10,000 Birds

JANUARY 11, 2023

How can one, in what is barely the second week of the first month of the year – even think of suggesting a Bird of the Year? I began recording my bird sightings with photographs in late 2009, and since then I have seen (or at least heard) a fair proportion of species recorded within my home country of Trinidad & Tobago.

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Birds Trinidad 2020 2012 262

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 13, 2023

It feels good to start a post with some truly attractive birds – such as two species of broadbills. If you like cute birds, you will probably like the Black-and-yellow Broadbill. Homework assignment: Is the bird in this video a male or a female? Strangely, there do not seem to be many papers on this species.

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Sri Lanka Birds Taiwan Cats 212

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 29, 2023

On Tuesday my closest birding buddies, and, of late, my regular companions, wanted to go down to Paso Ancho. This did not seem like a problem to me, because a bit of rain really seems to bring out the birds in such a dry habitat. The post I’m Birding in the Rain, Just Birding in the Rain first appeared on 10,000 Birds.

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Birds Mexico Shelters Species 158

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 24, 2018

Birds can be enjoyed in a wide variety of ways. Those of us who chase rare birds for our counties, states, or other human-made geographical distinctions watch birds for more reasons than the twitch. Personally, I enjoy birds in every way. After a bird rich morning at Cope’s.

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Costa Rica Species San Jose Birds 183

10,000 Birds

JUNE 13, 2021

The bird is just chilling out, waiting for the urge to fly. The bird below is also waiting, but not to fly. One might assume this is a falconry bird, but it’s not. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of birds knows the efficiency and delicacy of their respiratory systems. Now imagine you have the lungs of a bird.

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Wildlife Rehabilitation Tethering Giraffes Alabama 262

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 171

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

Birds of Belize by Steve N. Howell and Dale Dyer and Birds of Costa Rica by Dale Dyer and Steve N. An associated issue is that the Belize and Costa Rica guides share many of the same descriptions of species, written by Howell. Two books, two authors, two countries bursting with neotropical avian diversity. © 2023 by Steve N.

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Costa Rica Belize El Salvador Birds 213

10,000 Birds

MAY 4, 2021

Louisiana is a magical place to bird. At the same time I was ogling Scissor-tailed Flycatchers and Upland Sandpipers, Marybeth Lima was also birding Louisiana. Chapter Two is a potpourri of stories about nemesis birds, birding by ear, birding for science, under the rubric of birding ‘for the love of it.’

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Louisiana Species Mississippi Alabama 264

10,000 Birds

JULY 18, 2021

The best of summer birding in my experience takes place at the beach. Our land-locked species in temperate zones tend to become too focused on the little details of perpetuating their species to be sufficiently entertaining. Out on the shore, though, a whole suite of species exists in the places we gravitate to anyway.

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Virginia Birds Experience Experiments 247

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 22, 2023

Guyana’s capital city of Georgetown, a quaint, sprawling network of roads and waterways is a regulated introduction to the country’s 800+ species of birds. Bird number one in a new country, and fittingly, a lifer for me. Lesser Kiskadee A pair of very similar looking birds flew in to confuse things even more.

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Guyana Parrots Birds South America 189

10,000 Birds

JUNE 1, 2023

As such, it offers some unique birding experiences. Even better, I happen to have an online birding buddy who offered to make space that Wednesday and Friday to take me to see some of Tabasco’s birds. By week’s end I had 30 new species on my life list. Good choice! 500 down, 600 to go.

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Mexico Tigers Birds Cows 130

10,000 Birds

JUNE 29, 2023

The (Big) Year that Flew By: Twelve Months, Six Continents, and the Ultimate Birding Record – which is the book’s full title, or Arjan Dwarshuis’s Big Year, as I prefer to call it shortly, is a highly anticipated and a long awaited travelogue of the author’s 2016 race against time across 40 countries in his attempt to break the world birding record.

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Papua New Guinea Guinea Suriname South America 248

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 16, 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. Mercedes Rivadeneira has been in the birding tourism and nature conservation business for over 30 years!

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Ecuador Birds 2019 Cattle 258

10,000 Birds

MAY 18, 2020

May delivers one of those amazing times of the year when we’re too busy looking at birds to sit around talking about them. A weekend that included well north of a hundred species is a difficult weekend for which to decide what is the Best Bird of the Weekend and Corey had that enviable task this weekend. How about you?

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2020 Jamaica New York Birds 352

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 18, 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. We work hard to provide the richest and most rewarding experience of the Neotropics.

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Guatemala El Salvador Belize Honduras 246

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 1, 2023

It is home to four diverse forest ecosystems (deciduous, mixed, boreal, and lowlands), experiences seasonal weather systems ranging from cold dry Arctic winters to humid, thunder-storm filled summers, and, according to the latest official checklist, hosts four professional sports teams with bird names.* state and Canadian provinces.

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North America Birds Owls Canada 210

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 19, 2022

Costa Rica has long been one of the more frequently visited global birding hotspots. In addition to providing many people with wonderful life experiences, these birding visits have helped increase our understanding of local bird distribution. More Birding in the Northern Volcanoes. Does Wing-banded Antbird occur?

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Costa Rica Birds Albatross Protection 258

10,000 Birds

APRIL 20, 2024

Then sometimes when you see these birds actively regaining their energy and getting ready for defending territories and breeding, they give the impression that their migration had just been a short jog around the block rather than a marathon across desert, mountains, and oceans.

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Soreing Owls Woodpeckers Eagles 174

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 10, 2023

Since then he has traveled the globe, his passion for birds growing with each new encounter. One reason that I can think of for subjecting myself to such a torturous experience is if I am going birdwatching. I had never been to Colombia before so didn’t know the best birding spots in the vicinity of the capital.

