10,000 Birds

JANUARY 29, 2017

The hours are ticking down to Super Bowl LI, a hotly anticipated contest between perennial contenders New England Patriots and the upstart, high-flying Atlanta Falcons. Will the Atlanta Falcons actually win the Super Bowl? In the previous 50 Super Bowl match-ups, only twice has a football team named for a bird emerged victorious.

Falcons 109

Falcons Atlanta 2001 Game 109

10,000 Birds

MARCH 27, 2015

At the request of blog management, I’m embarking on a series of posts on the names of birds. Since we’ve covered some generalities already, once a month I’ll be exploring how a species, genus, or family of birds got its name, and how those names fit in with our larger understanding of, and relationship with, birds.

Falcons 260

Falcons Eagles Meat Geese 260

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 7, 2015

I spent the early morning hours the last two days on the beach in the eastern Rockaways, taking advantage of slanted light and cooperative birds. It literally tossed it in the air several times as it tried to separate the meat from the shell. Semipalmated Plovers , like this young bird, were all over the beach.

Birds 196

Birds Goats Falcons Jamaica 196

10,000 Birds

JUNE 5, 2015

Not only do we take care of zillions of injured and orphaned birds/mammals/reptiles/whatever, we also have to deal with and educate the public. I had a finder bring me a bird he’d correctly ID’d as a merlin – a not-too-common falcon – but when he brought him in, I could see he’d been trying to feed it BIRD SEED!”

Squirrels 250

Squirrels Hamburgers Chickens Wildlife Rehabilitation 250

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 8, 2012

There’s even video proof of a Red-shouldered Hawk eating earthworms on Flickr and there’s been discussion about this on MD bird listserv. This discussion about red-shoulders comes up from time to time and it throws people off, “Wait, hawks are raptors, they should be going for meat!”

Chickens 234

Chickens Meat Rodents North America 234

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 4, 2017

In large part, my lack of full birding national coverage stems from another feature shared with the state that harbors the New River gorge, and one that helped create conditions that can result in mega diversity. This bird is fairly common in many parts of Costa Rica but it’s so stunning, it always deserves a mention.

Costa Rica 100

Costa Rica West Virginia Birds Panama 100

10,000 Birds

APRIL 8, 2011

In the birding community, standardization of common names has followed, and is an on-going project (with mixed success.) In some cases, this has increased beauty and precision, saving us from a morass in which every red bird is a Redbird and every blue jay is a Blue Jay. Peregrine Falcon is certainly more elegant than Duck Hawk.

Hunters 186

Hunters Falcons Ducks Montana 186