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Seeing Sociable Lapwing in Kazakhstan

10,000 Birds

Kazakhstan – May 2009 After our excellent time at the Korgalzhyn State Nature Reserve we bid a fond farewell to its gorgeous grassy terrain and made our way to a location where Sociable Lapwing were known to breed. Well, that is almost too much to ask for!

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Where Tulips Come From (It Ain’t Holland)

10,000 Birds

Kazakhstan, May 2009 During the two days spent out in the steppe in Kazakhstan I couldn’t help but notice the sheer number of flowers that dotted the grassy steppe. Was it part of some gigantic-scale gardening project planned by the Soviets when Kazakhstan was a part of the USSR?

Sri Lanka 192
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Caspian Gull: The continental gull

10,000 Birds

The key to solving the puzzle of Germany’s large white-headed gulls was banding juveniles of all forms in their breeding colonies and the fact that some humans find immense joy in driving around garbage dumps, looking at birds with pricey scopes and trying to decipher tiny codes on plastic or metal rings of various shapes and sizes.

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What is Mexico’s National Bird?

10,000 Birds

In fact, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology , “The Golden Eagle is the most common official national animal in the world – it’s the emblem of Albania, Germany, Austria, Mexico, and Kazakhstan.” ” The bird is massive.

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Siberian Chiffchaff in the Altai Mountains

10,000 Birds

How would we view their taxonomic situation if we found that birds looking like European Chiffchaffs showed a Siberian song on their breeding grounds somewhere along the Ural mountains? How can we thus be sure that “Siberian” colouration and “Siberian” calls correspond to “Siberian” song?

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The Hidden Qualities of House Sparrows

10,000 Birds

A male probable member of the indicus group (foreground) and a male domesticus House Sparrow in western Kazakhstan. Then there is the fact that indicus sparrows tend to avoid human habitations while domesticus doesn’t, leading to sympatric breeding with a disputed amount of hybridisation.

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Garganey in New York

10,000 Birds

I’d only ever seen Garganey once before, way back in 2009 in Kazakhstan. What if we missed it? But before we get into the search I’d like to touch briefly on the bird itself. Its a Eurasian bird, migrating from Africa and south Asia every spring. We asked and word was the bird was seen.

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