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Horrible Hybrids

10,000 Birds

As soon as I looked at it more closely it was quite clear that it wasn’t a scaup of any species, despite its resemblance to a North American Lesser Scaup. I hadn’t considered the possible parentage more than the two probable species involved, but intriguingly a Pochard drake x Tufted duck looks quite different.

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Vagrancy in Birds: A Book Review

10,000 Birds

per cent of individuals of a species at a given time” and a vagrant bird as a bird that shows up outside of this range (p. The accounts cover vagrancy patterns for the family as a whole, reasons for vagrancy, documented examples of vagrancy for specific species and reasons that might account for those incidents.

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The Berkeley Pit – An Overview

10,000 Birds

Last week many birders were shocked and saddened by the deaths of thousands of Snow Geese who, trapped by adverse weather conditions, landed at the Berkeley Pit in Butte, Montana. The conditions in this water are so extreme that new species of bacteria and fungus have evolved just to deal with them.

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Durban Botanical Gardens

10,000 Birds

As well as being an excellent location to try the local variants of curry (bunny chow is not a curry with rabbit but a curry served in a hollowed out bread loaf – better than it sounds) it’s a good place to pick up a few coastal species. The wooded areas held smaller but no-less attractive species.

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Hilbre, the Sometimes Island

10,000 Birds

The island is something of a sometimes island, a collection of rocks with a smattering of houses that is sometimes an island among the sandy expanses of the silted up estuary and sometimes actually an island in the Irish Sea. The shores around the big island hold a lot of species during the winter and around migration.

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Magpie-lark breeding near Broome

10,000 Birds

Magpie-larks have been busy at all of the muddy puddles in recent months collecting mud to make their nests. Whilst enjoying the Magpie Geese breeding around Broome recently we also noticed a Magpie-lark nest close to the highway in one of the very few trees beside the road. Magpie-lark nest on the left of the tree.

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WPAs: America’s Duck Factories

10,000 Birds

But within the National Wildlife Refuge System is a frequently overlooked collection of properties burdened by a mundane name: Waterfowl Production Areas (WPAs). WPAs provide critical breeding, resting, and nesting habitat for millions of ducks, geese, and swans, as well as shorebirds and grassland birds. Ding” Darling NWR in Florida.

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