10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 8, 2021

An unfortunate side effect of birding in the developing world, is the amount of habitat destruction you are likely to see. The neighbors had advised me, from experience, that planting trees without excluding the local free-ranging livestock would be an exercise in futility: first challenge overcome.)

ALA 205

ALA 2016 Free Range Livestock 205

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 21, 2014

I am not dissatisfied with guides who do not manage to find the target bird, if they do try with all their heart. I will equally recommend a guide who finds the target bird and the one who does everything within birding ethics to find it and fails. What makes a good bird guide?

Birds 220

Birds Botswana Free Range Leopards 220

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 16, 2014

However, in this post, I’d like to lay out the basic numbers as we pretend to know them about overall bird mortality, human related causes of mortality, and somewhere in there I’ll note that the number of birds that are killed by windmills is so small that it says “zero” on my pie chart. So keep that in mind.

Killing 274

Killing Cats Fish Birds 274

10,000 Birds

JULY 22, 2014

I find it astonishing that people argue of whether feral cats are bad for birds in North America. Dogs are similarly dispersed across size ranges, with Foxes, Coyotes, and Wolves taking prey across different parts of the size range. How many wild birds are eaten by either feral Cats or “outdoor Cats?”

Feral Cats 256

Feral Cats North America Feral Cats 256

Animal Ethics

AUGUST 20, 2007

The rooster watches over the flock protectively and often participates in a hen’s egg-laying ritual, an extremely important and private part of her life. Free range” does not solve the problem of painful debeaking, enormously oversized flocks or the unnatural isolation of the birds from other sexes and age groups.

New York Times 40

New York Times New York Battery Cages Factory Farm 40