10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

This has benefited both the waterfowl hunters and everyone else who likes ducks and their kin. Eventually, the pigeons, as it were, may come home to roost and the waterfowl and other wildlife, as well as hunters and bird watchers, will be sitting ducks.

Ducks 209

Ducks Hunters Hunting Wildlife 209

10,000 Birds

MARCH 20, 2011

So, one might surmise, it’s OK if they get shot by hunters thinking they’re sandhill cranes? Another 170 are in captivity, many of them breeding stock for reintroduction efforts. What could motivate gunmen (I cannot call them hunters) in two states to deliberately kill North America’s tallest and most critically endangered bird?

2011 241

2011 Hunting Kentucky Hunters 241

10,000 Birds

MARCH 9, 2011

The little stiff-tails are almost year-round at Jamaica Bay though almost all leave to breed in the summer and in the depths of winter, when the ponds are almost completely frozen, they tend to head for open water. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy, their son, Desmond Shearwater, and their two indoor cats, Hunter and B.B.

Ducks 151

Ducks 2011 Jamaica Deer 151

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 15, 2012

Considering the bird survived a season in an area saturated with hunters and birds of prey, this facemelting rarity deserves our respect. This bird represented only the second documented record of this species in Florida. This may sound mundane, but my Best Bird of the Year is a species we all know quite well in one form or another.

2012 146

2012 Birds Guatemala Florida 146