10,000 Birds

JANUARY 17, 2016

For the past several weeks a pair of Trumpeter Swans have made themselves at home along a road through Mattamuskeet NWR in eastern North Carolina. I know this for a fact, because this is precisely what I did last week when I spent a day in the eastern part of North Carolina chasing rarities. I guess so.

North Carolina 124

North Carolina Wounded Hunting Geese 124

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 28, 2014

It can be boring, for sure, but my own birding lately has been pretty much exclusively in service of my home county list, that of Guilford County, North Carolina. It’s my own ambition to reach 200 by the end of next year, and I’ll need about 30 birds to get there. Birding county listing rails'

North Carolina 195

North Carolina Family Owls Birds 195

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

It says something about who they want to be, what they want to see regularly, how seriously they take this birding hobby. Or it’s simply a matter of finding a place to bird when you’ve got nowhere better to go. Or it’s simply a matter of finding a place to bird when you’ve got nowhere better to go.

North Carolina 167

North Carolina Sparrows Fox Dogs 167

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 23, 2019

During the decade, I submitted 1,219 checklists and observed 555 bird species, all in the U.S. I started eBirding about the same time I started birding, and I made an early executive decision (a very good one) that any pre-eBird observations simply did not count. Birding trips to Florida , New Mexico , and Texas are obvious too.

Puerto Rico 164

Puerto Rico Virgin Islands Michigan Washington 164

10,000 Birds

JULY 28, 2015

June is an interesting time to bird in northwestern Maine. Sure, the birds are out there, but to see them you have to face…the dreaded…black flies. I hoped to see warblers, warblers, warblers, plus classic northeastern species I had had no opportunity to look for while living in North Carolina. Kennebago Lake.

Birds 160

Birds North Carolina North America Woodpeckers 160

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 2, 2019

Although it was nothing like going from New York to California or even Buffalo, New York to North Carolina, a change of location, however slight, can bring new birds especially in Costa Rica. Right at home. In typical blackbird fashion, this common garden bird gave occasional, loud, ringing calls. These were.

Costa Rica 194

Costa Rica Barn Owls Stray Dog Blackbirds 194

10,000 Birds

APRIL 3, 2012

Last week a mystery bird from New Jersey rightly caused a fair bit of confusion among birders of the Garden State and beyond. The bird was a sparrow, that much was clear, but it didn’t seem to fit any of the easily boxes the other North American sparrows can be fairly easily sorted into. New Jersey mystery sparrow.

New Jersey 246

New Jersey North Carolina Sparrows Connecticut 246

10,000 Birds

MARCH 31, 2014

In her free time she travels near and far to find birds to continue building her life list, though many of her favorites can still be found right in her own backyard. She has contributed many pieces to 10,000 Birds and writes about her birding adventures on her blog, newbirder.tumblr.com. Lots and lots of birds.

Birds 196

Birds Florida Groups Breeding 196

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 6, 2015

I love birding games. I’m constantly on the lookout for different angles to take with my birding. Not that birding for its own sake isn’t great, but sometimes you need that extra little motivation to get you out the door on a day you’d just as well sleep in. Birding competitions county listing fun games'

Game 202

Game Raleigh North Carolina Gorillas 202

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 4, 2011

There was a time, a few years back, when I had some really good luck getting on a run of first state records for North Carolina. I’m not much of a serious twitcher, at least not statewide, but even I’m not immune to the pull, especially when a rare bird is regular and reliable. It stuck around for about a week.

North Carolina 154

North Carolina Sparrows 2008 Hunters 154

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 30, 2012

The Delmarva Peninsula juts southward towards North Carolina like the appendix of the eastern seaboard. And it’s on this marvel of engineering that I arrived for the recent American Birding Association Rally held at Kiptopeke State Park, on the very southern tip of the appendix.

Virginia 155

Virginia North Carolina DC Louisiana 155

10,000 Birds

APRIL 17, 2012

I sort of feel it’s sort of my duty, as the 10,000 Birds beat writer covering the southern tier of the continent, to be the bellwether of goodies to come, the sherpa of spring, if you will (please don’t). Nothing says “real” spring like the first burst of piercing slurry whistles from down a North Carolina stream.

