10,000 Birds

APRIL 1, 2024

Any place that used to be good for an interesting species last year is likely to have been turned into another construction site this year. I don’t think many other bird species are named after Japanese citizens. Also, there are quite some variations within each species – for details, see here. One, a Ryukyu Minivet.

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Chicago Birds Asia China 145

10,000 Birds

MARCH 31, 2022

While I am still not so sure about China’s sense of humor – though admittedly, the issue is mostly a mismatch between what I think is funny and what the average Chinese thinks is funny, an issue that I have had in other countries as well – the country sure has its fair share of Laughingthrushes. This post shows some of them.

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San Diego Malaysia China Zoos 208

10,000 Birds

JUNE 26, 2023

There are 17 different species of them, a few of them endangered, particularly some island endemics. It is listed as Near Threatened – the HBW cites the usual reasons that are just other ways of saying that humans do not care enough for other species, such as forest loss and degradation in its winter range. not their own).

Japan 130

Japan China Guinea Germany 130

10,000 Birds

JUNE 17, 2023

Today, I invite you to join me, Kai Pflug, on an extraordinary avian expedition as we explore the vibrant cityscape of Shanghai, a hidden gem for birdwatchers in the heart of China. The Majestic Wetlands: Within Shanghai’s boundaries lie several pristine wetland habitats that serve as vital sanctuaries for a plethora of bird species.

China 167

China Endangered Species Sanctuary Protection 167

10,000 Birds

MARCH 11, 2024

Given that according to the HBW, the species prefers dense primary and secondary montane forests, the note that the bird also forages among kitchen waste (in the same HBW entry) seems somewhat incongruous. Fish & Wildlife Service has a web page for this species – but it contains absolutely no information.

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Burma India Birds Indonesia 201

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 207

10,000 Birds

JUNE 23, 2022

I saw two Pitta species at Hongbenghe, both among the slightly less glamourous among the pitta family: The Blue-naped Pitta … … and the closely related Rusty-naped Pitta. The Blue Whistling Thrush is presumably named for its loud human-like whistling, and possibly for being blue.

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Birds Myanmar China Chicago 147

10,000 Birds

JULY 6, 2023

This leaves Shanghai in June with basically just the year-round species and the summer breeders, maybe with a few added ultra-lazy individuals of migratory species. Fortunately, there are a few more such breeding species than most Shanghainese are aware of. Such as the Black-winged Cuckooshrike.

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Birds Eggs Breeders Breeding 130

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 6, 2022

While these birds are very much liked by Chinese birders, the species could unfortunately not be named the National Bird of China as the Latin species name of the bird is Grus Japonicus. From my home in Shanghai, it is about a four-hour drive to the North to Yancheng, a place to look for Red-crowned Cranes in winter.

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Birds Eggs Bald Eagle Owls 204

10,000 Birds

APRIL 3, 2023

Its mood is not helped by the ambiguous review on eBird: “Although not actually pale, this brownish songbird is one of the plainer thrushes in its range” The Latin species name of the Dusky Thrush is eunomos (I guess that is Greek, but whatever) – meaning well-ordered.

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Birds Blackbirds Indonesia Bhutan 198

10,000 Birds

JUNE 13, 2022

Honeyeaters are a large bird family (190 species) with a strong presence in Australia. 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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Australia Birds Feral Cats Kangaroos 197

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 15, 2021

These are the tradeoffs of modern life in China. Apparently, Longcanggou is a great place to see a variety of parrotbill species. I can only partly confirm this, with my sightings restricted to two species. ” Always a good property in a bird species, from the perspective of a bird photographer.

