10,000 Birds

JANUARY 28, 2024

By Hannah Buschert Hannah Buschert started birding in college thanks to a required Biology of Birds course and a professor who included Sir David Attenborough’s Life of Birds to punctuate lessons. Next step: find a bird guide. It was on a whim that our most recent adventure took us to Oaxaca.

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Mexico Birds Oregon Groups 174

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 26, 2014

He was with some other birders at Jacob Riis Park, out on the barrier beaches of Queens, and they were looking at a Henslow’s Sparrow that Patricia Lindsay had found. We chatted for a bit more and then I hung up and returned to the family. She asked if I wanted to go see the sparrow. Then Daisy asked me who had called.

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Sparrows New York Abandon Abandoning 156

10,000 Birds

MARCH 19, 2011

In response to the decline last year saw the first ever World Sparrow Day and tomorrow, 20 March, is the second annual World Sparrow Day. Hes only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasnt working as a union representative or spending time with his family.

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Sparrows 2011 Deer New York 188

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 4, 2021

When looking for birds in Costa Rica, the Central Valley isn’t the first place that comes to mind. Tongues and patches of green space host birds but most birders leave as soon as they can. Why linger when you can go where the birding is better? I can’t blame them, I would too.

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Costa Rica Sparrows Birds Rodents 243

10,000 Birds

JULY 3, 2017

Last weekend we had an extended family weekend at a beach house in Wildwood, New Jersey, just north of Cape May. Well, not just at a salt marsh but at the Seaside Sparrows that make their living there, at least in the warmer months. This heavily cropped shot shows just how many bugs these birds could carry at one time.

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Sparrows New Jersey Wildlife Hunting 100

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 18, 2012

What is up with the birding community in the northern part of the US recently? The event brings in people of color in the birding world and we engage in discussion to find out why birding is a bit white in nature and what we can do to be more inclusive. I digiscoped the above bird after waiting for 15 minutes.

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Family Beavers Minnesota Sparrows 155

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 195

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 20, 2013

For those of us in the Americas, nine-primaried oscines are among our most familiar and beloved birds: finches; sparrows, juncos, and towhees; warblers; blackbirds, meadowlarks, and orioles; cardinals and grosbeaks; and tanagers. Some scientists have lumped them all into one enormous family (e.g., Keith Barker, et al.,

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Family Blackbirds Groups Sparrows 172

10,000 Birds

MARCH 30, 2020

Over the years I’ve seen a variety of open-country birds there, including Bobolinks , Vesper Sparrow , and American Kestrel. Over the years birding Willow Lake I had added nearly eighty eBird checklists at the preserve and netted myself 127 species, good for number two on the eBird hotspot list. I really hope so.

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Bald Eagle New York City Birds New York 175

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 29, 2018

Nothing much tops birding in autumn. There are more birds in autumn than at any other time of year. Sparrows predominate but there are a host of other species to find and identify. Nice weather, lots of birds, and the potential for rarity. There’s something to be said for a bird that sticks out the tough weather.

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New York City Birds New York Sparrows 141

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 13, 2021

The poster bird of this area is the near-threatened Black-necked Crane. Not sure how I (or the bird itself) feel about the bird being named after a bird collector, though. A beautiful bird, but a disastrous name, if even some of the accusations against Przevalski of him being a massive racist are true. .”

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China Mongolia Birds Russia 166

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 22, 2022

It is near a river, attracting some birds that like to eat wet food. As the national bird of Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, the African Fish Eagle is usually very busy whenever it stays in these countries, giving speeches, opening shopping centers, etc. The birds I asked about this pretended not to be related to anyone though.

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Zimbabwe Birds South Africa Benin 147

10,000 Birds

JULY 9, 2020

As I simply saw too many interesting birds during my short Delhi birding trip in 2019, I decided to cover the trip in two separate posts. There is no ornithological rationale for which birds are featured in part 1 and 2 – it is merely a question of following the alphabet wherever it led me. One of my favorite bird species.

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Birds India Zoos 2019 160

10,000 Birds

JULY 13, 2014

So while you’re waiting for that or for low tide, here are a few reads and bits of news on bird taxonomy and systematics that have caught my eye over the past few weeks. A new genus for the American Tree Sparrow. And more sparrow shake-ups to come. Birds still are dinosaurs. Elephant birds and their kiwi kin.

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New Zealand Elephants Sparrows Ostriches 189

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 17, 2019

Lots of birds, a lot of really cool birds! Some local populations of birds and animals couldn’t adapt to the radical ecosystem-wide changes and just died out but a fair percentage did survive and continue to persist where green space lingers. This is one heck of a sweet urban bird. Lesson’s Motmot.

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Costa Rica Birds Parrots Sparrows 186

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 6, 2022

At the end of 2022, let us celebrate the local field guide, a sub-genre that many of us feared would die, the victim of technology, development, and globalization, but which still shines bright, fewer in number but brilliant in quality, thanks to birders and birding organizations that believe in knowing your patch and your state.

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Los Angeles Birds District of Columbia Parrots 181

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 16, 2012

Ourselves, for instance; just consider how many sweet or gritty stories you’ve seen about Olympic athletes’ family backgrounds over the last few weeks. Well, the American Birding Association’s Bird of the Year — the Evening Grosbeak – deserves no less. But what is a finch? And back to finches.

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Family Guatemala Stray Groups 176

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 217

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 2, 2018

If you like birds on posts, if seeing “little brown jobs” posing nicely in the distance as you drive or walk along a dirt road only to have it fly away as you approach makes you deliriously happy, then North Dakota is the place for you. I wanted to see prairie birds and I wanted to experience a new state. Scott Barnes, N.J.

