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Killing Birds in Cyprus – Fall 2011 Version

10,000 Birds

In Cyprus it also means that the hunters and trappers are active again. BirdLife Cyprus started their Fall monitoring program weeks ago. It really is just too damn dangerous to go there without protection if you’re holding a pair of binoculars, looking like a non-local, and driving up back roads obviously looking for birds.

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A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds–A Book Review

10,000 Birds

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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I and the Bird: What is a Vulture?

10,000 Birds

The Cherokee nation called them “Peace Eagles” owing to the fact that they never killed a living thing – and also that they tended to show up in numbers after battled when peace treaties were being signed, though admittedly that may have been for a slightly more macabre reason. California Condor , photo by Sheridan Woodley.

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A Problem with Gulls

10,000 Birds

Of course hybridizations have been reported, and there may or may not be apparent gradations of these descriptions, making identification even tougher in Cyprus where they can all be seen at various times of the year. While there he studied Molecular Biology, then met a Cypriot, got married, and ended up moving with her to Cyprus.

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Disaster in the Sundarbans

10,000 Birds

I dreamed of birding the Sundarbans delta – roughly the size of Connecticut or Cyprus – ever since my very dear friends Tim and Hanna Balke told me a story of their visit to these swamps where the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Mehgna rivers converge in the Bengal basin. They are doing it bare-handed without any protective gear.’

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The Nonessential Whooping Crane

10,000 Birds

What could motivate gunmen (I cannot call them hunters) in two states to deliberately kill North America’s tallest and most critically endangered bird? In the only state in the Central Flyway that protects cranes from hunting. Or is the mandate to protect the welfare and habitat of our state’s wildlife?

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A History of Birdwatching in 100 Objects: A Review

10,000 Birds

The story of the flightless Dodo, discovered on the island of Mauritius in 1598 and killed off by 1700, is sad and familiar. by Arthur Ransome, 1947, starts with an affectionate recollection of a children’s book, in which a group of kids identify and protect a possibly rare bird (Great Northern Diver?), Number 57, Great Northern?

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