10,000 Birds
APRIL 26, 2024
I’ve been a regular visitor to the island of Cyprus for over 25 years, making around a dozen trips during this period, every one in search of birds. According to the taxonomists, these weren’t regular Scops Owls ( Otus scops ) but the endemic Cyprus Scops Owl ( Otus cyprius ). Laughing Dove : now a common resident on Cyprus.
10,000 Birds
APRIL 6, 2021
I was especially interested in “To Hide From God,” the chapter on songbird slaughter and protection in Cyprus. Has it really been 21 years (almost) from the publication of Jonathan Franzen’s New Yorker article, “ Emptying the Skies ,” six years since the documentary with the same name?
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10,000 Birds
APRIL 5, 2024
The next couple of months will of course see a boost to my British list, as summer migrants flood into England, while forthcoming trips to Cyprus, Greece and northern Spain will also turbocharge the European list. A lone Whooper Swan on a grey January day in Norfolk As for the ducks – I’m now up to 15 species.
10,000 Birds
APRIL 25, 2015
Cyprus count yields a rarity: an almost all-black flamingo. Someone better tell that flamingo not to stay put and avoid Malta, where voters narrowly rejected a ban on hunting migratory birds. Help them rack up 4,000 species in 24 hours on eBird!). What kind of miscreant kicks a Barn Owl in mid-flight?
10,000 Birds
JUNE 26, 2013
The survival of songbirds depends in part upon eliminating illegal hunting. That means passing over the Mediterranean Sea and the Middle East, where you’re liable to get shot, trapped, or otherwise hunted. The organization dismantled nearly 9,000 traps on Cyprus last year. Photo of the Nihoa Millerbird by S.
10,000 Birds
MARCH 20, 2011
It may be as sick as deliberately targeting an endangered species for death. With the proposed hunting seasons on sandhill cranes being discussed in Tennessee, Kentucky and Wisconsin, we must not forget the whooping crane, which travels and winters in the big sandhill crane flocks. Speculation is useless in acts of vandalism.
10,000 Birds
MAY 8, 2013
The smellier the better, particularly as, unusually for birds, many species can boast a robust sense of smell. In any case, our hang-ups with vultures clearly stem from our own issues rather than any inherently bizarre trait of the species themselves. Vultures famously feed on carrion. Dead things. New World Vultures.
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