December, 2019

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What Was Your First Bird of 2020?

10,000 Birds

It’s 2020! What was your first bird of the year? Of the decade, even? Here’s hoping it was something good and it starts you off right on a whole year of wonderful birds! Happy New Year to you from the 10,000 Birds crew! The post What Was Your First Bird of 2020? appeared first on 10,000 Birds.

2020 259
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The Final Days of the Danube backwaters in Belgrade: Chinese Belt and Road Initiative is coming to Serbia

10,000 Birds

In mid-December, I was birding along the Beljarica levee (Beh-LYAH-ritza), my local patch north of Belgrade, when something other than birds attracted my attention: three wild boars , appearing all black because they had just swam through the swamp to reach the bottom of the levee. I think all were males, at last two huge ones certainly were. And here in Europe, they are the real deal, an indigenous species and not domesticated animals gone wild.

Serbia 243
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Bird Counts and Cold Fronts in Costa Rica

10,000 Birds

It doesn’t get cold in Costa Rica. At least that’s how I see it but then again, since I grew up in a place that goes Arctic for a few months of each year, my personal position on “cold” might not coincide with the one held by folks in the tropical zone. That’s where Costa Rica is situated of course and is partly why so many birds live here.

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12 countries with the greatest bird species density

10,000 Birds

The Species per Square Mile Approach. While Colombia may have almost 2000 bird species, it is a huge country with, still, complicated long-distance travel logistics. On the other hand, small countries with relatively long bird lists offer higher species densities per square mile. And small country often equals short distances and easy traveling. The mongabay.com portal has compared data on a unit of area basis of the percentage of the total global number of species of birds, amphibians, mammals,

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Webinar & PDF Test

Speaker: Steve Romanco

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Finding a Country First: Pectoral Sandpiper in Uganda

10,000 Birds

After our two-week-long familiarity trip across Uganda, we ten visiting birders were tired. But Friday, 6 December, was the first day of the African Birding Expo and we knew that sleeping in wasn’t an option because the afternoon would be spent doing expo events and we wanted to get some time to go birding. So we made our way to the grounds of the Uganda Wildlife Education Center , a former zoo that now rehabilitates injured animals.

Uganda 226
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Yellow-faced Honeyeaters

10,000 Birds

Yellow-faced Honeyeaters – Calygavis chrysops are found in the eastern and south eastern parts of Australia. They are not present in Western Australia or the Northern Territory, so not a bird species that we get to observe very often. The Brown Honeyeaters , Rufous-throated Honeyeaters , Red-headed Honeyeaters and Singing Honeyeaters in Broome have a much longer bill than the Yellow-faced Honeyeaters.

Australia 203

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Birds of Visselhövede in Winter

10,000 Birds

This sounds like an exciting topic for a blog post, right? Birds of a specific place with an unpronounceable name that you have never heard of? Well, this post is more specific than that – it is about the birds of Fliederweg 7, 27374 Visselhövede, Germany. Which happens to be the exact address of my parents` home. For a birdwatcher, it is rather nice to be at a place where – unlike my 13th floor Shanghai apartment – there are birds right outside the house.

Germany 201
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How to Bird the Colibri Cafe at Cinchona, Costa Rica

10,000 Birds

Watching birds, birding, is inexorably tied to autonomous motivation. Maybe that’s why birders just might be obsessive about it or at least, very much into the hobby, the birding way of life. No one is forcing us to get up in the cold eye-tired dawn to drive to the sewage ponds, to scope a stormy sea, to stretch the limits of alert behavior during 20 solid hours of Big Day ridiculousness.

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Birding Fraser`s Hill

10,000 Birds

Birding Fraser`s Hil. Fraser`s Hill in peninsular Malaysia is another one of these almost legendary birding locations in Southeast Asia. Birdwatching being an activity which cannot easily be shifted to air-conditioned rooms, the cooler climate compared to places such as Taman Negara is actually quite an advantage. And the birding is somewhat easier here as long as you do not make the mistake of reading some of the older bird guides.

Birds 198
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How to Bird Murchison Falls

10,000 Birds

An expanse of habitat as vast as Murchison Falls NP in Uganda, as excessively generous in beauty and biodiversity, permits endless ways to experience both its birds and animals. The route Corey and I took in advance of the 2019 African Birding Expo may not be the only optimal way to go, but this approach yielded an absolute bounty of wildlife excitement in just 48 action-packed hours.

