10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 28, 2021

The Bearded Vulture looks surprisingly like the Night King in “Game of Thrones” Probably not a coincidence. Being a mammal myself, I am understandably much less fond of this animal class than I am of birds. The chick – quite possibly the cutest bird I saw on this trip – obliged. A juvenile nearby.

Sheep 258

Sheep Mountain Goats Gazelles Birds 258

4 The Love Of Animals

MARCH 15, 2012

Have you ever wanted to play a game with your cat on your iPad? Friskies just introduced the first duel-species tablet game, “You vs. Cat,” available for iPad and iPad2 tablet devices. You vs. Cat” is the first tablet game designed for human and cat to play together. Let us know if you download the game!

Game 100

Game Cats Species Branding 100

10,000 Birds

JUNE 15, 2023

How much time do you devote to birding? How high is birding on your list of activities – is it the very first or merely one of? These are the types I recognise: Coffee Break Birding – 10-15 minutes, usually not planned ahead but squeezed out of your schedule. It is a good option if you know that there is that one special bird.

India 200

India Birds Africa Serbia 200

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.

Mexico 213

Mexico Birds Oregon Groups 213

10,000 Birds

APRIL 2, 2022

All birding is essentially good. Time spent watching any birds is time spent connecting with our natural surroundings, a time that can act as a relaxed escape as well as one of meditative focus. Such rare and special birding times can also include days when the birding doesn’t stop, when one finds one rare bird after another.

Costa Rica 263

Costa Rica Birds Owls Geese 263

10,000 Birds

MARCH 10, 2022

How high is birding on your list of activities – is it the very first or merely one of? These are the types I recognise: Coffee Break Birding – 10-15 minutes, usually not planned ahead but squeezed out of your schedule. It is a good option if you know that there is that one special bird. My kind of birding.

India 257

India Birds Africa Game 257

10,000 Birds

MAY 18, 2023

After several game drives, once again we are at the front gate of the Gir National Park in the state of Gujarat. This park protects the largest remaining tract of dry deciduous forest in the west of India, offering visitors 37 species of reptiles, 38 species of mammals and, not to be forgotten – almost 300 bird species.

India 147

India Lions Boars Mammals 147

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 9, 2019

An expanse of habitat as vast as Murchison Falls NP in Uganda, as excessively generous in beauty and biodiversity, permits endless ways to experience both its birds and animals. The Masindi Hotel holds the distinction of being the oldest and most historic hotel in Uganda and has some terrific birds on premises. Mind boggling, I answer!

Uganda 213

Uganda Senegal Africa Game 213

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 16, 2020

I didn’t expect to see any birds. During cold winters, the hunters retreated to the south, intent on quail and other game species. Red-bellied Woodpeckers and Eastern Bluebirds rounded out the species near the pond, but in the distance I noted a Red-tailed Hawk , as well as the regular calls of a Northern Bobwhite.

Georgia 268

Georgia Mules Birds Connecticut 268

10,000 Birds

JUNE 11, 2020

One of the many things I did not know about Delhi is that it is the capital city with the second-largest number of bird species (after Nairobi). So when I went there for work last year, I added three days of birding to the trip. Not the most exciting bird in the world, I guess, but still worth showing in a democracy.

Cattle 228

Cattle India Birds Sanctuary 228

10,000 Birds

MARCH 3, 2022

If you think it is rather pretentious to start a birding blog post with a Kafka story, I fully agree with you. Anyway, the story is not quite how I remembered it, to be honest, but fitting enough to describe the almost claustrophobic birding experience in ever-shrinking Nanhui. I just want to point out it could be much worse.

Raccoons 240

Raccoons Birds Oregon China 240

10,000 Birds

APRIL 26, 2024

I’ve been a regular visitor to the island of Cyprus for over 25 years, making around a dozen trips during this period, every one in search of birds. I made my most recent visit earlier this month, arriving with my three birding companions, Martin, Mike and Chris, on a warm spring evening.