North Carolina 162

North Carolina Breeders Rights Experience 162

10,000 Birds

MAY 19, 2015

That’s interesting from a weather point of view, but not so good when it coincided with my graduation birding trip. Yes, I had officially graduated from the Duke Nicholas School of the Environment, and I was not going to let a little rain keep me from birding! Still, we were in for another birding surprise.

North Carolina 185

North Carolina Alligators Wildlife Woodpeckers 185

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 7, 2012

I’ve been told that you can regularly find yourself in some pretty exceptional shorebirding in North Carolina as you get closer to the coast. Yes, 2011 was a great year for birding the Triangle. On rare occasions I’ve even been able to participate in it, but that part of the state is distant and sparsely populated.

Raleigh 174

Raleigh North Carolina Falcons 2012 174

10,000 Birds

MAY 3, 2011

Birds on their way north are on a mission, and the fear of waking up one morning having missed the entire parade is a real one that keeps birders up at night. A bird so electric yellow that viewing it without safety precautions can cause temporary blindness, or madness, or both. This is not a bird for cubicle farms!

North Carolina 224

North Carolina Investigation Jordan United States 224

10,000 Birds

MARCH 21, 2015

Birders head to Costa Rica to see stunners like Resplendent Quetzal , Three-wattled Bellbird , Orange-collared Manakin , fancy hummingbirds , tanagers, and literally hundreds of other birds. This bunch of possible Costa Rican crypto birds can be grouped into four main categories: (1). Bird species that require further research.

Costa Rica 237

Costa Rica Species South America America 237

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 9, 2013

The general public is out and about, birds and animals are raising their young, and human/wildlife interaction is at its peak. Two days ago I went on Facebook and queried some of my exhausted compatriots: if you could have one wish right now – anything in the world – what would it be? “I Summer is high season.

Wildlife 254

Wildlife Wildlife Rehabilitation Oklahoma New York 254

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 8, 2013

It’s one of the subtle joys of doing Christmas Bird Counts to be assigned the same area over and over again over the years. I’m living and birding in North Carolina. The birding was fairly conventional as winter birder in central NC goes. We all knew that area well, and were rewarded for it.

North Carolina 163

North Carolina Missouri Blackbirds Sparrows 163

10,000 Birds

MAY 24, 2011

The Northern Mockingbird is easily the most famous, celebrated in classic literature and song and deemed notable enough to have the honor of being the official state bird of five southern states. Lately it’s almost certainly my young son’s cry of “kitty-cat bird!&# Or at least it’s supposed to.

St. Louis 225

St. Louis Missouri North Carolina Georgia 225

10,000 Birds

MARCH 10, 2011

home about advertise archives birds conservation contact galleries links reviews subscribe Browse: Home / Birding / Half Hardy Half Hardy By Nate • March 10, 2011 • 2 comments Tweet Share This past Monday I was running around with my son in my backyard after work. Instead I saw a flash of orange.

North Carolina 140

North Carolina 2011 St. Louis Baltimore 140

10,000 Birds

JULY 1, 2014

I enjoy collecting children’s books about birds and nature that I come across in the expected (book stores) and unexpected (academic library conference reports) places. The Taínos named the birds Iguacas, after their call. Spanish settlers arrived in 1493 and called the birds Coterras. The birds thrive.

Puerto Rico 246

Puerto Rico Parrots New York City 2013 246

10,000 Birds

JUNE 28, 2011

Compare this to birding on land, where desirable warblers and vireos and the like hop around in the very tops of trees obscured by foliage and hidden by knotty limbs and trunks. For their part the birds seemed to regard perching on driftwood as passe anyway. These birds though, present in mid-June, are last year’s chicks.

United States 157

United States North Carolina Fish North America 157

10,000 Birds

MAY 1, 2018

To celebrate spring migration, I usually review an exciting new bird book. You can blame the nice people at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, who took it upon themselves to send me a review copy of the Peterson Field Guide to Moths of Southeastern North America by Seabrooke Leckie and David Beadle. Moths are more than bird food.

