10,000 Birds

JULY 5, 2022

In 2007 I was working in a university building that was just begging for bird feeders. This was where I set up my bird feeders, just one at first, then expanding as everyone expressed delight in seeing the Carolina Chickadees, Dark-eyed Juncos, and Downy Woodpeckers. There were no dead birds for weeks. I hoped it was an anomaly.

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New York City Birds Illinois Science 255

Critter News

OCTOBER 26, 2010

I realize that the most humane method of treating chickens is to not kill them for food.BUT, as long as there is still a demand for their meat, PETA is advocating "Controlled-Atmosphere Killing" as an improvement over current methods of electric immobilization. Controlled-atmosphere killing is a U.S.

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Chickens Killing Factory Farm Factory Farming 100

10,000 Birds

JUNE 23, 2022

The main attraction for birders here are the hornbills – I have written about them before , so this post will be more on the other birds I saw there in 2017. The Blue Whistling Thrush is presumably named for its loud human-like whistling, and possibly for being blue. I have written about the hornbills of this area before.

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Birds Myanmar China Chicago 147

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 6, 2022

They may be about bird eggs ( The Most Perfect Thing: The Inside (and Outside) of a Bird’s Egg , 2016), or a 17th-century ornithologist ( Virtuoso by Nature: The Scientific Worlds of Francis Willughby, 2016), or How Bullfinches learn songs from humans ( The Wisdom of Birds: An Illustrated History of Ornithology.

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Dissection Birds Research Europe 222

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 9, 2013

The Port Authority’s goal is to strike a balance in humanely controlling bird populations at and around the agency’s airports to safeguard passengers on thousands of aircrafts each day.

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Owls Killing New Jersey New York 237

10,000 Birds

MAY 8, 2015

I look at the photo, and am enraged by how cruel and callous human beings can be. I have been a wild bird rehabilitator for 25 years. I have received countless numbers of wild birds mangled and/or killed by outdoor/feral cats, such as the Orange-crowned Warbler pictured here. Is it the fault of the cats?

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Feral Cats Feral Cats Rescue 255

10,000 Birds

MARCH 15, 2012

The topic was the concept of humans as predators, or hunters, or really, eaters of meat, and I was discussing the many ways in which people misconceived this notion. Any buffalo bones from prior to that transition were obviously scavenged.

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Humane Lions Buffalo Hunting 165

10,000 Birds

MAY 6, 2016

I asked a group of wildlife rehabilitators: “What are some of the Worst Bird Myths? Bats just love to fly into human hair!” Two: Humans are diurnal, which means they are normally active during the day. Three: Why would anyone , no matter what their species, want to become tangled in human hair? s and “Kill me now!”s.

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Wildlife Rehabilitation Porcupines Raccoons Birds 179

10,000 Birds

MAY 25, 2023

May is a busy month for birds migrating through Shanghai – and of course, last May was completely missed due to the lockdown. So, I spent a lot of time birding this month, and to keep this post at a manageable length, it mostly only covers the first half of May. The video is notable for the bird basically refusing to move at all.

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Birds Raised Cattle Mammals 130

10,000 Birds

MAY 9, 2022

Harris’s are also, according to Cowan, smarter than other hawks; they hunt in packs and, for that reason, may welcome humans as hunting partners more so than other raptors. As Montgomery shows, falconry is different from any other human/animal interaction. We serve them.”.

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New Hampshire Chickens Hunting Falcons 213

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 14, 2022

An avian butcher at work: Red-backed Shrike ( Lanius collurio ) depicted by Dutch bird illustrator J.G. Keulemans (1842 – 1912) in Onze vogels in huis en tuin (“Our Birds in Home and Garden”). Good birding and happy drinking! Castellare di Castellina: Chianti Classico (2019).

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2019 Butcher Livestock 2006 222

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 25, 2016

Mark Gamin, a Cleveland lawyer, likes cats and birds both. This is Mark’s first contribution to 10,000 Birds. In Oregon, the Barred Owl is taking over Northern Spotted Owl territory and threatening that smaller bird’s survival. Agonizing quandaries concerning invasive species are well-known to wildlife biologists.

