10,000 Birds

JUNE 8, 2022

But at times, in the breeding season especially, the same birds would belt some of the most complex and absolutely juicy notes that made me reconsider my feelings toward them. It may seem like a grown bird, but the rufous tips on the wing coverts of this Cocoa Thrush tell us it is still in its first year of life. Wise creatures.

Trinidad 147

Trinidad Emotional Breeding Cats 147

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 24, 2022

It is a relatively small hornbill, and not very shy – some photos below were taken on the campgrounds of Kruger Park, which more or less seem to be the species’ natural habitat by now. Also, it is the largest species of hornbill worldwide and frankly, it still is a bit miffed that it is not called Giant Hornbill.

South Africa 200

South Africa Africa China Seals 200

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 13, 2023

It feels good to start a post with some truly attractive birds – such as two species of broadbills. Strangely, there do not seem to be many papers on this species. In one paper , you can find fascinating sentences such as “The new species is most similar to D. You can see why here.

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Sri Lanka Birds Taiwan Cats 205

10,000 Birds

JUNE 25, 2022

Even so, in the short term, it can be hard to accept that hundreds of species are close to being extinguished from this irreplaceble tapestry of life, that hundreds more are headed for the same eventual abysmal stop. We would see how species that used to be common, even abundant, became remnants of their former, robust populations.

Costa Rica 251

Costa Rica Parrots Albatross Birds 251

10,000 Birds

APRIL 25, 2021

Each evening the shorebirds head off on their migration to breed in the Northern hemisphere. The Red Knot are now very red and they are the last species of shorebird to leave Broome. One of the birds is a juvenile from last year’s breeding and still has a dull bill tip and pale legs.

Eagles 183

Eagles China Breeding Species 183

10,000 Birds

MARCH 10, 2021

Lesser Roadrunner and White-tipped Dove : Perhaps, dear reader, I should have started with a beautiful song to motivate you. And while the the gully-loving White-tipped Dove is a bird that is almost never seen, you had better know its ubiquitous song if you’re going to go birding in Michoacán. You do want to see it.

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Trinidad Emotional Transported Mexico 175

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 2, 2023

Bohemian Waxwing The morning of my second day was partly devoted to a Long-tailed Duck in the Mokbaai at the island’s southern tip. I’m was very happy with this sighting, but noticed that these birds never seem to be males in their attractive non-breeding plumage, the main image you recall from the bird guides.

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Birds Groups Ducks Rights 224

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 23, 2015

I mean you have two year gulls, three year gulls and even gulls that take four years to mature, and the plumage of all these species changes as they mature. On top of that, they occur in breeding and non-breeding plumage! The pink bill with the black tip was a good start. Ever wonder how gulls can eat just about anything?

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California Sacramento Breeding Turtles 160

10,000 Birds

JUNE 11, 2014

Seeing as Plumb Beach is a known stopover area for large numbers of shorebirds, a known breeding area for a variety of saltmarsh species, including Clapper Rails , and habitat for a wide variety of mammals, reptiles, insects, and other bird species, this is a long overdue move. Signs like the one above went up late last week.

Feral Cats 259

Feral Cats Feral Cats Reptiles 259

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 17, 2022

According to the HBW, there are 41 species of African Barbets and 34 species of Asian Barbets. There are also 14 species of New World Barbets and 2 species of Toucan-Barbets (all in South America). T he Golden-throated Barbet (Baihualing, Yunnan) has an interesting species name, franklinii.

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South Africa Africa India China 198

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 6, 2021

Most of these are migratory species, for which Lake Cuitzeo is a vital wintering ground. I was particularly excited to see two local species that require deeper water: Ruddy Ducks and Clark’s Grebes. And while that species is indeed found on the lake, I am now finding that many, perhaps most, are actually Stilt Sandpipers.

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Ducks Battery Species Groups 196

10,000 Birds

APRIL 9, 2020

When to visit: best during winter and migration season, but also breeding season. eBird list of the recorded species. When to visit: best in breeding and migration seasons (April to June and late August-September). eBird list of the recorded species. The turn-off is about 1 km / 0.6 Dupljaja area. Vracev Gaj area.

