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Collective Arts: Stranger than Fiction

10,000 Birds

Truth be told, I picked up this week’s beer long before we embarked on this surreal “three-hour tour” we are now collectively enduring. The packaging artwork has changed – last year it was a fluid, thickly-textured portrait of a Eurasian Eagle-Owl ( Bubo bubo ) – but I think the recipe has remained the same.

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Who’s watching whom?

10,000 Birds

Last Monday, I collected Jamaican Nettletree seeds. I’m not a great imitator of birdcalls, but Pygmy-Owls (both Mountain and Ferruginous ) are easy to imitate, and can draw in all sorts of birds — not just the owls themselves. Look to the right… A bit more to the center… There, just right.

Owls 173
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Costa Rica Tops 700 Species on Global Big Day, October 19

10,000 Birds

The idea was to see how many birds could be collectively identified by folks anywhere and everywhere. Team Northwest , a group of birders and guides based in Guanacaste and the Fortuna area, collectively found more than 400 species including several key additions for the day. They also heard the expected Bare-shanked Screech-Owl.

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October Global Big Day in Costa Rica- an eBird Trip Report

10,000 Birds

Global Big Day has become an annual collective event in May that encourages thousands of people to watch birds on the same date. To properly assess owls, other night birds, and the dawn chorus, you really have to be out and about by 4:30. As far as promoting birding goes, the only thing better might be October Gobal Big Day !

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Poop From The Front End Of The Bird

10,000 Birds

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. Above is a pellet from one of a pair of Great Horned Owls that nested a few blocks from my apartment.

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The Most Interesting Gull in the World

10,000 Birds

Owls and eagles and ducks and hummingbirds and parrots and woodpeckers are all things that a regular nonbirding joe or jane can, with time and a few color photographs, see the appeal of. Even sparrows, if you choose the right species and play your cards right, can be elevated to ‘cute’ status.

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A Global Big Day Strategy for Costa Rica

10,000 Birds

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. Once night falls, we will have one last chance at a couple more owls. Back to the Valley : The ag.