10,000 Birds

MAY 31, 2024

The days are longer and warmer, flowers fill the meadows, and the birds are back. True, most of our migrant breeding birds start to return in April, but in May even the late arrivals – Turtle Doves, Swifts, Spotted Flycatchers and Nightjars – finally appear. There was a notable passage of waders, too, the same day.

Greece 182

Greece Turtles Breeding Europe 182

10,000 Birds

MAY 11, 2024

My aunt Greet gave me a book in 1975 that featured the 60 most endangered birds in Europe. Amazingly and quite contrary to what you would believe from the gloomy news most of these birds have since recovered and are doing well. Southern Spain has been suffering from a long-term drought for a few years already.

Spain 238

Spain Ducks Morocco Europe 238

10,000 Birds

MARCH 25, 2024

If you’ve birded in Spain, possibly more than once, and are considering another Mediterranean country to quench your thirst, look to the east. Steve Dudley, a bird guide and author of the Lesvos birding guide, once told me: “Greece is THE premier birding location in Europe for me [and for yours truly as well].

Greece 268

Greece Spain India Europe 268

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 235

Cyprus Breeders Falcons Hunters 235

10,000 Birds

MARCH 23, 2023

Superficially similar but unrelated to New World condors, it is huge, more pterodactyl-like than bird-like. Before I was born, it used to be a rare breeding species in mountainous areas south of Belgrade, but became extinct after the 1960s due to intensive poisoning of wolves. But it’s a huge bird.

Bulgaria 264

Bulgaria McDonalds Eagles Serbia 264

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 25, 2020

It was apparently all the way back in 2012, when I was first getting back into birding after a 30 year hiatus, that I took a sad little picture, with my sad little camera, of a cute little bird that seemed to not show up anywhere at all in my field guide. What I didn’t know was that this is a very special species.

Birds 177

Birds Mexico California Spain 177

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 23, 2024

There’s something wonderfully primeval about the Northern Bald Ibis: it has the look of a bird that really ought to be extinct. The fact that it’s not is quite surprising, as this curious bird has come very close to the brink. Sadly, they no longer breed in Algeria, while in Turkey no free-flying birds remain. (In

Morocco 240

Morocco Austria Algeria Germany 240

10,000 Birds

MARCH 1, 2024

Most serious bird photographers dislike taking pictures of birds wearing rings (or what on the other side of the Atlantic you call bands). I can sympathise, as a shiny new ring, clamped to a bird’s leg, rarely enhances its portrait. The information I received didn’t indicate the age of the bird.

Lithuania 130

Lithuania Morocco Iceland Ireland 130

10,000 Birds

APRIL 25, 2020

The annual parade of birds is happening and the feathered participants are dressed in their best breeding suits. Now is when we can venture into the closest park and see birds of the deep woods, species that breed far from town. It’s a living festival and for the birds, 2020 is no different. Spring migration!

Costa Rica 230

Costa Rica 2020 Spain Panama 230

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 29, 2020

But here is the truly tragic part: I was not birding during those years! These goods, purchased with Mexican silver, would then be transported overland through Mexico City, and shipped from Veracruz to Spain. These turkey-sized birds, named for their raucous calls, can muster an impressive level of volume.

Birds 169

Birds 2006 Mexico Morocco 169

10,000 Birds

JULY 2, 2020

The next morning, through Yellowhammers and Eurasian Skylarks singing all around me, I went birding. Yes, yes, I know, not countable – it’s not a bird. Chamois is an agile goat-antelope with short hooked horns, found in mountainous areas of Europe from Spain to the Caucasus. Never mind, it’s not a bird.

Serbia 264

Serbia Bears Birds Mammals 264

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 5, 2021

10,000 Birds is running a series of articles by and about tour guides, tour companies, eco-lodges, and other birding travel organizations. We want to help the birding tourism industry come back strong from the COVID pandemic. She was attracted by the number of different species and their colors.