Cyprus 237

Cyprus Breeders Falcons Hunters 237

10,000 Birds

JULY 26, 2014

Interestingly, the birding lexicon uses other terms to describe unanticipated arrivals in more positive terms. Perhaps our outrage at invasive species can be a bit hypocritical at times. The rapid proliferation of the European Starling is, on the species level, equivalent to incalculable fortunes of billionaire moguls.

Species 160

Species Feral Cats Feral Miami 160

10,000 Birds

JULY 24, 2014

To explain what a Grallard is one must first go back to those societies and recall that one of their predominant preoccupations was game. Yes, cute little Skylarks were all well and good, but what Kiwis really wanted were birds they could shoot and fish they could, uh, fish. By the 1970s the Mallards were beginning to rule the roost.

Species 171

Species New Zealand Ducks Game 171

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.

Los Angeles 222

Los Angeles Birds District of Columbia Parrots 222

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 22, 2022

Ndumo Game Reserve lies in the Easternmost part of South Africa, close to the border of Mozambique and Eswatini. It is not particularly big but has a reported 430 bird species including migrants, though during my short stay it seems I missed most of the key attractions among them. Pel’s Fishing Owl, where were you?

South Africa 147

South Africa Africa Birds Research 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.

Birds 177

Birds India Zoos 2019 177

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 9, 2023

Say, Bullock, Brewer, and Cassin will lose their English namesakes in the recently announced renaming game. And then I saw the species names attached to the aforementioned gentlemen’s avian namesakes and gave up… So, my attempt at political correctness has been thwarted by the 18th century rules of taxonomy. My sincere apologies.

Colorado 191

Colorado Denver Skunks Wildlife Reserve 191

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 11, 2022

Habitats: Check Birds… well, more presumed what the possibilities are, than actually checked… Sleeping: Check Getting around: Check I will come back to these topics in a while. Nevertheless, I left gifts behind, two dozen copies of a common bird guide (which I wrote and published) for local wardens. It sounded birdy and I was game.

Serbia 259

Serbia Birds Woodpeckers Romania 259

10,000 Birds

MAY 3, 2023

For a bird threatened as this one is, I had little expectations when visiting St. Sure enough I had been dreaming of a desirable frame of this enigmatic bird. As we neared the location of the bird’s habitat, a new player entered the game: the environment. These were different from the birds I had expected though.

Endangered Species 252

Endangered Species Game Groups Birds 252

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 14, 2021

This is the second post in the Birding crème de la crème series (the first, focused on southern Asia, is here ). The bird-richest region of Africa is its equatorial East: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi (unlike the rest, the last one, Burundi, is politically unstable and not recommendable). SERVIR Africa Workshop.

Africa 225

Africa Kenya Uganda Tanzania 225

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 25, 2022

Now, it is much easier for me to achieve first-time sightings of species in Europe than it is in Mexico, at this point of the game. So I might have assumed I would not see new species in the Palmones wetlands. The first gave me eight new species for Spain, of which four were lifers. But this time, I could.

Spain 198

Spain Mexico Europe North America 198

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 4, 2022

The American Birding Association has declared that 2022 is the year of the Burrowing Owl, but if Rosemary Mosco has her way, it will also be the year of the Rock Pigeon. Yes, sure, Rock Pigeons are not a vulnerable species, unless you count the number of times they have been mocked, scorned, and shooed away. Watcha looking at, human?”

New York City 237

New York City 2018 Birds Abandon 237

10,000 Birds

APRIL 21, 2015

I don’t know if you have ever tried to bird with a cold, but it’s not easy. Still, we are in the midst of spring migration here in North Carolina, and I wasn’t going to let a little cold stop me from seeing some birds. Wayne Bailey-Caswell Game Land a little past 2 p.m. Another birding fail.

North Carolina 169

North Carolina Game Birds Tigers 169

10,000 Birds

MAY 5, 2020

The April arrival of the Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America, Second Edition was a supremely happy moment in a very difficult, sad month. A companion regional guide, Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Western North America was published in 1941; its fifth edition will be coming out in early September.

North America 235

North America America Hawaii Birds 235

10,000 Birds

JUNE 26, 2023

There are 17 different species of them, a few of them endangered, particularly some island endemics. A characteristic of most but not all Paradise Flycatchers is the long tail of the male bird (tail length is thought to be a criterion by which females select their partners – please insert your own pornographic joke here).

