10,000 Birds

JANUARY 25, 2015

A new paper out this month attempts to paint the most comprehensive picture yet of the origins and diversification of the American sparrows, wood-warblers, blackbirds, cardinals, tanagers, and their kin, an enormous group of birds more than 800 species strong. We now know a lot more about who is a tanager vs. a sparrow vs. a cardinal.

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Sparrows North America South America Blackbirds 246

10,000 Birds

MARCH 22, 2013

First he thought it was a book of poetry, but when I said no, he proceeded with a long story about the red sparrows ( House Finches ) at his new feeder. These signs point to the fact that this book is both lovely and necessary. All this, she accomplishes in 165 pages, not stinting on lovely illustrations, many in color.

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Sparrows Feral Cats North America Feral 176

10,000 Birds

JULY 22, 2021

During a chilly Florida day (yes, we have those) a few months ago, I drove thirty minutes outside of Tallahassee to a co-worker’s house for the singular purpose of checking out her bird feeders. Purple Finches abounded in Florida this winter and spring, popping up at bird feeders around the state. The birds connect us!

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Florida Breeding Birds Sparrows 261

10,000 Birds

APRIL 26, 2013

Since it’s really hard to type in a splint, here is a blast from the past: specifically from the beginning of this long, strange trip, my cross-country journey from New York to Montana: I have to confess, I had forgotten all about the Eurasian Tree Sparrow. I wasn’t thinking about the Eurasian Tree Sparrow at all, though.

Sparrows 164

Sparrows St. Louis Kansas City Kansas 164

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 14, 2023

Having come back to the blog in whatever form and persistency, the overarching subject of language in birding seemed to be a suitable and deserving theme since bird names were part of my original beat. How have birds infiltrated our everyday language, even of non-birders? No birds required. Yupp, you read that correctly.

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Germany Birds Hunters Owls 174

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 7, 2021

Once upon a time, bird field guides included nests. Decades later, Richard Pough’s Audubon Bird Guide, Eastern Land Birds (I happily own the 1948 edition) included nest and egg descriptions for each species as well. There are many reasons to inquire about bird nests (and eggs) and how to identify them. Harrison. (A

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Eggs Birds United States Sparrows 222

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.

New York City 249

New York City Birds Illinois Science 249

10,000 Birds

JULY 4, 2022

To be precise, “Birding Shanghai from June 10 to June 30, 2022” – but that is even less of an exciting title than the one above. The reason for this post only covering the period from June 10 being that an earlier post, “Revenge Birding”, was about the first 9 days of June. You should try it too.

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Birds Sparrows Protection Humane 180

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 10, 2022

Well, they mainly feed on birds, which may explain their low popularity. For the White-throated Rock Thrush , Wikipedia gives the slightly puzzling statement “The bird’s population is unknown, but is not increasing or declining.” Even if they look as charming as this Northern Boobook. Unfortunately, it is true though.

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Birds China Eggs Owls 192

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 2, 2023

(Boring bureaucratic note to dissuade casual readers: This post covers birds seen in Shanghai in January 2023, except for those seen at Tianmashan – these are shown in a separate post. End of note) Probably the most interesting bird in Shanghai this month was a Barred Cuckoo-Dove choosing a small downtown park to feed on berries.

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Birds Geese Fish Industry 147

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 4, 2020

Here are some of the things I learned reading Birds in Winter: . Birds who store food in advance of winter (corvids, t**s, and nuthatches) have a larger hippocampus (the brain structure that regulates memory) than non-storing birds do. Author Roger F. The book is organized logically by seasonality.

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Research Birds Hoarding Sweden 166

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 8, 2022

Given the complexity of the research, the result feels like a bit of a letdown – “northern populations start migration earlier than southern populations, especially in autumn” The species name of the Chestnut-eared Bunting is fucata , from the Latin “fucare”, to paint red.