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Mali Serbia Eagles Birds 264

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 23, 2023

This is how it looks like: Or at sunset: A species I did not come for from Shanghai is the Black-crowned Night Heron. Its species name graydoni is in honor of Philip Newenham Graydon (1864-1940), a British planter in Sabah. Why that makes Mr. Graydon worthy of having a bird species named after him is a mystery to me.

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Birds Eagles Elephants Rhinoceros 209

10,000 Birds

MARCH 4, 2020

Particularly off the north-eastern tip of the cigar-shaped island (Tobago’s phonetic similarity to “tobacco” is no coincidence) where the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea come to a sometimes less-than-amicable junction. By late March, hordes of Laughing Gulls and multiple species of pelagic terns gather for their turn.

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Fish Rights Species Birds 207

10,000 Birds

JULY 2, 2015

American Avocet in breeding plumage. They often sweep the head from side to side, with upturned tip of bill barely submerged in shallow water, finding food by touch. The Andean Avocet breeds in small groups in loose colonies scattered along the shallow saline lagoons at high elevation. Photo: Dan Dzurisin.

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Bolivia Chile Argentina North America 165

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 14, 2021

Geographic patterns of species richness for birds (1,558 species) in East Africa at 0.25° resolution (blue indicates low species richness, while brown indicates high species richness). At the time of writing, Uganda has 16 hotspots with 400+ so far eBirded species, of which one has almost 600 species.

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Africa Kenya Uganda Tanzania 193

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 23, 2014

It’s always tragic when a species goes extinct. But that tragedy is compounded when the species at risk is a country’s national bird. The sighting suggests that for all its struggles with habitat loss and hunting, the species is still managing to reproduce. Image of newly discovered juvenile Manumea by Moe Ulli).

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Samoa Bald Eagle Campaign Hunting 169

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 4, 2018

And, there are 300+ species of birds in this breathtaking region of the northern Rockies. All of the neck-strain-free birds below breed in Montana. In addition to the 300+ bird species, there are 1,300 species of flora, nearly 50 mammalian species, and eight species (and subspecies) of trout in the streams.

Montana 147

Montana Bald Eagle Birds Bears 147

10,000 Birds

APRIL 11, 2012

There cannot be many ABA area breeding birds harder to get than those that only breed on the remotest tips of the north of North America and then fly off to places that aren’t on the major continental flyways. It’s also fun to think about the massive disparity between the winter and summer range of the species.

North America 178

North America Fiji Hawaii America 178

10,000 Birds

MAY 11, 2018

There are an additional 1,200 acres of surrounding protected refuge, supporting a documented 525 bird species! In the park proper, 358 species have been recorded. One of the highlights of birding in this Texas state park is the chance to see five owl species that breed here. Stygian Owl. Photo by © Hector Bottai.

Texas 147

Texas Owls Barn Owls Hunting 147

10,000 Birds

MARCH 10, 2018

They are very easy to identify in-flight with black and white plumage and flappy action with broad-tipped wings. The numbers are augmented during the winter, when the population increases by nearly 4 times, but the species is still on the red list after the breeding population has plummeted over recent years.

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Transported Breeding Species Birds 101

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 19, 2017

We are also very much in tune with the local beaches and the tides and which species you can expect at different locations on different tides. This is very useful if you are looking for a particular bird species or even an individual bird. You can see the oddly coloured bird in the header photo on December 29th 2016.

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2017 Taiwan 2012 2016 102

10,000 Birds

APRIL 3, 2018

Of the 300 hummingbird species across the globe, North America only sees fewer than two dozen of them. Then, I learned that over 400 species of birds have been identified in and around these islands. With a bit of luck the Texas Gulf just might have several of our favorite hummingbird species. So let’s plan that trip, shall we?

Texas 170

Texas North America Alaska America 170

10,000 Birds

JULY 25, 2012

But names aren’t everything and there is plenty to say about this species. Male Brown Teal showing some breeding plumage. Females and non-breeding males look similar The Brown Teal is endemic to New Zealand, and was once lumped with two closely related island forms, the Auckland Island Teal and the Campbell Teal.

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New Zealand Ducks 2000 Breeding 172

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 30, 2013

I once worked with banders who used to use the ratio of the lengths of the primary projections (or some other voodoo like that) and an alchemical tome known as the Pyle Guide to separate some species. This spoke very clearly to me that people who claim to be able to separate these species in the field were either birding gods or delusional.

