10,000 Birds

JANUARY 6, 2024

Work brings me regularly to Monterrey in Nuevo Leon, northern Mexico. Amazingly, everyone showed up at dawn except for one person, who’d had a near-death experience with me on Colombia’s Sumapaz paramo, an acceptable excuse for a no-show. These parrots breed inside cavities in cliffs and they are very particular about the cliff.

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Parrots Woodpeckers Industry Fast Food 154

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. High Island in April requires Weather, so I was told. Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. Clapper Rail. Back to the Flats.

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Houston Texas Sanctuary Sparrows 203

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 14, 2013

” When we think of going birding in Mexico we often think about the colorful tropical species; Russet-crowned Motmot , Eared Quetzal , Black-throated Magpie-Jay …However, searching for rare and little understood species can perhaps be even more exciting and rewarding. Very little is known about this enigmatic species.

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South America San Diego Mexico America 180

10,000 Birds

APRIL 23, 2013

Isla Isabel, a picturesque volcanic island situated 15 miles off Mexico’s Riviera Nayarit coast, is just such a place. It was made a National Park in the 1980s and is a major breeding and nesting area for over 30,000 seabirds. A male Magnificent Frigatebird in full breeding regalia. If you like boobies (no giggles please!),

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Whales Whaling Sharks Marine Life 259

10,000 Birds

MAY 10, 2012

Warbling Vireos are found breeding in open deciduous woods, often riparian, across Mexico, the United States, and southern Canada. Their fondness for open woods means that they often adapt well to breeding in parks and it was Van Saun Park in New Jersey’s Bergen County that I found the individual shown in this blog post.

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New Jersey United States Philadelphia Canada 186

10,000 Birds

MARCH 10, 2021

You truly cannot experience the Gray-barred Wren without hearing the raucous calls shared among group members of this highly-social species. White-striped Woodcreeper : Faraaz Abdool recently wrote about Trinidad and Tobago’s wonderful Woodcreepers , and this one is the Woodcreeper of western Mexico’s pine-oak forests.

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Trinidad Emotional Transported Mexico 175

10,000 Birds

APRIL 3, 2018

For over 70 years, ANWR has been a refuge for migrating and breeding birds – most notably serving as the winter home for the only wild flock of whooping cranes. And then there’s rufous, who journeys between Mexico and Alaska twice a year. So let’s plan that trip, shall we? Costa’s hummingbird, Photo © Robin L.

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Texas North America Alaska America 170

10,000 Birds

MAY 7, 2019

John Schmitt, who illustrated Raptors of Mexico and Central America amongst many other books and magazine articles. I understand that this is a complicated undertaking, but a new birder reading this book would have no idea that Bushtits (#92: “Breeding System: ‘It’s Complicated'”) are only found in Western states.

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Birds North America Breeding America 114

10,000 Birds

MAY 15, 2011

Right now great flocks of wood-warblers are making their way north from the southern United States, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and South America to breed across the United States and Canada. Read about them here but also get out and experience them. You won’t regret it! ———————————————————————————————————————————————— a.

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United States South America 2011 2012 155

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 14, 2014

In this first installment, I will focus on my impressions and experiences in the highlands portion of our tour. One of these islands may have been the present day Northern Central American Highlands which includes Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and parts of extreme southern Mexico (Chiapas). This is a fascinating area of transition.

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Honduras Costa Rica El Salvador Arizona 209

10,000 Birds

JUNE 23, 2011

It is this season we experience vast musical repertoires, green canopies, hot air, and bustling energy. These birds capitalize on a quick breeding season and usually have young out by mid-July in most cases. Their range of breeding is literally only very southern Wyoming to very northern New Mexico.

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Colorado Breeders Wyoming Breeding 169

10,000 Birds

MAY 7, 2011

Right now great flocks of wood-warblers are making their way north from the southern United States, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and South America to breed across the United States and Canada. Read about them here but also get out and experience them. You won’t regret it! ———————————————————————————————————————————————— a.

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United States South America Cooking Family 179

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 20, 2012

Its native range stretches from the southern Pacific coast of Mexico south to northwestern Costa Rica, where it is an inhabitant of arid to semihumid woodland and open areas with scattered trees. Despite being tainted with this fact, I will sheepishly admit that this oriole is a welcome enrichment to our local avifauna.

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Miami Costa Rica Florida 2005 172

10,000 Birds

MARCH 21, 2024

Being a westerner — raised in California, and now living in western Mexico — I was perhaps most excited about the migratory birds that breed in eastern North America. And the Baltimore Oriole is an iconic eastern bird, which winters along Mexico’s east coast, but never in the west. Then, around 4:00 p.m.,

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Mexico Birds Raccoons Baltimore 187

10,000 Birds

MAY 8, 2011

It breeds across Canada’s boreal forest and most winter in the Caribbean, though some spend the cold months in Central America. Right now great flocks of wood-warblers are making their way north from the southern United States, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and South America to breed across the United States and Canada.

