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Birding Tradition: the New Year’s Day List

10,000 Birds

Starting the New Year by trying to see as many species as possible is something of a birding tradition. My diary notes that the New Year dawned grey and windy, but I rose early, walked six miles before breakfast and noted a modest 26 species of birds. The latter are great bruisers of ducks, built like a small battle ship.

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Rancho Naturalista Lodge, Costa Rica, or in the Land of Coffee and Chocolate

10,000 Birds

Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks , Muscovy Ducks and Blue-winged Teals were around us, together with Green , Great and Little Blue Herons , Cattle and Great White Egrets , Black-crowned and Yellow-crowned Night-Herons , plus one locally rare Pinnated Bittern in the floating vegetation, as well as several dozen Neotropical Cormorants.

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Birding Tengchong, Yunnan (again)

10,000 Birds

Sadly, the HBW states that the species is “almost extinct in some areas in China owing to hunting and trapping for the cagebird trade and taxidermy” The Maroon Oriole looks much more interesting, though my photos do not really do it full justice. when living in suburbia. How is that for a link?

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CBC in Paradise

10,000 Birds

I’ve been leading a small but faithful group on Trinidad for several years to count birds within a livestock farm that is generally restricted to the public (you can read about some of those shenanigans here ); this was the first time I was to embark on a CBC on the smaller island of Tobago. Mangrove Cuckoo. Blue-winged Teal.

Falcons 229
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Pat’s 2020 Bird List, Mostly from Costa Rica

10,000 Birds

The prospect of identifying a certain number of species in a given amount of time pushes us to pay more attention to birds no matter what the circumstances (although I suggest keeping the exclamations about species identifications to yourself during such solemn situations as funerals, graduations, and watching episodes of The Sopranos).

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Lisbon’s Lezirias in Winter

10,000 Birds

The Lezírias de Vila Franca de Xira (often and erroneously named Ponta de Erva after the most southerly tip) are an extensively farmed area in the north of the estuary. The Skylarks and Northern Wheatears in the barren fields attract all four European species of harrier (but no Montagu’s for Christmas, sorry).

Portugal 174
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Birding northern Serbia, or a sudden bird tour

10,000 Birds

It was an unexpected bird tour, without too much planning and aimed at a few target species, of which we saw most, but the main one eluded us… Early morning, leaving the last houses behind… and a Little Owl awaits us on a traffic sign. Also along the Tamis River, our next hotspot was a fish farm in the Sakule Village. who dipped it).

Serbia 228