North America 101

North America America Oklahoma Missouri 101

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 25, 2015

My friend Paul Taillie and I had to meet an intrepid bunch of birders for the inaugural Outer Banks Big Day field trip at the Wings Over Water festival in eastern North Carolina. We were setting the bar for what someone hitting all the good spots on North Carolina’s famous barrier islands could reasonably accomplish.

North Carolina 150

North Carolina Rattlesnake Sparrows Owls 150

10,000 Birds

JULY 1, 2014

I had been contacted by Bill at Birds & Beans Coffee, a wonderful shade-grown distributor I’d been using for a few years, to help do a breeding bird survey on a local organic farm. I don’t expect that the rural Piedmont of North Carolina is much different from similar areas across the United States and even the world.

North Carolina 167

North Carolina Farming United States North America 167

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 26, 2018

The return home included a total of 5 ½ hours of flight delays, one missed flight, and we subsequently missed the entire town of Charlotte, North Carolina. We did however gain an extra night, at our expense in Miami, Florida, all of which was in the dark, so I could not even run out and put a couple of birds on a Florida State List.

Bahamas 138

Bahamas Costa Rica Abandon Abandoning 138

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 1, 2012

Sitta canadensis isn’t just irrupting out of its far northern home but exploding southward, with reports in every southern state except for Florida, including birds on the outer banks of North Carolina, on Grand Isle, Louisiana, in a suburb of Atlanta, and on the Gulf Coast of Texas. No lemmings left in the north?

United States 274

United States Owls Atlanta New York 274

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 9, 2014

If birding is life, I haven’t been living much lately. This fall was a total wash and, aside from an upcoming Christmas Bird Count and a bird club meeting, this winter might be too. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been seeing new birds in my county, however. I’m a birding mercenary.

North Carolina 182

North Carolina Birds Rights 182

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 2, 2012

But those birds have to go somewhere, even if the concentrations that have come to define the above sites have thinned a little by the time the birds cruise down the mountain range. Suddenly, the forest around you begins to shake as birds, mere pinpricks at first, launch themselves into the sky and start their slow ascent.

South Carolina 167

South Carolina Maryland North Carolina New Jersey 167

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 3, 2013

This, I am told, is seawatching , a birding activity in which one stands in one place, sometimes for hours, and watches for birds of the sea and lake and river. It is acceptable to point out other sea creatures–dolphins or whales or dragonflies–but the main goal is the observation and identification of the birds.

Ducks 245

Ducks Groups Species North America 245

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 1, 2011

Here in North Carolina, I’ve managed to avoid seeing the dreaded Juncos for the last few days, though their presence has been noted on the local listserv. It’s funny, given how common Palms are at the right time of the year, that I almost never see the two populations together. You’re done.

North America 220

North America North Carolina South America America 220

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 16, 2012

There’s really no more quintessentially southeastern bird than the Pine Warbler. They start singing in my neighborhood in February, and they continue right on up to July when they suddenly seem to disappear, only to reappear in fall buoyed by what always seems to be a remarkably successful mating season.

North Carolina 161

North Carolina Jordan Raised North America 161

10,000 Birds

MARCH 5, 2013

I spent a lot of time at Viera Wetlands while at the Space Coast Festival as an 10,000 Birds attache. The birds are plentiful, diverse, and remarkably easy to see. So not only did I get to bird, I got to spread the word about one of the bird-related topics about which I am most passionate.

North Carolina 116

North Carolina Florida United States Zebras 116

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 20, 2016

So, in a simple version of the world of a bird, there are two sexes, male and female, and males chose females and females chose males as mates. It is hypothesized that this is the formation of a new sex chromosomes, right before the eyes of scientists. This is a simple question with a complicated answer. Go read it!

Rats 113

Rats Sparrows Birds North Carolina 113

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 26, 2013

Christmas Bird Count season is right around the corner, and if you’re anything like me you’re pretty excited about it. This year I get to start from scratch, having moved to a new part of the state filled with new birds and birders. North Carolina’s 2nd inland Pacific Loon was on Lake Townsend in 2008.

North Carolina 187

North Carolina Massachusetts 2008 Suffering 187