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Birding Sepilok, Borneo (Part 2)

10,000 Birds

My cats refuse to even try Fiery Minivets. While my cats like the taste of the Greater Racket-tailed Drongo , they tend to look fairly ridiculous eating them, as the racket tail sticks out of their mouth. I agree that they look toxic, particularly the females. Even the scientific species name is igneus , identical to the English name.

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Solid Air: Invisible Killer Saving Billions of Birds From Windows–A Book Review

10,000 Birds

An estimated one billion birds collide with glass each year in the United States* and most of them die; window collisions are considered the second highest cause of death of birds after cats (putting aside the big overall causes, like habitat loss and climate change).* And I don’t think that will be many people. Did the model work?

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Feather Trails: A Journey of Discovery Among Endangered Birds–A Book Review

10,000 Birds

The Hawaiian Crows face much more destructive threats–extreme loss of habitat; malaria, the scourge of so many Hawaiian species; predators–rodents, cats and the ‘Io, the Hawaiian Hawk. This is the most intense, tragic section.

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15 Australian Birds (Episode 2)

10,000 Birds

Quite likely, these birds are also the inspiration for Australian science communicator Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki. According to the HBW entry for this species, it “has been claimed that loss of native mammals after European settlement created shortage of nesting material, explaining this species’ penchant for taking hair from humans.”

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Flock to Marion

10,000 Birds

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.

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Birding Chongming Island in summer

10,000 Birds

I once had a cat who loved to lick plastic bags, and while I find the pleasure in this hard to comprehend, it still seems more understandable to me than the joy (?) ” I can see how this line of thinking leads to all kinds of sci-fi types of thought (“would I mate with an alien if I was the last human on earth”, etc.),

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School Burrowing Owls

10,000 Birds

It also has one of the highest human population densities in the state. Not surprisingly, this brings Burrowing Owls into close contact with humans across the county. Loss of habitat due to development, disturbance at burrows and negative interactions with humans are some of the threats facing this charismatic species.

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