Japan 130

Japan China Guinea Germany 130

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 18, 2020

On its label are sketches of five gulls of indeterminate species frozen in various flight poses, eagerly going after what appear to be oranges suspended in midair, of which some are still attached to their twigs and blossoms. Gulls steal from people, they steal from other birds, and they steal from each other. It’s just what they do.

Connecticut 270

Connecticut France Game Humane 270

10,000 Birds

MARCH 23, 2020

Having finally found a Black Vulture for my Queens list , an important tick both because it was long overdue and because it was the tenth bird since my last set of predictions, it is time, once again, to look at what might be coming to my Queens list. Black Vulture – The bird that has been reported the most in Queens that I have never seen.

2018 168

2018 2015 Birds 2019 168

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 12, 2024

Memorable encounters with Mammals: Part I Most birdwatchers enjoy seeing mammals, but the trouble with mammals is that they tend to be much more challenging to see than birds. I remember the guide on my first Kenyan birding safari remarking that “birding groups always see far more mammals than those who come just to see animals.

Fur 211

Fur Otters Bulgaria Estonia 211

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 11, 2015

This is Liz’s first contribution to 10,000 Birds. The rise in drone popularity over the past few years has been meteoric — and in our typical human arrogance, we’ve once again ignored the fact that for the past 150 million years, the sky has belonged to the birds.

Birds 193

Birds Protection Idaho Bears 193

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 28, 2020

Last night in the moments before sleep took over, I felt an urge to shine some light on some LBJ’s (Little Brown Jobs) or LBB’s (Little Brown Birds). What better selection than the various birds of the Kenyan highlands, right? We observed this Foxy Lark vocalizing while on a game drive.

Sparrows 212

Sparrows Mammals Game Parrots 212

10,000 Birds

APRIL 13, 2015

Ethiopia, a landlocked country situated in the Horn of Africa, has firmly established itself as one of Africa’s top birding destinations. Its great diversity of habitats hosts an incredible bird count of over 900 species, including Africa’s 2nd highest list of endemics and near-endemics (after South Africa). Yellow-billed Stork.

Ethiopia 252

Ethiopia Sudan Leopards Birds 252

10,000 Birds

JUNE 17, 2023

After Jason recently asked ChatGPT for birding advice, the management consultant in me – constantly thriving for efficiency improvements – immediately thought of the next step. The Seasonal Spectacles: Shanghai’s birding scene comes alive during the spring and autumn migration seasons.

China 187

China Endangered Species Sanctuary Protection 187

10,000 Birds

JULY 18, 2014

Sometimes bird rehabbers who end up with tiny, semi-feathered little mystery birds end up playing a game called “Name That Bird.”. Hence: Name That Bird. BTW: Type “(species name) baby” into Google Images – do NOT use the terms hatchling, nestling or fledgling, or you’ll never get decent results.”

Wildlife Rehabilitation 242

Wildlife Rehabilitation Birds Georgia Kentucky 242

10,000 Birds

JULY 11, 2011

While the Rovio Angry Birds game franchise is hugely popular and has even led to a post here on 10,000 Birds that speculated on the identification of what the Angry Birds birds actually are , little attention has been paid to those that came before. Real Angry Birds? The bird that started it all.

Birds 248

Birds Owls Game Rodents 248

10,000 Birds

JUNE 17, 2015

Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge : Open to migratory bird hunting (youth only). The Refuge is now home to nearly 200 species of birds, over 50 species of mammals, 25 species of reptiles and amphibians, and a wide variety of insects, fish and plants. This is an Urban Refuge !

Fish 146

Fish Wildlife Hunting Game 146

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 18, 2015

I was laid out with a bad back last week, which didn’t really affect my birding as I wasn’t planning any at the time. And it did so in spectacular fashion, in the form of a mixed-species feeding flock, or a bird wave. Bird waves are a feature of birds all around the world. Cardinal Woodpecker.

South Africa 145

South Africa Tortoises Woodpeckers Birds 145