling the right side of the screen, continuing into the distance, no end in sight, while a white pick-up truck drives parallel to it at the far left of the screen.

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Advocacy Mexico United States Texas 268

10,000 Birds

MAY 3, 2022

It stops those thousands of migrating birds flying across the Gulf of Mexico and directs them right onto the trees, fields, sanctuaries, beaches along the Bolivar Peninsula, where they hopefully find food and fresh water. And us, the birders who travel here from March to May to worship the birds as they seek to survive.

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Houston Texas Sanctuary Sparrows 221

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 14, 2014

In September, I had the fantastic opportunity to travel to an increasingly popular destination for birding: Honduras. Chris Lotz, the owner of the international bird tour company Birding Ecotours , invited me to join him on a familiarization trip that included several highland sites as well as Pico Bonito Lodge.

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Honduras Costa Rica El Salvador Arizona 222

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 22, 2014

For others, it is the desire to have a different birding experience from home without needing a passport. In the ABA region, southeast Arizona and the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas host many sites right along the Mexican border that fit this description.

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Thailand Birds 2013 China 166

10,000 Birds

JUNE 4, 2018

In a little less than two weeks my family and I will be enjoying a long weekend on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. Having never birded in Mexico at all I was initially concerned about identifying the myriad species that can be seen. Hopefully, I’ll do better than 85% correct when I’m in Mexico.

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Mexico Belize Honduras Science 107

10,000 Birds

APRIL 1, 2016

His love for birds and photography started at a young age. They’ve been traveling and bird blogging the world ever since! My first experience with this bird was near the fishing village of San Evaristo, on the Sea of Cortez, 50 miles north of La Paz, Mexico. In just the right light, they seem to glow.

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San Diego Seattle Mexico Oregon 105

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 22, 2017

Traveling north of La Paz, Mexico, the terrain starts to look very much like an old John Wayne Movie. This diversity makes for a very unique birding experience. One where you get to enjoy the many different local desert birds, right along side the birds that make the warm salt waters they home.

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Mountain Lions Mules Sheep Lions 100

10,000 Birds

MARCH 21, 2015

Birders head to Costa Rica to see stunners like Resplendent Quetzal , Three-wattled Bellbird , Orange-collared Manakin , fancy hummingbirds , tanagers, and literally hundreds of other birds. This bunch of possible Costa Rican crypto birds can be grouped into four main categories: (1). Bird species that require further research.

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Costa Rica Species South America America 219

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 23, 2019

During the decade, I submitted 1,219 checklists and observed 555 bird species, all in the U.S. I started eBirding about the same time I started birding, and I made an early executive decision (a very good one) that any pre-eBird observations simply did not count. Birding trips to Florida , New Mexico , and Texas are obvious too.

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Puerto Rico Virgin Islands Michigan Washington 151

10,000 Birds

APRIL 3, 2018

Angela Minor has lived, traveled, and birded from the southern U.S. As a freelance travel writer, she authors the state park birding series at Bird Watcher’s Digest, writes for several travel publications including Blue Ridge Country, Smoky Mountain Living, World of Cruising, and serves as a field editor for Birds & Blooms.

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Texas North America Alaska America 184

10,000 Birds

MARCH 21, 2024

So Eduardo set aside the afternoon to show me some of the city, and take me birding in two city parks. Being a westerner — raised in California, and now living in western Mexico — I was perhaps most excited about the migratory birds that breed in eastern North America. Two other birds, both residents, surprised us.

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Mexico Birds Raccoons Baltimore 205

10,000 Birds

MAY 15, 2011

And, as a bonus question, from what blog post on 10,000 Birds is the picture taken? Good luck and may you see a flock of wood-warblers today! ———————————————————————————————————————————————— This week, 8 May – 14 May 2011, is Wood-Warbler Week on 10,000 Birds! Read about them here but also get out and experience them.

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United States South America 2011 2012 155

10,000 Birds

MAY 7, 2011

The next seven days, today until the fourteenth, are hereby declared Wood-Warbler Week on 10,000 Birds! Parulidae is just too great a family of birds and our only debate here was whether we would have Wood-Warbler Week or Wood-Warbler Month! Read about them here but also get out and experience them. Are you excited as we are?

