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Celebrating a Waxwing Winter

10,000 Birds

Bohemian Waxwings are the rock stars of the bird world. No other bird on the British list has quite the same allure, or ability to tempt people to travel long distances to see them. For a start, they are extraordinarily beautiful birds, and there’s nothing else quite like them. It’s not difficult to see why.

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The Cry of the Curlew

10,000 Birds

Curlews are birds of serious conservation concern in the UK, with numbers falling sharply this century. Curlews are long-lived birds, so their decline is not always apparent, with pairs returning annually to their favoured nesting area, despite not having fledged any chicks for years. Males have noticeably shorter beaks.)

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Birding Shanghai in December 2022

10,000 Birds

This year, it seems I wrote one post on birding in Shanghai each month – and I am still not even sure anyone is interested in these. Probably the most interesting bird this month was a Grey-headed Canary-Flycatcher showing up in the Shanghai Botanical Garden. I know – sexism is very common in the birding world.

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Birding Shanghai in February 2023

10,000 Birds

February 2023 was a slow month for birding in Shanghai, at least for me – so slow that I almost put the Spotted Dove , possibly my least favorite bird here, on the cover. Not a cover species The Black Kite is not actually black, but of course, misleading bird names are not exactly rare. Maybe those should be protected too?

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Birding Shanghai in November 2022

10,000 Birds

Given the complexity of the research, the result feels like a bit of a letdown – “northern populations start migration earlier than southern populations, especially in autumn” The species name of the Chestnut-eared Bunting is fucata , from the Latin “fucare”, to paint red.

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Horrible Hybrids

10,000 Birds

On BirdTrack, the British equivalent of e-Bird, the list of birds provided does allow for Tufted Duck x Ferruginous Duck to be recorded, but not Tufted Duck x Pochard. However, there had been reports of a Scaup mixed in with the flock, which at first glance I thought this bird might be. My hunch was Tufted Duck x Pochard.

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What the rings reveal

10,000 Birds

Most serious bird photographers dislike taking pictures of birds wearing rings (or what on the other side of the Atlantic you call bands). I can sympathise, as a shiny new ring, clamped to a bird’s leg, rarely enhances its portrait. The information I received didn’t indicate the age of the bird.

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