New Zealand 162

New Zealand Albatross Breeding Species 162

10,000 Birds

MARCH 14, 2022

These two islands are about halfway between the tip of South Africa and Antarctica in the Subantarctic Indian Ocean, have had relatively few human visitors, and are primarily inhabited with some of the rarest seabirds in the world and a smaller number of mammals. Marion has a fascinating history with invasive species. and seabirders.

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South Africa Mice Albatross Africa 262

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 14, 2013

They packed up in June of 2013 and headed south from San Diego with the southern tip of South America as their destination. We hope that our journey will provide important information about many Neotropical bird species as well as inform conservation.” Very little is known about this enigmatic species.

South America 180

South America San Diego Mexico America 180

10,000 Birds

JULY 30, 2015

They fly from extreme northern North America to the southern tip of South America and are seldom seen perched during migration. Another cool fact was learning that the Barn Swallows has started to breed in South America since the 80s. Swallows have migrated north to south along the Americas for millennia. Photo: Alfredo Begazo.

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South Dakota South America North America America 167

10,000 Birds

JULY 18, 2014

When they turn into fledglings feather color plays a part, although the feathers of fledglings differ markedly from those of their parents, which differ from those of their species a year old, two years old, in non-breeding plumage, in winter/summer plumage, etc. Is there a tiny hook on the tip of the bill? Wrong color legs.

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Wildlife Rehabilitation Birds Georgia Kentucky 217

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 3, 2011

In fact I first saw this species off the ferry to South Island a number of Christmases ago, but these particular beauties were seen on my pelagic trip off Northland. Fairy Prions are probably the most common prion found in New Zealand, and breed from the subAntarctic islands to the south of Stewart Island to Northland.

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New Zealand Breeding Australia Species 169

10,000 Birds

MARCH 22, 2017

I traveled up and down the beach, then out in to the arroyos for three days and came up with 45 species, a fairly decent number. I had targeted three species that I had hoped to spend some time photographing, the Wandering Tattler , Snowy Plover and the Horned Lark. Well, you know what they say, two out of three ain’t bad!

South America 103

South America Alaska Mexico Breeding 103

10,000 Birds

JULY 5, 2013

Although both species are widespread in North America as breeders in shrubby edge habitats, that is not the case in the southern half of the sunshine state (the more northerly race of Prairie Warbler is an uncommon breeder in the panhandle). Everyone, I would like you to meet the ‘Florida’ Prairie Warbler ( S.

Florida 183

Florida Breeders Miami Tampa 183

10,000 Birds

MAY 8, 2012

Africa has more than its fair share of storks, with 8 of the world’s 19 species gracing the continent. Storks are typically viewed as wetland species and whilst some storks are restricted to aquatic habitats, others are not. This is another wetland species that nests in sometimes huge colonies atop trees bordering rivers and lakes.

Africa 235

Africa Tanzania South Africa Uganda 235

10,000 Birds

MARCH 8, 2017

Spring is in the air, and all around the Baja desert I am seeing a plethora of species, all looking for love, in what appears to the right places. The silky black plumage of the males almost glowing in the bright sunlight, the striking white wing tips, flashing with each wing beat.

Costa Rica 104

Costa Rica Panama Nevada Guatemala 104

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 5, 2016

And so, I turn to Better Birding: Tips, Tools & Concepts for the Field , the new book by George L. It is an intriguing choice of species. These are extremely detailed, covering distribution, behavior, and plumage by age and gender (when relevant) and comparisons with other species in and external to the group.

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Birds Groups 2015 North America 189

10,000 Birds

MARCH 4, 2011

Among these white-headed/dark-winged gulls formerly lumped into the genus Larus , there were 18+ recognized species the last time I checked, sharing similarities that make telling them apart for the amateur birdwatcher very difficult. 1998), then the proper name for this species is L. fuscus – should be separated as species.

2011 157

2011 Cyprus Deer Species 157

10,000 Birds

JUNE 1, 2011

Most breed in the Chatham Islands or in the islands to the south of South Island, but a few breed on the Three Kings Islands at the tip of North Island as well. As albies go they seem to be doing better than most species, and are only listed as Near Threatened by the IUCN. I hope you enjoy the photos.

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Albatross New Zealand South America Breeders 204