Ecuador 198

Ecuador Spain Experience Experiments 198

10,000 Birds

MARCH 28, 2020

A month ago, I was helping fellow birders see their first Emerald Tanagers , their lifer Sunbittern , and wondering where Mary and I could go next, which birds we could chase during the upcoming weekends. As always, they remind me of “winter finches” from birding days back in western New York and southern Ontario.

Costa Rica 246

Costa Rica Birds Spain New York 246

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 24, 2023

Back in July, my fellow 10,000 Birds contributor Dragan wrote a delightful piece about birding Lake Kerkini in spring. I first visited Kerkini and this bird-rich region of northern Greece 15 years ago, and have been returning regularly ever since. My photograph below is of a captive bird).

Greece 230

Greece Pelicans Geese Buffalo 230

10,000 Birds

APRIL 18, 2024

I would be fascinating to know how many species of birds it was pointed at during its time with me, but it must have been well over 1,000. As a bird-tour leader, the scope was an essential part of my equipment, and I became pretty quick at getting it on to distant birds so that my clients could see them, too.

Estonia 220

Estonia Poland India Pelicans 220

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 15, 2023

And since I suspect there may be others out there who, like I, feel something of a personal connection with 10,000 Birds’ regular writers, I feel the need to explain my absence. Now, all of this should not have kept me from seeing, and reporting on, some cool Mediterranean birds. In fact, I have not formally gone birding, at all.

Mexico 206

Mexico Morocco Cuba Jordan 206

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 207

Fur Bulgaria Otters Estonia 207

10,000 Birds

MARCH 17, 2021

The southwest peninsula of Trinidad is unfortunately rarely birded by visiting birders. Let’s just say that the journey from the capital city, Port of Spain, to the said peninsula could easily run into 2.5 Bonus points if you figured out that the out-of-focus bird here is a Solitary Sandpiper. Such is birding.

Sea Turtles 271

Sea Turtles Bats Turtles Trinidad 271

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.

Dissection 242

Dissection Birds Research Europe 242

10,000 Birds

MAY 28, 2015

What do you think makes for a good bird hide? I have asked myself that same question many times over the last six months, until last week, when I was involved in an opening ceremony of five new bird hides at the Palic Lake, by the town of Subotica in the very north of Serbia, along the border with Hungary (all photos are from that area).

Serbia 258

Serbia Birds Spain Hungary 258

10,000 Birds

APRIL 14, 2023

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. An Englishwoman, she thought, originally, that she would stay within the British Isles, to see the five or six native species.

Barn Owls 113

Barn Owls Owls Serbia Finland 113

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 20, 2016

And what a bird I have for you today. It was in Hong Kong that I caught up with the species, as it is easy to find in the splendid wetlands of Mai Po. As well as the population found in East Asia, another smaller population also occurred in the Iberian Peninsula, in Spain and Portugal. I’m back! Are they taunting me?

Spain 106

Spain Portugal Asia Japan 106

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 18, 2015

One – the Takahe is far too cool a species to lose. Two – there is so much distinctness amongst the different forms of the Purple Swamphen that lumping means we may as well lump all the world’s reed warblers into one huge species and be done with it. ” Birds Europe Purple Swamphen rails Spain'

Spain 157

Spain Hunters Africa Hunting 157

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 243

Peru 2012 Birds Falcons 243

10,000 Birds

MARCH 13, 2020

But like Spain, its only neighbor on the Iberian Peninsula, Portugal is cut off from the rest of Europe by the steep, natural border formed by the Pyrenees. Good birding and happy drinking! The post Casa Santos Lima: Valcatrina – Vinho Regional Alentejano (2015) appeared first on 10,000 Birds. Stay healthy, everyone.

2015 161

2015 Portugal France Europe 161

10,000 Birds

MAY 10, 2015

Bird blogging in May always gives me the creeps. This ridiculous focus of the Birding Internet on North American wood-warblers is boring on a quiet day and highly annoying during peak migration. It visits bird feeders, making it a worthy spark bird to new birders as they may see it closely. And do they ever try so hard.

