10,000 Birds

JUNE 16, 2022

Well, busy observing the Great Indian Bustard, of course. Hunting and disturbance, deterioration, fragmentation and destruction of habitat were the forces behind the decline of this, once widespread species, making it Critically Endangered on the IUCN Global Red List. After my trip, I followed the news of this species closely.

Gazelles 249

Gazelles India 2012 Pakistan 249

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 23, 2024

They were my target species, and I remember being delighted in not only seeing them well, but finding feeding flocks that were remarkably unconcerned about being watched. Despite the fact that efforts are made to ensure they are not imprinted on humans, they are naturally confiding, even friendly. Here they were easy to overlook.

Morocco 215

Morocco Austria Algeria Germany 215

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 17, 2021

Of course there is always something interesting about bowers wherever they are, but especially amongst human habitation. Cygnet Park continues to be a good location for observing Olive-backed Orioles and many other bird species. Great Bowerbird bower and stolen nails and screws.

Abandon 236

Abandon Abandoning Abandonment Humane 236

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.

Burma 189

Burma India Birds Indonesia 189

Critter News

AUGUST 24, 2011

Someone posted a question about why humans have human rights and whether they should considering that others do not. In the matter of science, and there are varying levels of this viewpoint, the human is the most advanced of creatures. I responded. It's not profound, but an opinion. We are made in God's image.

Humane 100

Humane Rights Stray Dog Stray 100

10,000 Birds

JULY 18, 2022

The Latin species name is dissimilis (different, unlike), possibly because the female looks quite different from the male (though based on that explanation, dissimilis would have to be a very common species name). The Blue Whistling Thrush is of course named for its whistling – you can hear it here. Then it is tame.

Horses 189

Horses Family Blackbirds Species 189

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. One page is dedicated to the Long-tailed Shrike.

Birds 186

Birds Blackbirds Indonesia Bhutan 186

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 26, 2020

The Avibase China birdlist counts 7 species of minivets for China – one of which is the Ashy Minivet. For Japan, there are only two species listed – again the Ashy Minivet, but also the Japanese Minivet (mostly called Ryukyu Minivet elsewhere), a Japanese endemic which is not on the China list. Start with the male.

China 204

China Japan 2020 2019 204

10,000 Birds

JUNE 26, 2021

If the avian realm had self-conscious, talking ambassadors, “spokebirds”, which species would partake in birding conferences? Without careful attention paid to the needs of the shyer birds, such conventions would run the risk of being overrun with the bolder species, the birds that love the spotlight. Emerald Tanager.

Costa Rica 224

Costa Rica Belize Guatemala Protest 224

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.

Chicago 141

Chicago Birds Asia China 141

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 24, 2020

Predictably, the flowers attract several species of sunbirds. Apparently, many bird species have employed the same concept as me for a long time. As we humans are animals, like birds are, it often seems to make more sense to me to assume that their and our drivers are similar, not different. To me, this often misses the point.

China 262

China Barn Owls Birds Laos 262

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 3, 2020

This can mean some interesting birding, if you can bear the Shanghai heat … Of course, the egrets and herons described in my last post are still around. Webster`s Dictionary defines Cuculophotobia as “The fear of bird photographers to post cuckoo photos online due to the high likeliness of getting the species assignment wrong.”

Tigers 174

Tigers Breeding Cattle Bears 174

10,000 Birds

APRIL 27, 2022

While preparing an article this week for a local newspaper on the nighttime denizens of Tobago, it crossed my mind that I never considered owls as a group, far less target species for any particular outing (except for a select few, upon which I shall expound here). This resulted in my only photograph of this species to date.

Trinidad 268

Trinidad Owls Barn Owls Abandon 268

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 25, 2021

Species formerly referred to as P. One recent study found that this species was sister to P. perdix , and also that race przewalskii (sometimes subsumed within suschkini , but generally paler) was basal to other taxa included within the present species. barbata , but present name has priority. So, I later looked this up.

China 239

China Birds Austria ALA 239

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.

Birds 193

Birds Eggs Bald Eagle Owls 193

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.”

Australia 187

Australia Birds Feral Cats Kangaroos 187

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. I guess the whole point about this band name is to suggest -ironically, of course – utter blandness. Other species, such as this juvenile Light-vented Bulbul , seem to have more ambiguous feelings about molting.

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Birds LACS France Japan 218

10,000 Birds

APRIL 25, 2022

So, the basic idea is to show 15 species of Australian birds in each post and give you the usual trivia about them. This species has also eliminated the need for childcare – the chicks emerge from this pile on their own and never even get to see their parents. Similarly, the Grey Shrikethrush is neither a shrike nor a thrush.

Australia 180

Australia Birds Koalas Parrots 180

10,000 Birds

JUNE 9, 2022

This is also why you very rarely find a photo of a giraffe on top of one of these posts – the other reason of course being that a giraffe photo would be relatively pointless in a birding blog. While 6 local species utilized these artificial nests, the Chinese Grosbeak did not, preferring its own construction.