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Colombia Birds Raised Ecuador 218

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 25, 2021

October is on the wane, but the birds just keep coming. I wasn’t really where any uncommon birds were this weekend, but I’m never far from very vocal Northern Cardinals , which is a good thing. Of the two, he chose the latter as his Best Bird of the Weekend, simply because he got a better photo of it. How about you?

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Sparrows Birds Experience Experiments 239

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 2, 2021

The same analogy applies to bird sightings, but here we are, so let’s hear what you saw this weekend! Corey went out onto the East Pond at Jamaica Bay both mornings this weekend and saw bunches of great birds. What was your best bird of the weekend? What was your best bird of the weekend? How about you?

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Jamaica Birds Experience Experiments 257

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 22, 2021

As August comes rushing to a close, the doldrums of the last few weeks have already started to give way to a new mass movement of birds. Not only did I pick up that little brown job, but I found plenty more species that looked verrrry much like it. What was your best bird of the weekend? Move with them! Good times!

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California New York Birds Experience 264

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

To every bird, though, mid-September remains what it’s always been: a good time to feed, mass, and move ! Corey enjoyed his outing with me on Saturday and his coastal birding with his pal Mary on Sunday. Over twenty species of wood-warbler, a variety of shorebirds, and host of birds in general will make for some fun fall birding.

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2020 Birds Humane Experience 301

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 26, 2021

I finally tracked down Black-bellied Plover , a shorebird species that had been eluding me for the county for years, plus a bonus bird in the form of a very infrequent Forster’s Tern hobnobbing with the usual Caspians. Corey got out looking for birds a whole bunch this weekend. What was your best bird of the weekend?

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Bears Birds Experience Experiments 217

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 30, 2020

“Sit under a fruiting tree and birding shall be fruitful.” ” After spending the last couple months chasing migratory shorebirds, I was aching for some forest birding. And what better way to do it than to fortuitously come upon a fruiting tree being attended to by a multitude of species? Streaked Flycatcher.

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Trinidad Birds Woodpeckers Species 278

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 28, 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. My name is Kalu Afasi, I am a birding guide from Ghana, a country in West Africa.

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Ghana Africa Birds Industry 223

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 195

10,000 Birds

APRIL 2, 2024

The chapter titles of Feather Trails: A Journey of Discovery Among Endangered Birds represent both ends of the spectrum: “A World Full of Poisons,” “Malaria,” “Forest Intruders,” “Lead Shock,” “Shot.” Conservation. It’s not easy. This is the most intense, tragic section.

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California Condor Falcons California Birds 176

10,000 Birds

MAY 10, 2021

May is a time for birding. We have the slow weeks and months for reading, writing, and dreaming about the birds we’d rather be seeing. Corey enjoyed getting out early and birding both days this weekend, and has the lists to back him up. After that, what else could be his Best Bird of the Weekend? How about you?

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New York Sparrows Birds Breeding 257

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 9, 2021

I added yet another new Monroe County bird in the form of a Stilt Sandpiper this weekend, which is the only way this species earns my Best Bird honors. Corey is enjoying life visiting relatives in southern California and has seen a bunch of birds he hasn’t seen awhile. What was your best bird of the weekend?

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Birds California Raised Wildlife 264

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 21, 2021

When it comes to tropical birding, field guides regularly deal with well over a 1000 birds and tend to be on the hefty side. Travel guides are mostly lighter, but this “where to watch birds guide” is truly lightweight and traveller friendly. Each site gets from 2 to 5 pages (but mostly 3-4).

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Kenya Africa South Africa Penguins 261

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 26, 2020

Fortunately, nature assures that, as one suite of birds leaves, another takes its place. Corey enjoyed some good birding on both Saturday and Sunday mornings. But his Best Bird of the Weekend was one he saw with his family on a visit to Jamaica Bay on Saturday evening. What was your best bird of the weekend?

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2020 Rabbits Jamaica Pelicans 243

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 29, 2024

I truly do hope I am not tiring 10,000 Birds’ readers too much with my obsession with Michoacán’s ongoing drought, the disappearance of Lake Cuitzeo (Mexico’s 2nd largest lake, in normal years), and our own micro-endemic Black-polled Yellowthroat. But obsessed I am. Had I thrown a rock, I would undoubtedly have hit one.

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Mexico Investigation Science Experience 215

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 12, 2021

Actually, many birds started their seasonal peregrination weeks ago and may have many more weeks ahead until they’ve reached their destinations. Migration is meaningful to those of us who appreciate when non-local birds invade our local airspace, so make the most of this one. What was your best bird of the weekend?

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Breeders Birds Owls Experience 219

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 7, 2023

If you followed Dorian’s adventures on his Big Year blog, Biking for Birds , you are familiar with many of these stories, but not the major one, the internal journey that was going on inside Dorian’s mind as he pedaled and birded: his history and multi-year struggle with alcoholism and related addictions.

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Birds Los Angeles Massachusetts New York City 214

10,000 Birds

APRIL 25, 2021

Weekends like these tend to fill those of us closer to the poles with envy for our birding friends even the slightest bit closer to the equator. While I knocked down plenty of first of spring birds this weekend, I most appreciated the appearance of a species that hangs around all winter. What was your best bird of the weekend?

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Birds Sparrows Experience Experiments 227

10,000 Birds

JUNE 6, 2021

June can be a hit-or-miss month for birding. You may, if fortune favors you, hit good weather or birds. I’ve continued my inconsistent effort to pick off the species I need for my Monroe County list. What was your best bird of the weekend? In that sense, June is no different than any other month, right?

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Sparrows Birds Farming Experience 221