article thumbnail

Journeys With Emperors: Tracking the World’s Most Extreme Penguin–A Book Review

10,000 Birds

They breed in colonies scattered around the Antarctic continent (the number ranges from 60 to 70, and as Kooyman points out, the colonies can drastically change in size from year to year) on the ice (and one of the things I learned from this book is how many different kinds of ice there is in the Antarctic) in the darkest months of winter.

Penguins 152
article thumbnail

Peterson Field Guide to North American Bird Nests: A Field Guide Review

10,000 Birds

This may have been partly a leftover from the Victorian fascination with egg collecting (the infamous passion known as oology), but probably more from people’s burgeoning interest in the nests and eggs found in their gardens and fields, gateway artifacts to a newer hobby called birdwatching. Baicich and Colin J.

Eggs 222
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Trending Sources

article thumbnail

Birding Yibin, Sichuan

10,000 Birds

According to the McMurray hatchery , the “Silver Pheasant is considered a good ‘starter’ breed for people who want to learn more about raising pheasants” Hm. In one group, they added a blue egg to their nests. In the other, they added both such an egg and a peanut half-shell. What a weird world.

Italy 182
article thumbnail

Birding Yancheng, Jiangsu

10,000 Birds

It is not quite clear why they do this as it apparently does not affect breeding success. They have written a paper on the “Feasibility of counting breeding Pied Avocets and Black-winged Stilts using drones” It seems to work, actually – though about 20 percent of breeding pairs are being missed by drone surveys.

Birds 195
article thumbnail

Birding Wawushan, Sichuan

10,000 Birds

Most of them had brought kids along as well (probably among my least favorite mammals), which were pulled on gaudily colored skiing sleds by their hapless parents, creating a constant raucous noise. The rationale includes the speed of the laying (too fast to check for color matches) and the low number of egg-laying attempts (i.e.,

Pandas 196
article thumbnail

Birding the Wolongshan area in June 2023

10,000 Birds

Indeed, most cuckoo eggs are accepted by the babax ( source ), although a small proportion of hosts reject cuckoo eggs and often boast about this capability when having a few too many drinks. I think I pointed out in previous posts that mammals are kind of evil.

article thumbnail

Birding Sepilok, Borneo (Part 2)

10,000 Birds

In the non-breeding season, male Baya Weavers sometimes enter the basket-making trade, often with considerable success. Meanwhile, the females seem to have a much more relaxing life, at least in this early stage of the breeding season. In the unloved “Other” section of today’s post, we have a few more mammals.

Birds 205