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Feral Cats Cats Tnr Feral 259

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 23, 2015

She runs Birds of Texas Rehabilitation Center in Austin County, Texas. He said the federal government’s and Alaska’s state rules were, for the most part, okay; they were consistent and generally made sense for the safety of both humans and wildlife, and in many respects, coincided with his own views of protecting the native environment.

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Collecting Wildlife Rehabilitation Solomon Islands Texas 240

10,000 Birds

MAY 22, 2015

This is what we need for birds, whose rights as government-protected species are violated every day by free-roaming cats. What birds need is their own SWAT team. Neighbor A’s private property and peace of mind are both suffering because of the cats, which are killing government-protected species. You call the SWAT team.

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Feral Cats Feral Cats Wildlife Rehabilitation 259

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 4, 2014

Black vultures (Coragyps atratus) are among the most polarizing birds. They fulfill and important ecological and sanitary role by consuming dead, often diseased animals, as well as human generated organic waste. But as their numbers increase, so are the instances where human and Black vultures come in conflict.

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Killing Humane Birds Rights 167

10,000 Birds

JULY 5, 2016

They get a bad rap due to their dependence on carrion to survive, but I look at it a different way: these species do not have to kill in order to thrive! Most humans cannot say that. Columbia has chosen one of the world’s most massive flying species as its national bird: the Andean Condor.

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California Condor Livestock Endangered Species Killing 100

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

Not so nifty for birds, though. Each year, millions are injured or killed when they slam into the sides of glass-sheathed buildings that reflect the sky. An “invisible” building sounds infinitely more dangerous; let’s hope the architects have a plan to stave off bird fatalities.

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South Korea Chicago Minnesota Nashville 176

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 29, 2014

If you’re feeling fearful or ignorant, well, I can recommend vox.com’s coverage (as in most things), but you could also do worse that picking up Spillover – Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic by David Quammen. The disease had killed a tourist like ourselves.

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Humane Animal Africa Ukraine 162

10,000 Birds

MARCH 19, 2013

This week, a new study was published about Sparrows in Nebraska, that in some ways resembles the study by Bumpus and may well be a better example of Natural Selection in birds. House Sparrows ( Passer domesticus ) are introduced birds over most of their very large range. As you know, a lot of birds are killed in the U.S.

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Killing South Africa Nebraska Collecting 196

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 16, 2012

A while back I asked the question, How much bird is there, anyway? I had noted that if you took a quick look around you’d think there were a lot of birds and very few mammals. And some of them would be hiding behind bushes waiting for a chance to jump on some of the birds. 3) Some of these birds were going to die anyway.

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Cats Boston Ferrets Killing 182

10,000 Birds

JUNE 14, 2011

One of the primary reasons that these hawks make such excellent falconry birds is because they are one of only two raptor species (the other is the Galapagos Hawk ) that hunt cooperatively. I have never been one to advocate the needless killing of animals for whatever purpose. Take lions, wolves, hyenas to name a few.

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League Against Cruel Sports Rabbits Falcons Hunting 270

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 17, 2015

I was going to have something for you this month about the dinosaur-bird thing, but I never got to it. The potpourri covers some interesting bird related science of the last few weeks, and the promise is this: I’ll get to that other stuff soon, I promise! One of the birds most affected by this is Cassin’s Auklets.

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Science Iraq Research Birds 151

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

You get three or four books in one with Jonathan Meiburg’s A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World’s Smartest Birds of Prey. Meiburg doesn’t say it in so many words, but it’s almost as if he believes he and the birds are in telepathic converse. And it’s more than the sum of the parts.

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Guyana South America Washington DC 243

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 4, 2015

But the fact is nature has little to do with most problems facing native birds. Consider this: ninety percent of birds treated at wildlife centers are admitted as a result of human interactions that have nothing to do with “nature.” To that person, the bird in trouble is real and not an anonymous blob of feathers.

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Wildlife Rehabilitation Bald Eagle Rescue Wildlife 189

10,000 Birds

MAY 5, 2016

After all, we want to see this Osprey pair flying in every Spring to carry on their very successful display of breeding prowess without human interference. That is what the Migratory Bird Treaty Act is meant to do. We have been assured by the California Department of Fish & Wildlife (CDFW) that they are watching this nest also.

