10,000 Birds

JULY 7, 2020

They portray the nesting cycles of Mallard, Red-tailed Hawk, and American Robin, illustrating the various ways in which birds create families. Do they have families too and do they take care of them? Some of the chapters focus on a specific bird, most are about bird families like hawks, tanagers, wrens, etc.,

2020 264

2020 Birds Groups North America 264

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 4, 2018

Even more than warbler, shorebird, and sparrow identification, this is a field that tests our endurance (gull watching is too often done in bitter cold, windy conditions), patience (even getting one good photo can take hours as you try to separate the ‘interesting gull’ from the flock), observational skills (so many plumages!)

North America 205

North America America El Salvador Nicaragua 205

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

As someone who has a spent a week this August on a family vacation in Seattle I think that I am eminently qualified to write a full blog post on how to bird Seattle. White-crowned Sparrow Zonotrichia leucophrys at the Olympic Sculpture Park On to the birds! There are lots of them.

Seattle 177

Seattle Bald Eagle Birds Squirrels 177

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 5, 2017

The two-page spread on Parts of a Bird provides diagrams for the topographical terms used in the Species Accounts, including hummingbird, shorebird, gull, passerine, and every feather on the upper wing of an adult Lark Sparrow. Most of the species are described in the Species Accounts, arranged taxonomically into 86 family chapters.

North America 186

North America America 2017 Birds 186

10,000 Birds

MAY 7, 2013

Sometimes, I’ll reply with a story about the sparrows found in a local grasslands preserve. Families do not hike up mountains to sit all day on pointy rocks to watch woodpeckers. What is it about raptors that fascinates so many people? Or, I’ll wax poetic over a Hooded Warbler. Those cameras are aimed at hawks.

North America 218

North America Bald Eagle Falcons Owls 218

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 6, 2020

Didn’t every household have a copy of a Peterson Field Guide on the shelf, maybe a third or fourth edition that family members grew up with, which they could quickly consult to see the arrow pointing to that belly band? It’s interesting, at least to me, to make comparisons. Where were their field guides?

North America 234

North America America 2020 Hawaii 234

10,000 Birds

JULY 2, 2019

Antpittas and Gnateaters covers 64 species in six genera and two families. (I Here’s Plate 3, the third plate for Conopophaga , one of the two genera of the Gnateater family. But, then again, this is an artist and photographer who has illustrated and co-written books on sparrows and moths!

Research 146

Research Eggs South America Costa Rica 146

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 7, 2021

It covers 434 species across 9 orders and 18 families of birds. Other families are more complicated and these introductory sections are correspondingly longer and amazingly more detailed. There is also a very nice comparison of the head and bill patterns of adult mollymawks, the medium-sized albatrosses.

Albatross 279

Albatross Penguins Groups Family 279

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 22, 2019

Besides he is a rank coward: The little King Bird [ Eastern Kingbird or Tyrannus tyrannus ] not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the district. With all this injustice, he is never in good case but like those among men who live by sharping & robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy.

2017 152

2017 Bald Eagle United States Turkey 152