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North Dakota Birds Sparrows Blackbirds 132

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.

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North America Research Birds Groups 278

10,000 Birds

JULY 18, 2020

In Costa Rica, our July birding news usually consists of interesting sightings during the mid-summer tours. Where can I see Cabanis’s Ground-Sparrow followed by a fantastic meal ? These and other important birding related questions come to mind and during a normal July, I would be personally and actively helping answer them.

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Costa Rica Birds Thailand Family 198

10,000 Birds

MAY 25, 2022

Towhees are large, ground-hugging sparrows that occur only in North America. Just to complicate things more, four members of the Melozone genus are called Ground-Sparrows rather than Towhees.). Earlier this month, I came across a family of Spotted Towhees (Olive-backed) with a couple of other strange aspects. They are spotless.

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Mexico North America 2015 Sparrows 194

10,000 Birds

JUNE 23, 2019

We should stop naming birds, especially non-European birds, after European and Euroamerican naturalists and scientists, especially if we are committed to making the worlds of birds and birding accessible to more people than the demographics that produced the Audubons, Wilsons, Stellers, and MacGillivrays. Well, no more!

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Birds North America Cooking Campaign 260

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 10, 2022

For some reason that I do not quite understand myself – given that I really rather dislike children and am not too positive about the rest of humanity either – I recently put up a little display of bird photos inside my Shanghai compound, which I share (as the only foreigner) with about 1700 Chinese. Some Birds of Shanghai.

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Birds Fish Germany China 162

10,000 Birds

JUNE 28, 2015

Hopefully you celebrated by enjoying some fine birds! I took a family trip down to rural Pennsylvania, where I can always count on seeing an abundance of Eastern Kingbirds … and I did. What was your best bird of the weekend? Tell us in the comments section about the rarest, loveliest, or most fascinating bird you observed.

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2015 Pennsylvania Sparrows Birds 158

10,000 Birds

JUNE 8, 2019

Growing up birding in Western New York was also a time when the old woods of the Niagara Gorge were punctuated with the songs of hidden Red-eyed and Warbling Vireos and the lazy notes of Eastern Wood-Pewees. Seeing the uncommon birds is key to reaching a big total no matter where one goes birding. San Vito and Buenos Aires.

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Costa Rica Species Birds New York 193

10,000 Birds

JULY 8, 2018

July often means travel, which sometimes means tourist attractions, which occasionally means exotic or introduced bird species. We may know these birds well, but should we love them? The reason I ask is because my family and I visited the Bronx Zoo this weekend. What was your best bird of the weekend? Following me here?

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2018 Zoos Birds Raised 100

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 10, 2020

November and early December can be a frustrating time here at Nanhui – on the one hand, there are fewer and fewer birds as migration slows down. On the other hand, it seems there is a better chance of getting some strays and really rare birds, such as the Ryukyu Minivet described in my last post. Autumn also means thrushes.

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Stray Asia Industry Family 226

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?

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North America 2003 Birds America 149

10,000 Birds

JULY 20, 2019

However, no matter how one enjoys or takes in interest in the avian side of life, an official list of the birds for a given area is of vital importance. With the rise in birding tourism, bird lists for entire countries have also become increasingly important. Not every list has Great Tinamou on it. So long buddy.

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Costa Rica Birds Owls South America 194

10,000 Birds

JUNE 14, 2018

Most birders, attuned as they are to the rhythms of the natural world, probably noticed when migration ended and bird breeding began in their areas. I’m still recovering from last week’s veritable banquet of birding in Honduras, which I’ll be writing about soon. Where will you be this weekend and will you be birding?

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Honduras 2018 Mexico Birds 100

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 10, 2015

Just like we did last year my family spent this past weekend camping at North Lake State Park, up in New York’s gorgeous Catskill Mountains. And, not surprisingly, the breeding birds present were largely the same species as last year which was not a problem at all! It’s about birds! How could we not?

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Birds New York Family Sparrows 162

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 19, 2022

So it is odd that this rather drab landscape would host some of our most colorful birds. I’ll choose to say that gray is also a color, as a shout out to the gorgeous Black-chinned Sparrow at the top of this article. There were, of course, many other birds seen that day. There were Vermilion Flycatchers , of course.

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Eagles Falcons Sparrows Species 200

10,000 Birds

APRIL 22, 2021

“Birds of the Indonesian Archipelago: Greater Sundas and Wallacea” by James A. kg could be, do keep in mind that this guide covers 4,400 km / 2,750 mi of the Earth’s circumference, or 11% of the length of the Equator, and describes 13% of global bird diversity. Eaton, Bas van Balen, Nick W. Brickle and Frank E. Rheindt is a big book.

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Indonesia Timor Brunei Guinea 262

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 5, 2015

In Costa Rica, when speaking English, we use a combination of words associated with both North American and UK birding communities. Quetzal” In sounding like the name of a rap star, this also gives the bird a modern, catchy title that befits the fame and splendid appearance. A sparrow : This one depends on how it is said.

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Costa Rica Sparrows Birds Eagles 165

10,000 Birds

MAY 6, 2018

This past weekend marked one of the peak moments of migratory bird activity globally, at least in an aggregate sense. Family obligations kept me on the sidelines during Global Big Day, but I did manage to sneak in a little birding before traveling. What was your best bird of the weekend? Did you notice? How about you?

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2018 Birds Sparrows Experience 100

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 5, 2014

Around this time of year, I keep an eye out for White-throated Sparrows landing around my home… they were right on time! Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend was a total surprise while on a family outing to Edgemere Landfill in Queens. What was your best bird of the weekend? Birding best bird weekend'

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2014 Birds Sparrows Experience 167