Uganda 181
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PDF 9.21.23

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Weird Geese

10,000 Birds

Here at 10,000Birds.com , we love to share. We share our love of birds and birding. We share our experiences, good and bad. We share our passion for conservation and our concerns for the natural world in all its splendour and its vulnerability. We also share our problems, as the saying goes, “a problem shared, is a friend lost.” With so many problems to choose from, this is the one that is taking up most of my time this week.

Geese 153
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Where Are You Birding This Final Weekend of 2019?

10,000 Birds

This is it. All those dreams you had for your 2019 year list will be, come New Year’s Day, accomplishments you’ll savor for decades or failures that will dog you all of your days. Not keeping a year list? Smart, but you should still make the most of the final weekend of the year. I’m headed down to NYC for some entirely unbirdy family festivities.

2019 148
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Reflecting on a Year of Less Birding

10,000 Birds

2018 proved to be one of my best birding years ever. In addition to spotting exciting new species in Florida, including the rare Snail Kite, travel across the country brought me into contact with birds in Oregon, California, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Alabama, and more. Daily birding in my own hometown added to the joy of seeing common species in uncommon circumstances, like a Bald Eagle perched on a Destin sand dune. 2019?

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My eBird 10th Anniversary

10,000 Birds

According to eBird , I have been an eBirder since December 23, 2009, so today is my 10th eBird anniversary. During the decade, I submitted 1,219 checklists and observed 555 bird species, all in the U.S. and Canada. I started eBirding about the same time I started birding, and I made an early executive decision (a very good one) that any pre-eBird observations simply did not count.

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CST Sample_VideoTour

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Standing and staring.

10,000 Birds

“What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.” William Henry Davies (1871-1940) commented in his poem, “Leisure” (from “Songs of Joy and Others”, 1911), that things have come to a pretty pass when the stresses of everyday life prevent us from taking a few moments to just stop and look. There are lots of quotes beseaching us to be still and appreciate the small things that we might otherwise miss in our busy lives.

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Bathing Eastern Rosellas

10,000 Birds

On a recent trip to Geelong in Victoria I had the pleasure of observing a pair of Eastern Rosellas bathing. We had not been to Geelong since April 2015 and once again Grant was at work and I got to explore the bird-life around the city. I visited all of the places that I had in 2015 and despite being a different time of year the bird-life was very similar.

2015 142
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Gang-gang Cockatoos-a Christmas wish!

10,000 Birds

We have observed some beautiful birds in Victoria during our visit including the Spotted Pardalote and Rufous Fantail. There are numerous bird species that we only observe when we are many miles from home and some bird species we have rarely observed. We have only observed Gang-gang Cockatoos twice before and once was a pair in New South Wales several years ago and ten years ago another pair in Victoria near Portland.

Portland 140
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New Birds, New Reasons to Be Late to Work

10,000 Birds

I recently moved to Tallahassee, a city known for its robust network of lakes and ponds. From natural formations to impoundments, reservoirs to golf-course carve-outs, there is a lot of water in Tallahassee. My new house sits adjacent to one such lake, which probably used to fill up naturally during rainy times but has been artificially impounded for decades now.

Birds 140
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Gabriel PDF Webinar

Speaker: Gabriel Wagner Presenter

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My favorite trash birds

10,000 Birds

One of the many things I love about Mexico is the quality of its “trash birds” You may have heard that phrase among birders; it refers to whatever species is so common at a given site that you become tired of seeing them. If you are deeply unlucky, or need to improve your list of birding sites, your trash birds may even be too-common invasive species, like House Sparrows , Common Starlings , or Eurasian Collared Doves.

Birds 140
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Spotted Pardalotes through a glass window!

10,000 Birds

Spotted Pardalotes are extremely small birds that can be found at the top of the tree canopy in eastern and southern Australia. The problem with this is that they are often heard quite easily, but not observed at close range. Around Broome we are familiar with Striated Pardalotes and Red-browed Pardalotes. These two species are often easier to observe or even photograph if you are lucky.

