10,000 Birds

MAY 13, 2017

The folks at eBird (those would be the ones behind this mass birding and data collection initiative) have sent three teams to count birds in the Yucatan, one for each country that shares this region of avian importance. It’s easier on logistics, cuts costs, and better for a much needed good rest before doing your kung-fu birding thing.

Costa Rica 124

Costa Rica Colombia Owls South America 124

10,000 Birds

JUNE 22, 2011

Many are familiar with dissecting owl pellets, but several birds will caste a pellet including hawks, eagles, gulls, herons and heck, I once witnessed a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher hack up a small one. For example, since eagles and hawks tend to rip their prey apart and have stronger digestive acids, their pellets look like wads of fur.

Bats 215

Bats Dissection Owls Minnesota 215

10,000 Birds

JULY 4, 2017

The guide presents 69 species and 1 subspecies, from “NEW WORLD VULTURES: Cathartiformes” to “OSPREY: Pandioninae” to “FAMILY: Accipitridae” (Kites, Hawks, Eagles, Hawk-Eagles), to “FALONIDS: Falconidae” (Falcons, Forest-Falcons, Caracaras, Kestrels, Merlin). And vice versa. Again, this is a common practice.

Mexico 174

Mexico America North America Falcons 174

10,000 Birds

JUNE 26, 2012

Slaty-backed Gull at a dump, Baikal Teal at a sewage pond, Yellow-green Vireo at some random park in the ghetto…if a place collects birds, birders will go there. This Snail Kite, photographed from my treacherous 1999 Honda Accord, was right outside Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, FL. Pine Lake Park, San Francisco, CA.

San Francisco 221

San Francisco Birds North Dakota Oakland 221

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 28, 2013

We’re passing the Dasada village where shop owners and artisans are opening their doors, collecting rubbish in the street and burning it, while standing around those small fires and warming themselves up. Short-toed Snake Eagle Circaetus gallicus. The area is overgrown with low, thorny bushes. Long-legged Buzzard Buteo rufinus.

India 235

India Birds Eagles Boars 235

10,000 Birds

JUNE 10, 2017

Our bird was a juvenile that fed right in front of us until of course it dawned upon me that I should be taking pictures because it wasn’t the much more expected Black-crested Coquette. Say that you were “gripped” and they might be tempted to call the cops. or even Hudsonian Godwit.

Costa Rica 124

Costa Rica Unwanted Honduras Panama 124

10,000 Birds

MARCH 31, 2019

Arriving in Singapore we soon collected our bags and got ourselves a NETS card for travel on public transport and to also use in supermarkets. We were met by several Cattle Egret in beautiful breeding plumage feeding on the grass right next to the train station. There was something “not right” about it.

Singapore 114

Singapore Transported Boars Malaysia 114

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 13, 2016

By the last year of the war, the US increased its military aid to the Greek Government and introduced a new weapon: the first napalm attack after World War II took place right here! At one occasion, during the hike Tsanakis collected wild mushrooms and in a restaurant, asked the chef to prepare those for us.

Bears 271

Bears Greece Europe Slovenia 271

10,000 Birds

MAY 28, 2014

There were opportunities to go to far flung places like the islands of the Pacific or the coast of Canada or the Yorkshire Dales… Anyway, as I was obsessed by Africa at the time, I leapt at the opportunity to go to Namibia to collect samples of bat DNA for a biogeography project. Oh, and horrifying insect things were everywhere.

Bats 155

Bats Birds Vanuatu Namibia 155

10,000 Birds

MAY 29, 2011

Right now it is almost all male birds, staking out territories, filling the tundra with song. Breeding is well underway and everywhere you look the Glaucous Gulls are, ahem, engaged or collecting grasses and sedges for nests. Most of the breeding birds returning here will arrive within the next 10 days to two weeks. And battles.

Bald Eagle 126

Bald Eagle Iceland Owls North America 126

10,000 Birds

APRIL 13, 2015

It lies adjacent to Nechisar National Park, where the lone wing of the mysterious Nechisar Nightjar was collected in 1990. Early morning is of course birding prime time and a pre-breakfast stroll around our lodge produced sightings of the lovely Orange-bellied Parrot , which we tracked down to a nesting hole right next to the restaurant.

Ethiopia 249

Ethiopia Sudan Leopards Birds 249

10,000 Birds

JUNE 24, 2012

But I’m not talking about owling, or listening for rails, or even pointing a microphone skyward to collect flight calls of migrants. My friend on the end of the line got right to the point: “What does a Kingfisher look like?” Birds like American Coots and Long-eared Owls in Arviat, to Bald Eagles in Whale Cove.