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Transported Eggs Birds Killing 101

10,000 Birds

JUNE 27, 2017

The three young men returned to their friends, bragged about their exploits, and showed them trophies: metal banding tags, which members of the Pacific Rim Conservation had carefully placed on the albatrosses’ legs in order to keep track of individual birds. The young men had severed the birds’ legs in order to remove the tags.

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Albatross Honolulu Hawaii Killing 214

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 18, 2018

The Weekly Reader had shocked everyone in class with news of Bald Eagles dying – and humans were to blame! When news later reached our little town (likely through a newspaper) that the bird-killing chemical was to be banned, my environmental activism was born. Fast forward to the next decade and humans were at it again.

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Texas Defenders Of Wildlife Bald Eagle Protest 160

10,000 Birds

APRIL 14, 2023

In the human psyche, owls can be cuddly signs of good luck and benificence (as they are in Japan, and Harry Potter movies) and, at the same time, eerie and unsettling. Either way, they are perhaps more central to our stories and lore than other birds, a familiar example, as Darlington reminds us, being Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

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Barn Owls Owls Serbia Finland 113

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 19, 2016

We watched the bird for awhile as it foraged and though the injury was painful to contemplate for we humans the bird seemed to be getting by alright. I was reminded of the American Redstart I saw foraging in New Jersey several years ago and hoped that this bird would prove as resilient as I had observed that redstart to be.

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Culling Falcons New Jersey Killing 157

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 28, 2015

No doubt he reads that bio and goes “It’s good, but what I really want to do is kill some f ing birds” Linda doesn’t waste any time in deciding which camp Chris belongs to. He’s in the truly arrogant camp before Chris’s reasons for collecting the bird are even discussed. Its natural longevity?

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Collecting Papua New Guinea Science Birds 160

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 14, 2015

You (or your child/friend/etc) have just found a seemingly parentless baby bird. Here with the answer(s) is Maureen Eiger, a bird rehabilitator in Roanoke, VA: . Wild bird rehabilitators want bird parents to feed their own babies. Putting a baby bird back in its nest is not always the right thing to do.

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Wounded Rescue Medical Cats 256

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 22, 2019

But I insisted he try the blood and violence guy, and he humored me, only to send me, later, a longish email, pointing out the flaws in my judgment and in the book and the author, and closing with this: “Since I didn’t care for any of his characters, I really didn’t care who killed whom.”. Fair enough.

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Humane 2018 Laws Science 134

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 6, 2011

Robert Gallardo is well-known to many readers of 10,000 Birds as an outstanding Neotropical nature guide, author, and manager of La Chorcha Lodge. Everyone talks about human rights and there exists so many groups that are either governmental or non-governmental who work toward that cause. How many institutions exist who speak for them?

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Honduras illegal Parrots Birds 187

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 20, 2011

When climate changes, causing habitats to move, birds can get up and fly away to a new habitat, so really, they’ll be fine. I’ve been working on climate change lately (not causing it, but reading and writing about it) and birds have come up in a few places. Similar things happen to both fish and birds.

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Penguins Birds Cooking Fish 200

10,000 Birds

JUNE 6, 2013

She previously wrote on 10,000 Birds about birding in the Washington DC cherry blossoms. Normally when someone says “wedding,” they don’t also think “birds.” was about all the southern birds I could cross off my list! Adding a bird to the life-list and I had only been in Florida for thirty minutes!

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Florida DC Washington Birds 165

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 3, 2012

Sometimes, I feel that competing bird conservation groups are trying too hard to get my attention and give the impression that just by sitting here on my futon and breathing, I have killed several birds. I just looked over at my husband–bam 5 birds dead. I’m now petting my rabbit Dougal, 6 more birds dead.

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Rabbits Killing Canada Farming 154

10,000 Birds

MARCH 31, 2022

Presumably, in the early days of ornithology, some scientists spent most of their time transcribing bird calls. The Black-faced Laughingthrush (Longcanggou, Sichuan) is a real beauty, though this photo does not fully do the bird justice. A beautiful bird though. This post shows some of them.

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