Sparrows 234

Sparrows Italy Asia Austria 234

10,000 Birds

JULY 10, 2013

I am back home and recovered from the Birding Rally Challenge in Northern Peru (Rally). Well, I will start by saying I am not new to non-stop birding; some friends and I tried to break the 24-hour record number of birds in Florida (Big day). Photo: Peru Birding Rally. Photo: Peru Birding Rally.

Peru 258

Peru Birds South Africa United Kingdom 258

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 8, 2014

He lives at the west end of Lake Ontario which, twelve months of the year, is a very rich and varied place for birds. So he spends as much time as he can in the field and whenever possible he chases lifelong birding dreams in foreign lands. You can and should read about Peter’s daily adventures at My Bird of the Day.

Spain 175

Spain Ostriches Africa Canada 175

10,000 Birds

JUNE 29, 2012

The death of Lonesome George has robbed the world of not only a (sub)species (albeit one that has been functionally extinct for a long time since) but of one of the few celebrity reptiles. For this reason, I’d like to take a break from my bird recital and talk for a minute about the truly marvelous reptiles I saw in Spain.

Reptiles 180

Reptiles Spain Monkeys Cows 180

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 7, 2016

Of course this is self-evident as you can never have enough gulls on a bird blog, but this blog here is in an especially dire need of more gull posts for the simple reason that I have a few nice pictures of gulls that would make for a few nice posts. It has come to my attention that this blog needs more gulls.

Europe 134

Europe Spain Italy Ireland 134

10,000 Birds

JUNE 6, 2013

The most flamboyant of all hummers, the Marvelous Spatuletail will be one of the many endemic bird highlights along the route of the Second International Birding Rally Challenge in Peru. I can’t convey how thrilled I am about the upcoming International Birding Rally Challenge in Peru. Photo: Courtesy of Dubi Shapiro.

Peru 189

Peru 2013 Louisiana Birds 189

10,000 Birds

JUNE 15, 2012

So, yes, it was Spain. Specifically, rural northwestern Spain, at various points along the Camino de Santiago, an ancient pilgrimage route to the supposed burial place of Saint James the apostle and, before that, to the westernmost point in continental Europe, the supposed End of the Earth, the Finis Terra. My life White Stork.

Spain 180

Spain Europe Industry Rodents 180

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 20, 2012

The very first thing we notice about this large member of the Galliformes is that there is a wild version and a domestic version, and although the two are rather different, they are both given the same species name, Meleagris gallopavo. This is not entirely unknown among domestic animals, but many domesticates have no living wild version.

Turkey 216

Turkey Columbus Spain Fowl 216

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 30, 2019

Some of my readers may recall that my wife and I went to Spain a few months ago. That was a work trip, although I still managed to find a few mornings to bird. So you can bet some more birding was in order. An October trip meant many European birds had already flown south for the winter. And a Willow Tit … I think.

Switzerland 118

Switzerland Austria Europe Spain 118

10,000 Birds

JULY 22, 2014

Will Raup is a birder from upstate New York who helped Corey learn a lot about birds when Corey was first starting out as a birder. When you think of invasives, you think of the birds that have been helped by human beings to get where they are, such as House Sparrow or European Starling. This species is primarily an insectivore.

Cattle 171

Cattle South Korea Suriname Seychelles 171

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 20, 2019

I haven’t yet been birding in Europe but whenever I occasionally skim a field guide about the birds on the other side of the Atlantic, I’m always encouraged to find that I’m already familiar with many species found over there, even though most of my birding experience has been limited to eastern North America.

2017 119

2017 Portugal Rabbits Europe 119

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 28, 2014

It varies in appearance across its enormous range, and a new genetic study — Dispersal and speciation in purple swamphens (Rallidae: Porphyrio) — bolsters the case that this “supertramp” is actually a superspecies that could be split into six different species. Above: Swamphen in Australia by James Niland).

Papua New Guinea 202

Papua New Guinea Philippines New Zealand Florida 202