Bald Eagle 173

Bald Eagle Breeding Raised Whales 173

10,000 Birds

MAY 25, 2013

You will either have to leave it at the airport and collect it later (using up precious time), or carry it with you in hot, humid conditions. The path along the right (east) bank of the river leads along a cycle path with Asian Koels , Yellow-vented Bulbuls , Laced Woodpeckers and Oriental Magpie Robins all likely. Spotted Wood-owl.

Singapore 161

Singapore Woodpeckers Parrots Zebras 161

10,000 Birds

MAY 8, 2012

Marabous occur throughout tropical and subtropical Africa from Zululand in northern South Africa right up to the arid Sahel region fringing the Sahara Desert, avoiding the closed canopy rainforest zones of central and west Africa. They also prey on frogs and crabs.

Africa 246

Africa Tanzania South Africa Uganda 246

10,000 Birds

JUNE 1, 2021

A small range map is placed in the upper right/left hand corner showing summer, winter, resident, migration, and rare locations. The photographs are from VIREO, the ornithological image collection associated with the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, which licenses bird photographs to many guides and reference books.

North America 279

North America America Birds California Condor 279

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 4, 2016

Browsing is facilitated by section titles at the top of each left-hand page and smaller group titles on the upper right-hand page. They can be found all over the book–some interspersed with resident and migratory species, some collected together in the back of the chapter, some in the last chapter on North American vagrant landbirds.

Ireland 151

Ireland Birds Groups Falcons 151

10,000 Birds

MARCH 19, 2011

In fact, the very first person to guess, Nick , managed to get the third quiz picture correct by calling it a Bald Eagle. Of course, that was the easiest of the three because though the bird in the image is captive, a bird that was injured and can’t be returned to the wild, Bald Eagles do occur regularly and naturally in Queens.

Bald Eagle 113

Bald Eagle Zoos 2011 Parrots 113

10,000 Birds

MARCH 13, 2011

Sometimes it is too late, as they are deceased and Brahminy Kites and White-bellied Sea-Eagles usually take advantage of the situation. And did you follow the dog tracks to find that – behind some bushes on the ground – the Brahminy Kites and White-bellied Sea-Eagles had taken “advantage of the situation&# ?

Australia 153

Australia 2011 Sharks Deer 153

10,000 Birds

APRIL 7, 2020

The proprietor of our ecolodge guides my small group of birders up a steep slope where we see, just at the point where a scope view deteriorates into pixels, a huge bird—a Chaco Eagle, also known as a Crowned Eagle—on a huge nest. We are cautioned to keep the location of the eagle a secret.

Falcons 224

Falcons United Kingdom Zimbabwe Eggs 224

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 29, 2019

Steve answers: Bonelli’s Eagle ! A pair of these eagles breed nearby, but this bird shows no wish to reappear and show itself better. right next to us. On a small ledge, a Peregrine Falcon stands and looks towards us, framed by the cliff on its left, and the blue of the sea to its right.

Terrapins 193

Terrapins Eagles Europe Rats 193

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 3, 2023

Hawks At A Distance was one of the first books I reviewed for 10,000 Birds and I’ve decided to rerun it this month, partly to remind us all to read and use it, and partly because I’m preparing for a birding trip out of the country and I need all my brain power to make sure I pack the right camera lenses and hats.

2011 100

2011 North America 2005 Eagles 100

10,000 Birds

MARCH 17, 2022

And in my customary environmentally friendly approach to recycling bird photos, I have collected some of them in this post. The Chinese name for Osprey is fish eagle – appropriate given that apart from spaghetti and pineapples, the diet of ospreys consists mostly of fish. Well, the female is attractive, too.

Falcons 253

Falcons Japan China South Africa 253

10,000 Birds

APRIL 22, 2013

Steve answers: Bonelli’s Eagle ! A pair of these eagles breed nearby, but this bird shows no wish to reappear and show itself better. right next to us. On a small ledge, a Peregrine Falcon stands and looks towards us, framed by the cliff on its left, and the blue of the sea to its right. Garraf Natural Park.

Spain 230

Spain Terrapins Eagles Europe 230

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 13, 2014

Must be a joke, right? The good news is that these two species have a pretty big range, occur outside of Costa Rica, and could be reintroduced given the right conditions (like reforesting more of the Caribbean slope and restoring more wetlands). This Costa Rican enigma came to light after being collected by C. What a horror!

