10,000 Birds

MARCH 31, 2012

The largest flying land birds in North America, they appear like folded umbrellas at first, their wing feathers draped blanket-like, enveloping bodies that naturally weigh about 20 pounds at maturity. I guess you’d call it deep-seated reverence for these North American vultures. Their size doesn’t escape you.

California Condor 248

California Condor California Idaho North America 248

10,000 Birds

JUNE 2, 2015

Second, reading about birds courting and parenting brings out the tendency to identify, which leads directly to anthropomorphism, the tendency to assign birds human emotions and thoughts. Some people love books like that. Think of birds too much as humans and you lose the specialness that makes them birds.

Eggs 263

Eggs Family 2006 New York 263

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 14, 2020

Field guides listed two subspecies – delicata (which would eventually become the highly migratory Wilson’s Snipe ) and paraguaiae (breeding resident South American Snipe ) – which were extremely difficult to discern from one another in the field. It toyed with my emotions for many minutes before it eventually flew off.

Trinidad 279

Trinidad Welfare North America Emotional 279

10,000 Birds

MARCH 9, 2011

Let us for once judge a book by its cover, and take a thorough look at a Black-headed Gull in breeding plumage. In the finest tradition of Romanticism, gulls dwell in the mystic world of dark and morbid imagery and emotions, which is expressed in often eroticized ways of aesthetic self-dramatization*.

2011 191

2011 Birds Deer Europe 191

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 8, 2017

Lesser Spotted Eagles breed regularly with around 100 pairs in Germany, but unless you know where the territories are you are unlikely to see them. You see, I had seen members of the formerly united species very frequently in recent years, e.g. in Kazakhstan and during my time in North America back in 2006/07.

2016 104

2016 Germany Italy Netherlands 104