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Birds Eggs Bangladesh China 199

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 1, 2023

It is home to four diverse forest ecosystems (deciduous, mixed, boreal, and lowlands), experiences seasonal weather systems ranging from cold dry Arctic winters to humid, thunder-storm filled summers, and, according to the latest official checklist, hosts four professional sports teams with bird names.* state and Canadian provinces.

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North America Birds Owls Canada 203

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 13, 2022

I have always assumed that scientific researchers can overlay weather information on checklists for their research, but absent manual entry, that such information would not be available to me. And here is a photo from that birding trip, at Tualatin River NWR near Portland, Oregon.

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Research Wyoming Portland Oregon 287

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 3, 2022

The name is a puzzle though – even the HBW states that the bird has “small or no crest” These photos were taken on Sep 26, indicating that the birds passed Shanghai rather late (according to the HBW, “autumn migration from early to late Sept”). The Japanese Paradise Flycatcher is listed as Near Threatened.

China 171

China Birds Ukraine Killing 171

10,000 Birds

JULY 7, 2020

They looked out their windows and across their patios and up from their apartment terraces and saw–birds. This is a delightful book, large (8-1/2 by 11 inches), filled with Sibley’s distinctive artwork and an organized potpourri of research-based stories about the science behind bird’s lives.

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2020 Birds Groups North America 263

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 2, 2018

If you like birds on posts, if seeing “little brown jobs” posing nicely in the distance as you drive or walk along a dirt road only to have it fly away as you approach makes you deliriously happy, then North Dakota is the place for you. I wanted to see prairie birds and I wanted to experience a new state. Scott Barnes, N.J.

North Dakota 135

North Dakota Birds Sparrows Blackbirds 135

10,000 Birds

JULY 13, 2014

So while you’re waiting for that or for low tide, here are a few reads and bits of news on bird taxonomy and systematics that have caught my eye over the past few weeks. A new genus for the American Tree Sparrow. And more sparrow shake-ups to come. Birds still are dinosaurs. Elephant birds and their kiwi kin.

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New Zealand Elephants Sparrows Ostriches 193

10,000 Birds

MARCH 23, 2014

Big news about a small bird broke earlier this month when bird researchers from several nations announced that the species formerly known as Spotted Wren-Babbler ( Spelaeornis formosus ) — a tiny, secretive bird of montane forests from the eastern Himalayas to southeast China — is not a Spelaeornis wren-babbler at all.

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Family Comoros Asia Birds 267

10,000 Birds

JULY 6, 2023

Their migration is quite fast compared to many other larger birds – in one study , several birds flew 4000 km within 5–7 days while one individual even flew 5600 km non-stop. That includes breeding birds, as indicated by the presence of some rather cute chicks ( video ). Also as video. Bye, bye, Lesser Coucal.

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Birds Eggs Breeders Breeding 130

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. And this brings us to Zonotrichia albicollis , the White-Throated Sparrow. The result is that sparrows with this gene have different mating preferences than other sparrows.

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Rats Sparrows Birds North Carolina 105

10,000 Birds

JULY 13, 2016

There’s something for everyone in this week’s bird news—gotta get ’em all! First off, does your injured bird need a blood transfusion? Apparently humans aren’t the only creatures that engage in booty calls—the prospect of getting some on the side leads Field Sparrows to sing for mates at nigh t.

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New Zealand Research Sparrows Florida 100

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 29, 2022

Situated in misty, cool montane oak forest, the touristy hamlet of San Gerardo de Dota is the most popular birding area in Talamanca: it hosts the largest population of the Resplendent Quetzal in the world. Miriam’s is a plain, simple place offering delicious local cuisine cooked in a wood oven, combined with an awesome birding station!

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Costa Rica Opossums Mammals United States 229

10,000 Birds

APRIL 22, 2021

“Birds of the Indonesian Archipelago: Greater Sundas and Wallacea” by James A. kg could be, do keep in mind that this guide covers 4,400 km / 2,750 mi of the Earth’s circumference, or 11% of the length of the Equator, and describes 13% of global bird diversity. Eaton, Bas van Balen, Nick W. Brickle and Frank E. Rheindt is a big book.