Costa Rica 228

Costa Rica Species Panama Birds 228

10,000 Birds

MAY 30, 2014

Some people might have heard of the highly endangered Atlantic Rainforest (Mata Atlantica) that once stretched along large sections of the Brazilian coast — now, little more than a tattered collection of forest fragments. The wooded savanna habitat was home to a variety of widespread generalists as well as range-restricted specialists.

Brazil 169

Brazil South America Collecting America 169

10,000 Birds

JULY 7, 2020

So, curious about which birds nest in two places, I quickly found out that it’s Phainopepla, a western bird, a relief because I was concerned that it might have implications for my data collection for the NYS Breeding Bird Atlas. copyright @2020 by David A llen Sibley. The Portfolio of Birds is comprised of 87 2-page spreads.

2020 264

2020 Birds Groups North America 264

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 11, 2011

This is probably why I number so many hawk books in my collection. There are photographs of buteos soaring overhead and harriers gliding low, of eagles coming at you head-on and flying away with only the tail in focus, of falcons backlit and kites in shadows. Here is one of the three plates for American Kestrel.

Eagles 197

Eagles 2011 North America Utah 197

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 20, 2015

You can access it easily on the way to Geikie Gorge by turning to your right towards the Fitzroy River and cross over to the far side to park in the shade of the tall trees. We wandered over to investigate what a Great Bowerbird would collect near the township of Fitzroy Crossing and we were delighted to find quite an assortment of treasures.

Birds 154

Birds Collecting Australia Sheep 154

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 8, 2012

Dipping for fish An extinct endemic form of pelican in New Zealand would have represented another family lost, like the odd form of owlet-nightjar and New Zealand’s lost members of the hawk and eagle family. But it seems the story wasn’t so clear cut. And the fossils themselves were vanishingly rare.

New Zealand 184

New Zealand Pelicans Solomon Islands Palau 184

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 4, 2015

We had thought we had completed our year list for 2014, until we had a surprise encounter with a Little Eagle on 28th December. It was stood beside a locally marked Grey-tailed Tattler , which only carried a faded plain yellow flag and metal band on its right leg. White-bellied Sea Eagle - Haliaeetus leucogaster- Broome, January 1st.

2015 191

2015 2014 Ducks Ponies 191

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 31, 2019

Next to species texts is a novelty I never saw in a field guide before – the QR barcode, a mobile phone readable optical label that in this case links to a relevant Internet Bird Collection website (www.hbw.com/ibc) page, with complementary audiovisual material (dozens of photos, videos and sounds) of the species in question.

Thailand 199

Thailand Zambia Birds Asia 199

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 13, 2018

Although more than twenty thousand people around the globe who share the hobby or passion or obsession for watching the feathered ones also shared a collective day of birding on May 5th, we just had to do it again for fall migration. It was October 6, Global Big Day part dos and birders in Costa Rica were stoked.

Costa Rica 145

Costa Rica Argentina Bats Birds 145

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 4, 2021

The holidays started early this year, with the first night of Hannukah coming right at the end of Thanksgiving weekend! We review what the publishers, distillers, or manufacturers send us, or what catches our collective eye, or what we have time for. And similarly with 99 other birds — raptors, songbirds, ducks, and otherwise.

Birds 246

Birds Colombia Collecting Bald Eagle 246

10,000 Birds

JUNE 23, 2018

As opposed to collective holidays that celebrate something important for everyone, a birthday is that one day of the year that anyone, absolutely anyone, can claim as his or her own. Harpy Eagle ? Of all those special days of the year, the birthday is the one that should really stand out the most.

Costa Rica 130

Costa Rica Birds Sparrows Ecuador 130

10,000 Birds

JULY 31, 2013

This scraggly collection of islands and deep long bays forms the tip of South Island closest to to North Island, but till this point my only experience of the area had been the long passage down Queen Charlotte Sound to reach the ferry terminal of Picton. Some baches in Marlborough Sounds, Pete’s is on the right.

New Zealand 165

New Zealand Charlotte Hunting Family 165

10,000 Birds

JULY 4, 2022

So, the birds start collecting mud and small sticks. I wonder what Americans would think if, in a Wikipedia entry, a Bald Eagle would be illustrated using a photo taken at an Albanian zoo. Interestingly, Black-winged Stilts display laterality – that is, they preferentially use one eye (the right one) to find prey.

Birds 197

Birds Sparrows Protection Humane 197