10,000 Birds

JANUARY 16, 2020

The Ural Owl inhabits old and undisturbed boreal forests, in an unbroken belt from Sweden and Finland across Russia to Japan, and is rarely seen to the south, only here and there, in the Carpathians (Slovakia/Ukraine/Romania/eastern Serbia) and Dinaric Alps (Croatia/Bosnia/western Serbia). Two years ago I screamed “UralOwlUralOwlUralOwl!!!”,

Serbia 243

Serbia Owls Slovakia Bosnia 243

10,000 Birds

JULY 18, 2022

According to the HBW, when breeding, male birds do most of the incubation and parenting while females often leave the nest up to one week before the eggs hatch. It concludes that human activity influences the breeding activity of the lapwing. Sounds like clever behavior by the parrotbills, right? End of side note. How efficient.

Birds 162

Birds South Korea Japan Abandon 162

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 17, 2019

Two hundred yards further, the first Common Goldeneye and Smew started to appear and, while counting Smew and geese, a Great Bittern took flight from one stand of reeds to another, right in front of us. These globally threatened raptors breed from Ukraine eastward through Siberia and only a few come to overwinter here.

Geese 139

Geese Serbia Birds Estonia 139

10,000 Birds

MARCH 6, 2016

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.

Kazakhstan 111

Kazakhstan Germany Ukraine Asia 111

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 3, 2022

The bird “spent five months on Mindoro Island in the Philippines during the non-breeding season and migrated through Taiwan, the Chinese east coast, and the Korean peninsula” and on to the Russian Far East (indicating a certain lack of solidarity with Ukraine). This is not really an option at Nanhui though. The female.

China 168

China Birds Ukraine Killing 168

10,000 Birds

JULY 4, 2022

The Lesser Coucals sometimes try to argue with Chestnut-winged Cuckoos about the morality of having other species raise their chicks (The Lesser Coucal Species Committee also likes to point out that the species neither invaded Ukraine nor ever voted for Donald Trump – they can be a bit boring in insisting on always being on the good side).

Birds 178

Birds Sparrows Protection Humane 178

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 1, 2022

Interestingly for me, the research paper calls throwing out the eggs infanticide, which makes me feel a bit queasy as this might potentially be on the wrong side of the Roe vs. Wade (or “Right vs. Wrong”, as The Onion calls it) debate. Black-naped Orioles are breeding in Fengxian. Here is a presumed pair.

Birds 147

Birds China Eggs Breeding 147