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The National Wildlife Refuge System: Birders Leading the Way

10,000 Birds

Individually, many NWRs protect crucial bird habitat. Farallon NWR , a group of islands near San Francisco, hosts the largest colonies of breeding seabirds south of Alaska. Because many NWRs were established to protect migrating birds, they lie along one of the four primary flyways. It’s not just for the birds.

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Emerging birding destinations: Serbia

10,000 Birds

Depending on your particular interest, opt for March/April (spring migration), May/June (breeding season), August to October (autumn migration), or November/December when waterbird migration reaches its peak. Even among the protected areas of Serbia, Djerdap National Park stands out as better preserved than most. Top-5 hotspots.

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Western Serbia, or Griffons in the raspberries

10,000 Birds

Yet, in the late 1970s there still were six colonies with about 40 breeding pairs left, but in the early 1990s only two colonies and 22 pairs persisted (of which only 13 bred in 1991) – five of them in this gorge. There are very few sheep in the meadows and too few animals end up dead in the open, where scavengers can get them.

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Birding the Pannonian Sea Sands

10,000 Birds

July is that boring period after the breeding and prior to migration season. These are overgrown in steppe grasses and local sheep herders are subsidised by the authorities to bring their animals here to keep the grass short, prevent succession by bushes and manage the habitat for vulnerable Sousliks , or European ground squirrels.

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When conservation and animal rights collide

10,000 Birds

Wildlife conservation is concerned with protecting wildlife at the level of species or perhaps population. But you can take solace in the results at the end of the breeding year, when loafing around the intertidal are a shiny new cohort of finely plumage grey youngsters, all ready to carry on Western Gull line into the future.