10,000 Birds

JUNE 1, 2016

When you talk about birding botanical gardens in South Africa, Kirstenbosch in Cape Town is perhaps what automatically comes to mind. This is by no means a mistake, a birder could spend many happy hours there without seeing a bird and just admiring the fynbos vegetation. And then several more hours admiring the birds.

South Africa 100

South Africa Africa Vietnam Geese 100

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 10, 2016

Nevertheless, only the most important news I did follow, those about the decision-making process on future sales of elephants and their ivory at a global wildlife summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, the first such meeting since 2013. In Africa, one elephant is being killed every 15 minutes. Perhaps 15 minutes?

Elephants 194

Elephants Botswana Zimbabwe Africa 194

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 15, 2013

What if there was an international multi-day Birding competition? Enter the inaugural Peru Birding Rally Challenge , the first international birding event of it’s kind in the world. Think the Birding World Cup or the International Birding Open. Think the Birding World Cup or the International Birding Open.

Peru 237

Peru 2012 Birds Falcons 237

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 1, 2015

If I were to describe my long time wildlife nemesis, my ultimate dip of dips, I would reach for a nemesis cat, not a nemesis bird. I finally broke this nemesis cat in Mkuze in South Africa. Obviously we had interrupted a kill, but the Leopard didn’t reappear and we had to move on (to find the rest of Fala’s pack).

Cats 106

Cats Leopards South Africa Tigers 106

10,000 Birds

MAY 8, 2012

Africa has more than its fair share of storks, with 8 of the world’s 19 species gracing the continent. Furthermore we have another very special stork-like bird, the regal Shoebill , previously known as the Whale-headed Stork but now placed in its own family.

Africa 246

Africa Tanzania South Africa Uganda 246

10,000 Birds

MAY 13, 2015

A great shiny bauble to entice people to the hobby, before they get stuck into great big proper meaty birds (in a strictly not-eating-them sense). Baby’s First Bird, if you will. Vultures are proper birds. Big hearty birds that hearty men and women of the wild can get their teeth into (again, in a metaphorical sense).

Africa 175

Africa Feral Ethiopia Tanzania 175

10,000 Birds

MAY 8, 2013

Birds are supposed to have feathers and birds without feathers look incomplete, like they left home with shaving cream on their ear and toothpaste spots on their shirt. The smellier the better, particularly as, unusually for birds, many species can boast a robust sense of smell. T urkey Vulture, photo by Dawn Puliafico.

California Condor 190

California Condor Turkey North America Jordan 190

10,000 Birds

MARCH 13, 2012

“ There is, perhaps, no better place in the world for birds than this country. mi (almost exactly the same size as Indiana), it is one of the smaller provinces of South Africa, but is the second most densely populated with over 10 million inhabitants. They discovered Gurney’s Sugarbird during their time in South Africa.

Mozambique 195

Mozambique South Africa Africa Collecting 195

10,000 Birds

APRIL 19, 2011

I enjoy fishing almost as much as I enjoy birding. In many cases, myself included, the desire manifests itself in less apparent ways than going out and killing something for the trophy wall. In many cases, myself included, the desire manifests itself in less apparent ways than going out and killing something for the trophy wall.

Ecuador 150

Ecuador South Africa United States Hunting 150

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 11, 2012

Thankfully the days of visiting Africa purely for slaughtering its wildlife have mostly come to a merciful end, and safari operators have adopted the Big Five term to market tours that offer sightings of the fortunate remanants of Africa’s once teeming great herds. They are large, noisy birds of drier areas of East and southern Africa.

Buffalo 213

Buffalo Rhinoceros Elephants Leopards 213

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 25, 2015

Early starts are the rule when monitoring endagered species in Mkuze Game Reserve, in South Africa, but there’s a particular urgency to this morning’s start. And the two species were not inclined to get on, by which I mean that Lions will kill other large predators including Painted Wolves.

Wolves 192

Wolves Lions Dogs Vet 192

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 29, 2014

” I’ll sometimes add “It’s in West Africa, I’ll be in South Africa. The disease had killed a tourist like ourselves. . “Aren’t I worried about Ebola?” ” To which I reply “No, not personally.” ” Ebola is in the news a lot at the moment.

Humane 163

Humane Animal Africa Ukraine 163

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 12, 2015

The killing of Cecil was equated with murder, a moral crime rather than a symptom of a ecological problem. Take an example, Tembe Elephant Park in South Africa. But the story wasn’t really one about conservation. We can’t afford just to let nature be nature any more. Not if we want to hang on to what we have left.

Lions 218

Lions Hunting Sierra Leone Buffalo 218

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

Pafuri lies in the northernmost part of the Kruger National Park and is described as “some of the most potentially productive birding territory in South Africa” on the SANParks website. Jameson’s Firefinch is a beautiful small bird named for what was probably a very bad person, James Sligo Jameson.