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Pandas Birds Mammals China 209

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 29, 2022

” Funny how the difficulty of breeding a species can be illustrated in simple monetary terms. But that may have helped me to see them – the species is quite nomadic and settles wherever there is rain. Ok, back to the (presumably non-sacred, certainly non-mummified) Australian species. In a paper published in 1938 (!),

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Birds Australia Sheep Zebras 147

10,000 Birds

JULY 7, 2022

Wikipedia seems not too impressed with the species, stating that “the brown honeyeater is a medium-small, plain grey-brown honeyeater” The Latin species name indistincta (indistinct, obscure) sounds similarly underwhelming. The species was bred at the zoo of Memphis, Tennesee ( source ). ” ( source ).

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Birds Australia Parrots Memphis 147

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 8, 2022

I was surprised that this species is named for its vocalization – which sounds like laughter. For example, the Diamond Dove is the world’s second-smallest species of the columbidae order ( source ). The Latin species name haematonotus (“blood-backed”) sounds a bit more exciting but not necessarily more accurate.

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Australia Birds Parrots Ostriches 147

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 20, 2023

In China, wherever there is one real tourist attraction (like the Great Wall), the local strategy seems to be to add some fake attractions – replicas of palaces or tombs, amusement parks, shopping centers – in order to maximize the income from tourists. Sir James McGrigor (1771-1858) Director Gen.

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China Birds Pythons Eagles 230

10,000 Birds

JUNE 9, 2022

After writing this last sentence, I looked up the species in the HBW and found the sentence “Song poorly documented” in the appropriate section, while with regard to calls, the description is that “call is a two-note raspy nasal ‘ryeeh-reh’”. The Hair-crested Drongo is a bit more common here.

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Singapore Mountain Goats Birds Giraffes 147

10,000 Birds

APRIL 21, 2015

And, of course, the reputation of certain species of birds as troublemakers for humans is a problem in bird conservation, so this is worth watching. H5N2 is a subtype of Influenza A, and infects many species of birds including those mentioned as well as ducks (domestic and wild). Will H5N2 Kill Wild Birds?

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Mississippi Fowl Turkey Minnesota 175

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 4, 2021

Being a bit older myself now, I have to point out that young human males usually do not look that good, at least to me. If that band had had to name themselves after a bird species rather than after a surname, they probably would have called themselves the Asian Brown Flycatchers. A juvenile male. The real thing: an adult male.

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Birds LACS France Japan 231

10,000 Birds

JULY 18, 2022

Maybe better not to ever meet such a “mother” (given that I have been living in China for too long to be up-to-date regarding political correctness etc., ” 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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Birds South Korea Japan Abandon 162

10,000 Birds

APRIL 16, 2013

When scientists created a sense of threat by playing another species alarm call, the parents increased their efforts in feeding the grounded birds, but not the birds in the nest. In other bird science news, we should be concerned about waterfowl in China.

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South Africa Fowl Africa China 184

10,000 Birds

JULY 18, 2012

Mute Swans are large, white, and decorative, and as such their natural range has been significantly altered by humans who generally enjoy having them around. Its natural range in Europe was restricted the the surroundings of the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, and in Asia it ranged from Asia Minor to central China.

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Feral Europe Asia North America 169

10,000 Birds

MAY 15, 2023

I visited Tengchong in late 2020 and wrote about it – but I also went there earlier, in 2017, and this post shows some photos I took during that trip, along with the usual comments that seem to be much more about ridiculing my fellow humans (especially ornithologists and the like) than providing useful information on birds.

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China 2017 Birds Indonesia 183

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 2, 2014

Did I dare dip my toe into this catalog of tantalizing species? Kinabalu (at 13,455 feet the highest peak in southeast Asia), and human development that has resulted in freshwater rice fields, secondary forest, and oil palm plantations, this means that Borneo offers an incredibly high degree of biodiversity. Now, I’m not so sure.

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Brunei Birds Asia China 175

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 10, 2022

For some reason that I do not quite understand myself – given that I really rather dislike children and am not too positive about the rest of humanity either – I recently put up a little display of bird photos inside my Shanghai compound, which I share (as the only foreigner) with about 1700 Chinese.