Singapore 147

Singapore Birds Mountain Goats Giraffes 147

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 9, 2021

Not too many highlights, not too many species … hard to say whether this is just the usual nostalgia for a better but probably nonexistent past or a real phenomenon. This species is listed as vulnerable – similar to the Yellow-breasted Buntings, it is trapped on a large scale. Humans, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

Birds 224

Birds Humane Japan Ducks 224

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

OCTOBER 23, 2023

This is how it looks like: Or at sunset: A species I did not come for from Shanghai is the Black-crowned Night Heron. Not sure why they spend time in Shanghai in winter when they could come here though, but then again, I usually do not understand most of the behavior of humans either. Yes, we have them in Shanghai as well.

Birds 206

Birds Eagles Elephants Rhinoceros 206

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 ).

Birds 147

Birds Australia Parrots Memphis 147

10,000 Birds

MAY 25, 2023

May is a busy month for birds migrating through Shanghai – and of course, last May was completely missed due to the lockdown. Note to other species: better do not rely on mature primary forests, as this may lead to extinction. This is also reflected in the Latin species name of sparverioides , which just means sparrowhawk.

Birds 130

Birds Raised Cattle Mammals 130

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 12, 2021

And it prohibits human infrastructure, e.g. , roads, buildings, dams, and pipelines, etc. Of course, as places that are largely “untrammeled by man,” wilderness areas also have birds ( 591 species according to one study ) for birders willing to leave roads and infrastructure behind.

Puerto Rico 243

Puerto Rico Alaska Protection Research 243

10,000 Birds

JUNE 23, 2022

A Barred Cuckoo-Dove showed somewhat atypical behavior or had not read its eBird entry about it being “seldom seen out in the open … quick to flee when approached” Of course, Hongbenghe, Yunnan is quite far away from Chicago. The Crested Serpent Eagle is another species bound to suffer from a naming error in perpetuity.

Birds 147

Birds Myanmar China Chicago 147

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 18, 2021

That every human on the planet ultimately depends on biodiversity and nature for stable weather and climate, food, water and fresh air; that is, life providing and supporting services. Insects and a host of other invertebrate life have evolved with these plant species, and thus depend on them. The sad part of the story?

Wildlife 261

Wildlife North America Mammals Breeding 261

10,000 Birds

JUNE 25, 2022

Even so, in the short term, it can be hard to accept that hundreds of species are close to being extinguished from this irreplaceble tapestry of life, that hundreds more are headed for the same eventual abysmal stop. We would see how species that used to be common, even abundant, became remnants of their former, robust populations.

Costa Rica 248

Costa Rica Parrots Albatross Birds 248

10,000 Birds

APRIL 3, 2020

Being generally more charming and attractive to us humans, birds aren’t generally included among these unwelcome hordes. In Europe, favorite foods of the waxwing include berries of the rowan and the hawthorn, which do see limited use in human cuisine and drink in products like teas, conserves, and country wines.

Farming 162

Farming New York Humane Europe 162

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 20, 2019

Chief among these are three trees, known here as Huizaches (Sweet Acacia, Vachellia farnesiana), Granjenos (Spiny Hackberry, Celtis ehernbergiana), and Nopales (Prickly Pear, various species). But the area would not be home for more than 120 species, if it were not for those thorny trees. Humans like me enjoy eating them, too!

Shelters 228

Shelters Mexico Sparrows Species 228

10,000 Birds

MARCH 19, 2022

Bird names say much about human perception, they can also give us insight into the people who invented names for official bird descriptions. In Costa Rica, we have our pewees, 6 species of them. A common bird of hot, tropical habitats, it is very much an edge species. This appropriately named bird is just what its name says.

Costa Rica 254

Costa Rica Pennsylvania South America Panama 254

10,000 Birds

JUNE 9, 2021

Which is why the past two weeks’ outings have been more about native plant propagation than finding new species. I only saw 32 species for the day, which is quite a low number for me down here, even on a short outing. And, for only the second time this year, this excusion yielded no FOY species. (Of

Owls 160

Owls Investigation Mexico Collecting 160

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

The tipping point was the morning of February 10th, when I saw 20 species during two hours simply by looking out my back window as I had breakfast and read the news online. (My It included a question about how many species one has seen in one’s yard, total, with the options being 0-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20, or 20+.

Nashville 238

Nashville Sparrows Sweden Mexico 238

10,000 Birds

MARCH 15, 2021

That’s because this fascinating part-Caribbean, part-south American country holds well over 800 species of avifauna making it without doubt one of my top three countries in all of the continent to visit. Ok, maybe not the vampire bat…but some of the more “cuddly” species are actually quite easy to see.

Guyana 277

Guyana Otters South America Colombia 277

10,000 Birds

APRIL 14, 2021

Since it was the first link in this chain, Pino Real was where I met many of Michoacán’s flagship species. As I look back at my eBird species list, it is astonishing how many of my lifers were first seen there. To my shock, I had a wonderful outing, with 63 species seen in six hours. That chain continues to this day.

2013 158

2013 Emotional Abandon Abandoning 158

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 21, 2018

Major extinction events that are geologically instantaneous have been followed by periods of time with reduction of species or unstable habitats that last for hundreds of thousands or millions of years. There are about 10,000 species of them, after all, which is a lot for a vertebrate. But, that is also a naive view.

2018 101

2018 Science Humane Species 101

10,000 Birds

JUNE 10, 2015

They are also generally easy to see, especially species that construct huge colonies of woven nests in villages and farms (or even cities). ”) and of course weavers are not silly, unlike American warblers. This situation may change as more species become established around the world.

South Africa 154

South Africa Senegal Ethiopia Africa 154