Elephants 147

Elephants Birds Congo Africa 147

10,000 Birds

MARCH 15, 2012

He interpreted the bones, also at Klasies but other sites in South Africa as well, to indicate that human ancestors hunted only Eland until they became fully modern very recently, then they started hunting the much more dangerous and harder to hunt Buffalo. The problem with this is that birds are sometimes injured by windmills.

Humane 165

Humane Lions Buffalo Hunting 165

10,000 Birds

JULY 21, 2022

The one bird I did not see here, however, was the Bateleur Eagle … One highlight in the area is the Saddle-billed Stork , likely to be the tallest species in the stork family. This bird is represented in an ancient Egyptian hieroglyph. Can’t say that it is a particularly obvious name from seeing the bird.

Ostriches 147

Ostriches Parrots Birds Eggs 147

10,000 Birds

JULY 4, 2023

I’ve been fortunate to encounter many owls in my birding life, sometimes because I’m looking for them, sometimes happily by happenstance. It’s also about human-owl interaction on an individual level and a wider sociocultural level, and ultimately how we can use all this for habitat and bird conservation.

Owls 224

Owls Science Barn Owls Penguins 224

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 6, 2012

These were the sounds I heard as I walked around a small pond in Amherst, Massachusetts last week, looking for dragonflies, listening for birds. There’s the Goliath frog from South Africa—up to one foot in length and over 6 pounds in weight. It is all as amazing and as diverse as the ways in which birds mate and reproduce.

Reptiles 190

Reptiles Madagascar Family New York City 190

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 13, 2013

The species must be listed as a separate, full species by both of the most widely used ornithological bird lists, Sibley/Monroe and Clements. And lastly, I felt it important to consider this final question when deciding on the remotest endemic birds: How likely is it that the species can wander outside of its normal range?

Birds 215

Birds South Africa South America Feral Cats 215

10,000 Birds

JULY 10, 2012

Although extinction is a natural phenomenon, experts have determined that the current rate of bird extinction is somewhere between 1,000 and 10,000 times the background rate. Globally, 1,313 bird species of a total of count of 10,064 are threatened, a frightening 13% of the total.

Endangered Species 200

Endangered Species Species South Africa Morocco 200

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 4, 2022

I usually do not write much about traveling to and from birding places but my friend and I arrived in Malelane in the afternoon. Fortunately, we were there for the birds, not for the room. The Lilac-breasted Roller is the national bird of Kenya, but of course, this does not help it pay its bills in South Africa.

Swaziland 147

Swaziland Landlord Birds Sweden 147

10,000 Birds

JULY 11, 2013

A dusty-red road leads me through Marico bushveld deeper into the 750 square kilometers large wilderness of the Madikwe Game Reserve – the 4th largest reserve in South Africa, home to 350 bird and 66 mammal species, some 4 hours’ drive from Johannesburg. Trips Mammals South Africa'

Africa 200

Africa South Africa Elephants Rhinos 200

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 27, 2013

As 2013 draws to a close we here at 10,000 Birds thought that it would be a great idea if we, like we did in 2010 , 2011 , and 2012 , shared our Best Birds of the Year. We also want to know what YOUR Best Bird of the Year was. Now on to the Best Birds of the Year for those who write on 10,000 Birds! Sound good?

2013 168

2013 Birds Costa Rica India 168

10,000 Birds

JULY 16, 2013

I grew up in one of the most beautiful cities in the world – Cape Town, South Africa. In fact, there is no other region in Africa that offers such a fantastic level of endemism in such an accessible location. But their endangered status is belied by the fact that they are one of the easiest rare birds to find in Africa.

Penguins 226

Penguins South Africa Africa Sharks 226

10,000 Birds

JULY 7, 2018

Honduras , Malaysia and the southern-most bits of South Africa feature large this month with Mike, Duncan and Tom all vying to be MVB for June. 10 countries were birded by 9 beats and 892 species were noted from 144 checklists. Ota Ward–Tokyo Port Wild Bird Park / Shioiri Pond). Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve.

2018 100

2018 Australia Woodpeckers Los Angeles 100

10,000 Birds

APRIL 7, 2015

The reality is that it’s if pretty difficult to see most penguin species, excepting the wonderfully accessible African Penguins at Boulders Beach outside Cape Town, South Africa and the Galapagos Penguins, ironically one of the rarest and most commonly seen species. That’s a lot of books about a bird family that cannot fly.

Penguins 209

Penguins New Zealand South Africa Albatross 209

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 8, 2022

I did not find much about this bird online except for a paper with the exciting title “A new quill mite Torotrogla emberizae sp. Given that this bird moves very fast and thus leads to bird photographers spending a lot of time getting mostly completely unusable photos, I think the parasitism is well-deserved.

Birds 221

Birds Eggs Bangladesh China 221