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Birds Fish Germany China 162

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 5, 2023

I also only managed to see rather common bird species at Shennongjia, a nature reserve in Hubei province, China. In the past, Great Spotted Woodpeckers mostly lived off renting out their old apartments to other species. Fortunately for the Great Spotted Woodpecke r living in Shennongjia, this has not happened here yet.

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China Birds Eggs Woodpeckers 174

10,000 Birds

JUNE 3, 2014

The idea of Lost Animals was conceived after the publication of Extinct Birds (2001), a 400-page, four-pound book on 75 extinct species. Lost Birds looks at photographic representations of 28 species, 21 of which are birds. Some document one of the last views of the species, others are of the last representative of the species.

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Animal Mammals Hawaii Dolphins 268

10,000 Birds

JUNE 25, 2017

I was given my first real field guide to the birds of Europe by my parents, a guide beyond the species found at backyard feeders and city ponds. Yes, in the face of all the human tragedy the Cold War caused it may seem a miniscule aspect, but to a young boy who was passionate about birds, it wasn’t. This made me truly sad.

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Europe Birds Kazakhstan Russia 100

10,000 Birds

MAY 13, 2021

On the other hand, in April, some other species start breeding here in Shanghai. Interestingly, these heronries frequently seem to be near highway exits – either because these relatively ugly places are less likely to be disturbed by humans, or because this shortens the commute of those birds working in downtown offices.

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Birds Farming Alaska Breeding 178

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 29, 2011

It is divided into small plots, mostly less than 50m 2 where the use of large machines is impractical and human labour is the main method of cultivation. Even if you can definitely say that there was no white trailing edge, the bird has flushed and it would not be possible to say which of the other species it may have been.

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Agenda China Farming Humane 173

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 22, 2019

After getting to the letter C last week in a roughly alphabetical order, I will show the second 10 species today. Still, a bird that has its moments – and I am always surprised how this sparrow really seems to enjoy human presence, however destructive it may be.

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Latvia Birds Sparrows Abandon 124

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 22, 2015

But, in the next year, 2009, only one human was killed by a tiger, leading to a conclusion that all the tigers in the conflict area (practically, the wider reserve buffer zone) have been wiped out. During 1990s, the South China Tiger became extinct in the wild (some still survive in zoos) and the number of extinct races reached four.

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Tigers India Killing 2012 246

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 25, 2021

Anyway, so I started checking my bird photo collection for photos of species starting with an A (after all, this is a bird photo blog, though I sometimes tend to forget this). Or the Asian Barred Owlet (Hangzhou, China) – though I am happy this allows me to include some owl photos into this post. Are you still with me?

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South Africa China Nevada Africa 322

Animal Person

NOVEMBER 21, 2010

It has entertaining stories, includes animals people care about because they like them (and also addresses that concept), and it describes how the numbers of various species decreased to the point of being classified as "endangered" or worse. For only $450,000, we could buy almost all of the habitat neded to protect Ecuador's remaining frogs.

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Polar Bears California Condor Bald Eagle Lions 100

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 10, 2022

That is an easy trick – capture a bird in a seemingly human pose, just to attract sympathy for the bird. Notes on bird species and locations shown: Amur Paradise Flycatcher (Nanhui, China). Bar-tailed Godwit (Tiaozini, China). Barn Swallow (Nanhui, China). Daurian Redstart (Nanhui, China). Eurasian (?)

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China India South Africa Homelessness 217

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 16, 2023

Shanghaibirding describes the Brown-headed Thrush as “a scarce passage migrant through northern and central coastal China, including Shanghai” – given that I only saw it once on Tianmashan, that is probably correct, though the date (January 09) seems rather late for a migrant.

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Birds China Killing Reptiles 147

10,000 Birds

MARCH 6, 2023

The last time I birded Longcanggou, a national forest park in China’s Sichuan province, was in November 2021. Today, the national forest park is open to tourists – which in China means large groups of people in similarly large buses. Unfortunately, some other species do not seem to listen to the wren much.

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Eggs China Birds Mammals 168