Australia 139
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My Ten Best Birds of 2019

10,000 Birds

This last year of the twenty-teens was a monumental birding year for me. I saw 863 species of birds, bringing my life list to 1,820. I birded Uganda, which was my first time on the continent of Africa. I also spent a week in northwestern Costa Rica on a family vacation, a long weekend in Barbados, a week in Georgia, and two week-plus-long trips to visit relatives in southern California.

2019 138
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Special ID problems in Mexico

10,000 Birds

Between our many residents and migratory species, birding in central Mexico is a joy. But it can also be a challenge. Some things that can be simple for our northern neighbors, can be made more complicated by our abundance. For example, I have commented before on how common names in English may make sense up north, but do not down south. One symptom of this problem is that the use of the words Eastern and Western may not apply here.

Mexico 138
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Webinar 5.9.22

Speaker: Steve Romanco

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A rush of blood to the head

10,000 Birds

I suppose that every birder knows the impossibility of explaining to non-birders that our hobby can actually be exciting. You hear a call you do not recognize, and your heart starts to race. Could it be? Where is it? Can I find it? I can!! A Red-breasted Chat !!! And yet, the non-birder’s eyes started glazing over at the mere mention of the bird’s call.

Mexico 138
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Stolpman Vineyards: Para Maria de los Tecolotes (2017)

10,000 Birds

Owling on Christmas Bird Counts is a peculiar business. Some counters are unfailingly resolute in their dedication to this thankless graveyard shift of the birding world, marching headlong year after year into the bleak winter landscape in search of their heard-only, nocturnal quarry. Other birders are – quite understandably – less keen about the whole ordeal.

2017 137
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Rufous Fantail and other forest surprises

10,000 Birds

It can be challenging birding in new environments, especially when it involves tall trees! At home in Broome we don’t have many tall trees and so whilst we are visiting Victoria we have had to adapt. We are having to adapt to cold weather too, because it has mostly been very cold despite it being summer! Grey Fantails are incredibly common around Gippsland and probably the most common bird around Foster.

Koalas 135
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Best Bird of the Weekend (Second of December 2019)

10,000 Birds

Nobody enjoys the end of a birding adventure. No matter how exhausted, sunburned, frostbitten, or penniless your exertions have left you, the hope of one more blissful bird sighting still beckons. How do you cope with the momentary feelings of deflation that set in once the trip is over? The Ugandan adventure Corey and I embarked on in November has finally come to an end.

2019 135
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Best Bird of the Weekend (Second of December 2019)

10,000 Birds

This time of year may deliver different temperatures and conditions across the world, but we birders all observe mid-December the same way: Christmas Bird Counts. Wherever you engage in this time-honored celebration of citizen science and avian diversity, dress for the weather and have a blast! My daughter has signed up for her first Young Birders CBC, so we’ll be scouring a potentially mundane corner of Rochester for our contribution to the count.

2019 133
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Murder Most Wildfowl: A Review of “A Dance of Cranes” by Steve Burrows

10,000 Birds

Since the last notice of him on this blogsite (in June 2018), Steve Burrows has published two more novels in his terrific “Birder Murder” series, the fifth and sixth – respectively, A Tiding of Magpies and, now the latest, A Dance of Cranes. This is good news, and especially so for birders. It is true that not every reader has a fondness for murder mysteries (and there is, admittedly, a certain amount of dreck in the genre, much of that authored, curiously enough, by lawyers).

Humane 129
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Collaborative List – November 2019

10,000 Birds

Despite last month being a record month by every measure we could think of, the cumulative total for the year had barely scraped past 2,400. I approached The Management to seek their opinion. Something needed to be done. Somebody had to take one for the team. Mike fixed me with his cold, steely, gray-eyed stare. He rose slowly from his seat, bronzed torso glistening.

2019 138
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Hagerman NWR: Birding Amidst Oil Wells

10,000 Birds

Last year, I compiled a subjective list of the Top 25 National Wildlife Refuges for Birding. Based on comments from other birders, I added ten “Honorable Mention” sites for a total of 35 locations. Since then, I’ve had a long-term goal of visiting the ones I have never visited. (I have been to 22 of 35.) I recently traveled to Texas and made a trip to Hagerman NWR (an “Honorable Mention”), which is north of Dallas.

Oklahoma 135
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New Production Test

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