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United States South America Cooking Family 187

10,000 Birds

JULY 18, 2018

The countrysides were incredible, the people were as hospitable as anywhere we went, and there are some fantastic birds. The last week found us start off in Hull, at the Spurn Bird Observatory. We had contacted the staff at the observatory, and with Jonnies help, arranged to stay right there in their newly built hostel type facility.

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South Africa New Zealand Costa Rica Qatar 100

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 28, 2011

And it looks even better in my hands while I dream about a visit to regions of Brazil I had scarcely heard of before being provided with a review copy of the first volume of the Wildlife Conservation Society Birds of Brazil.*

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Brazil Wildlife 2011 Birds 208

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

After weeks of preparation (and not writing many 10,000 Bird posts), my wife and I are finally in Spain. Algeciras, Spain, to be specific — right around the bay from Gibraltar. And in between, you can stop at the Cazalla Soaring Bird Observatory ( Cazalla Observatorio de Aves Planeadoras ). And so did the soaring birds.

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Spain Birds Mexico Eagles 147

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.

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2011 Pelicans Papua New Guinea Birds 154

10,000 Birds

MAY 30, 2019

Author Sherrida Woodley thinks deeply about dearly departed birds. His parents moved where opportunity beckoned, taking him from San Angelo, Texas, to Columbus, New Mexico, then to Dallas, and finally on to California. His life brought him into close proximity with birds, observing them and practicing taxidermy to learn even more.

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Falcons California Condor Alaska Texas 187

10,000 Birds

APRIL 11, 2023

While our compatriots seem only to want to visit Mexico’s touristy beach cities, we would rather go anywhere else in this country. Indeed, even though I just celebrated 40 years of living in Mexico, we have never been to Cabo San Lucas, and our only experience with Cancún was going though immigration in that city’s airport.

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Birds Mexico Turkey Species 249

10,000 Birds

MAY 8, 2011

The Cape May Warbler is an outstanding bird and an outing that includes one is almost undoubtedly considered successful. We are devoting a whole week to wood-warblers but are only just barely scratching the surface of possible topics involving this amazing family of birds. Read about them here but also get out and experience them.

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Tigers United States Jamaica Pennsylvania 159

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 20, 2012

The original distribution of the Wild Turkey is not clearly known, but it existed from the Eastern Seaboard of the US nearly to the Rocky Mountains, avoided some of the more open plains in the north, and occurred in central Mexico. This is the time of year that we rightfully contemplate the noble Turkey. This is where they got their name.

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Turkey Columbus Spain Fowl 208

10,000 Birds

JULY 13, 2011

What started as me posting a link on my private Facebook page about how much I hate the Transportation Security Administration, quickly turned into a very revealing conversation about race and could be a very large and underlying issue of why we don’t see more people of color in birding or enjoying nature in general.

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Laws Colorado America Kazakhstan 240

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 6, 2018

It actually makes a lot of sense, the geographic features of the isthmus between North America (including Mexico, because Mexico is part of North America) and South America cut across political lines, as do birds. It is the first bird field guide to every country of Central America (plus the islands governed by those countries).

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America El Salvador Costa Rica Honduras 214

10,000 Birds

JULY 20, 2023

July is the month when some of Mexico’s best birders (and I don’t use that term lightly) ask me to take them to the tiny town of Paso Ancho, in the hopes of seeing the ever-so-scarce and little-studied Sinaloa Martin. This female Streak-backed Oriole is the rightful nest owner. Well, it is July again. Seeing one?

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Mexico Oregon Squirrels Science 153

10,000 Birds

JULY 24, 2019

It’s a rush any new birder experiences: that of every species being a lifer. Once you’ve been around the birding block a few years, your appreciation for the lifer experience deepens greatly. Which is why we all eventually turn to the one way to combine old-birder experience with new-birder opportunities: travel.

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Spain Europe Sparrows Mexico 202