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Hawking for Nighthawks

10,000 Birds

Especially as we were at the time about to experience a rapidly advancing tropical storm. Scores of Black-bellied Whistling Ducks circled overhead, these vocal ducks are often hunted illegally here so it was refreshing to see so many. Striated Heron in breeding plumage – extra plumes and blue lores.

Livestock 202
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Saving the Drowning Cormorant, or the Kerkini Lake, Greece

10,000 Birds

We are entering the mixed colony of 11 species ( Grey , Squacco , Purple and Black-crowned Night Herons ; Great , Little and, recently, Cattle Egrets ; Eurasian Spoonbill (below) and Glossy Ibis ; Pygmy and Great Cormorant ). I do have experience with this species from Bodrum, Turkey; it is daring, bold and cocky, and is impossible to forget.

Greece 188
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Africa’s endangered species

10,000 Birds

The reasons that these ten have been selected is to illustrate some of the myriad reasons that Africa’s birds are being driven to extinction; from commercial overfishing, powerline collisions, illegal trade, poisoning, traditional medicine usage, overgrazing and conversion of specialized habitats into agricultural land.