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Tigers United States Jamaica Pennsylvania 158

10,000 Birds

MAY 30, 2019

His parents moved where opportunity beckoned, taking him from San Angelo, Texas, to Columbus, New Mexico, then to Dallas, and finally on to California. That summer of 1938, when he was ten years old, Cade read of two brothers, Frank and John Craighead, who wrote of their experiences with falcons in National Geographic.

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Falcons California Condor Alaska Texas 173

10,000 Birds

APRIL 28, 2024

There are a few spectacles in the birding community that are high energy, happen quickly, and is worth any effort to experience it. One such experience is a bird grounding event, sometimes called a fallout. But I am happy to at least have had a small taste of these beloved species as they make their way to breed for the year.

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Texas Alabama Alligators Nashville 184

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 20, 2012

The original distribution of the Wild Turkey is not clearly known, but it existed from the Eastern Seaboard of the US nearly to the Rocky Mountains, avoided some of the more open plains in the north, and occurred in central Mexico. Diffusion to other european countries subsequently was very rapid.

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Turkey Columbus Spain Fowl 199

10,000 Birds

APRIL 2, 2019

Peterson Reference Guide to Sparrows of North America covers 61 species of the New World sparrow family Passerellidae that breed in Canada, the United States, and northern Mexico. Mexico border. They’re all birds of North America! Range and Geographic Variation. in German, and a Labrador Retriever named Gellert.

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North America Sparrows America United States 143

10,000 Birds

MARCH 11, 2011

Brown Pelicans , and the northernmost Brown Booby breeding colony on this side of the Pacific. Ringer Gannets and Boobies (Sulidae) Black-and-white gannets breed on the cold, rocky coasts of the northern and southern oceans. They can soar for hours, or plunge and twist after another bird with spectacular power and flair.

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2011 Pelicans Papua New Guinea Birds 151

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 24, 2021

The Colima Warbler has a distinction shared with no other species in the world: It is fully migratory, but both its summer reproductive range and its winter range are almost entirely within Mexico. (A A few breed in Texas’ Big Bend area.) All of our other migratory species either breed mostly in the U.S. So, lucky me!

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Mexico Birds South America Turkey 155

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 6, 2018

It actually makes a lot of sense, the geographic features of the isthmus between North America (including Mexico, because Mexico is part of North America) and South America cut across political lines, as do birds. Of the native breeding species, 112 are endemic or “very nearly endemic.” (Can One field guide, seven countries.

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America El Salvador Costa Rica Honduras 212

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 9, 2020

Splits were once a much more subjective determination, based on differences in appearance, vocalizations, habits, and breeding preferences. But you pretty much must come to Mexico to see the Mexican Duck , which I see every time I go to our nearest lake. Western Mexico’s Cinnamon-rumped Seedeater , split since 2018.

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San Diego San Francisco Mexico Baltimore 171

10,000 Birds

APRIL 4, 2023

.” They conclude that many non-vocalizing Empidonax flycatchers can be identified in the field, but only “when several field characters are used in combination–and after one has gained experience in looking at these characters on singing/calling and captive birds (i.e., known-identity).”**

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Los Angeles North America America Species 203

10,000 Birds

JUNE 9, 2011

The Mexican Duck, as its name suggests, is native to Mexico and parts of the southwestern United States, and unlike the Mallard, the Mexican Duck does not have a showy male breeding plumage; both sexes are brown throughout the year. Do you prefer stability and certainty, or would you rather make changes to our lists early and often?

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Ducks North America Texas Mexico 169

10,000 Birds

MAY 25, 2011

His summers during college were spent as a biological technician, monitoring breeding birds for Point Reyes Bird Observatory in Eastern Oregon, and also five seasons in Black Hills, SD, working for the Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory.

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Brazil Venezuela Iowa Guatemala 160

10,000 Birds

MARCH 1, 2012

Fortunately, Alan Tilmouth, a beat writer with pelagic experience, expressed an interest in the book as well. To be fair, Howell has also written about hummingbirds and finding birds in Mexico, which to my mind are a little easier to comprehend. So, you will be reading two reviews of this book in 10,000 Birds.

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North America Albatross America Species 158

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 23, 2011

Rufous Hummingbirds have a well-earned reputation for getting lost — they breed along the west coast but turn up in New York in fall and winter pretty regularly — and an equally well-earned reputation for hardiness, as they breed farther north than any other hummingbird species, into Alaska.

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South America New York Alaska America 156

10,000 Birds

MAY 15, 2011

We did however see a Yellow-rumped Warbler at Elephant Butte Lake, New Mexico on 16th November 1989 and a Townsend’s Warbler at Big Sur, California on 3rd December 1989. Read about them here but also get out and experience them. You won’t regret it! ———————————————————————————————————————————————— a.

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South Africa United States Austin Alligators 158

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 15, 2012

It was a heart-pounding scene straight out of Jurassic Park, an odd experience for a laid-back pursuit like birding. Secretive, silent and undetectable outside of its breeding season, found only in the U.S. I wrote about the experience here.

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2012 Birds Guatemala Florida 144