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Indonesia Timor Brunei Guinea 263

10,000 Birds

MAY 3, 2022

It stops those thousands of migrating birds flying across the Gulf of Mexico and directs them right onto the trees, fields, sanctuaries, beaches along the Bolivar Peninsula, where they hopefully find food and fresh water. And us, the birders who travel here from March to May to worship the birds as they seek to survive.

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Houston Texas Sanctuary Sparrows 203

10,000 Birds

MAY 20, 2020

But as I started to research this post, I was reminded that I actually live in the center of this Warbler’s range. Its insect-like buzz reminds me most of the Grasshopper’s Sparrow’s song. The post Warblers that Warble appeared first on 10,000 Birds. swee swee-swee-swee-sweeziweet. It does breed in the U.S.

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Mexico Honduras South America America 330

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 28, 2018

Not only that, but the university retains on faculty a bona fide authority on the region’s avifauna: Professor Oliver Komar is the co-author of the Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Northern Central America and as brilliant a field birder as I’ve ever met in the Neotropics. Zamorano happens to be incredibly birdy.

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Honduras Birds Kentucky Research 133

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 5, 2016

New Year’s resolutions from birding friends are starting to trickle in as I write this review. It is the last day of 2015, time to select the bird of the year past and set goals for the bright open future, when everything is new again. The process is called “Wide-angle birding: Be the bird, see the bird.”.

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Birds Groups 2015 North America 189

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 28, 2015

As 2015 comes to a close and birders the world over start thinking about what 2016 will bring we here at 10,000 Birds would like to take a moment to celebrate our best birds of 2015. Each Beat Writer was given the opportunity to share their Best Bird of the Year for 2015 and, as usual, we had some pretty solid birds.

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2015 Costa Rica Birds Sparrows 181

10,000 Birds

MARCH 3, 2020

One of these days, Jeopardy will feature a category called “Field Guides” and the first clue will be: “This landlocked South American country finally got its own bird field guide in 2016, but it wasn’t available in the United State until 2019.” Bolivia doesn’t come up much in discussions of birding travel.

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Bolivia Birds Brazil Switzerland 169

10,000 Birds

MARCH 19, 2013

In 1898, Hermon Bumpus published a paper about change in the morphology in a population of House Sparrows that he proposed was an example of Darwinian Natural Selection in action. 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 191

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.

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Costa Rica Species South America America 206

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 22, 2018

This year, the one now coming to a close, has been “The Year of the Bird,” as declared by National Geographic (as well as the National Audubon Society, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and BirdLife International). It takes into its lens context and surroundings and makes them as important as the central bird (or other animal) subject.

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Birds Minnesota Protest Protesting 120

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 7, 2020

Happy New Year, 10,000 Birds readers and writers! Everyone is looking back on their best birds of 2019, so I thought it would be a good idea to look at a book that looks back a little further: Urban Ornithology: 150 Years of Birds in New York City , by P. The Bronx also has a special place in birding history.

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New York City New York Birds Breeding 146

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 6, 2018

He made a whirlwind tour of some of the best birding areas in the country, from the Karajukica Bunari peat bog in the extreme southwest (by the border with Montenegro) all the way to the Slano Kopovo Crane Sanctuary in the northeast. He enjoys combining his passion for birds with computer science background to model nocturnal bird migration.

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Serbia Switzerland Farming Birds 133

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 2, 2016

All of these titles deal with birding in specific North American geographic areas: The Atlantic coast, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The photos show the forms of the bird seen on the east coast and are annotated with notes on plumage and other distinguishing field marks. It’s time for some short book reviews. Well, short for me.

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Pennsylvania Texas Whales Whaling 160

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 5, 2017

The point is, the field guide I grabbed without hesitation was the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America, 7th Edition by Jon L. No other field guide to North American birds does rarities so comprehensively and so well. (To I miss the shorebird and get it a few days later, but that’s not the point of this story.

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North America America 2017 Birds 179