July, 2020

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Birding the Bear Mountain of Serbia

10,000 Birds

A narrow forest road takes us to the chain blocking the entrance, with a sign “Area closed – bear danger”. Ranko Milanovic, Tara National Park ranger, leaves the car to open the passage. Small letters say: “removal of this sign is punishable”, but Ranko is authorised to take us in. Soon, the forest opens into a clearing with a wooden feeding structure on one side and a wooden blind on the other side.

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Becards

10,000 Birds

One of the reasons Mexico is such a great birding area is that, while it shares all sorts of bird groups with the United States and Canada, it also is home to some of the northernmost representatives of neotropical and genera that do not (or just barely) reach that far north, such as Woodcreepers, Tityras, and Trogons. Another of these neotropical groups is the genus Pachyramphus , the Becards.

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Windjana Gorge in 2020

10,000 Birds

As we all well know there is something very different about 2020. Following on from our first camping trip for 2020 we took another camping trip a bit further afield. Having observed the Cattle Egret in breeding plumage at the Derby Poo Ponds on June 19th we found ourselves at Windjana Gorge first thing the following morning. I have written about Windjana Gorge before, because we try and visit it most years.

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What Birders Dream About?

10,000 Birds

A Common Quail was calling from a small patch of greenery, across the mostly empty car park. Sitting in a cafe, I open my notebook and wrote it down, then look around for someone I know to share the bird, but I knew no other guests. The only strange thing about this observation, as I realised when I woke up a few seconds later, was that what I mentally transcribed wasn’t its “ wet-my-lips ” (or the Serbian onomatopoeia “puch-pu-rich”) but “whip-poor-will”!

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Webinar & PDF Test

Speaker: Steve Romanco

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Best Bird of the Weekend (Second of July 2020)

10,000 Birds

Another weekend is in the books. With hope, this was a memorable one for you, even if the birds weren’t particularly rare. My best sighting was a Herring Gull with a mantle so dark, I suspected Lesser Black-backed. However, many of the bird’s field marks were obscured because it flew far below me as I walked across the bridge I’ll always know as the Tappan Zee.

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Enjoy Innovative Electronic Music = Help Endangered Birds

10,000 Birds

Do you want to help endangered birds? How about helping with conservation of cool tropical birds by listening to innovative electronic music? Whether you happen to be more interested in music or birds, you may love “A Guide to the Birdsong of Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean” Since this is a music project rather than an actual guide of bird vocalizations, there won’t be a catalog of antbird trills and toucan yelps.

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Some Birding News about Birders in Costa Rica

10,000 Birds

In Costa Rica, our July birding news usually consists of interesting sightings during the mid-summer tours. Which tours saw the most roosting owls? Did Cope have another site for nesting Great Potoo ? This odd nocturnal creature is around the same size as a Barred Owl. What has Chambito been seeing in Cano Negro? Is there a seeding patch of bamboo I can visit?

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My Northern Birds

10,000 Birds

One of the ways I could describe the unique mix of birds I can see here in southwestern Mexico, would be to divide our species into five categories. The invasive species are few, but, unfortunately, very numerous. Our endemics are many and wonderful, but mostly not all that common. You have to know where to look for them. We also have many species that we share with the rest of Mexico, Central America, and/or the southwest of the United States.

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When Your Lake Disappears

10,000 Birds

You know that feeling, when you get up early to go birding at your favorite lake, and when you get there, the lake is gone? I hate it when that happens. Lake Cuitzeo, some 30 km (19 miles) north of Morelia, is Mexico’s second largest lake. It stretches from east to west for around 40 km (25 miles), although for the most part it is only 5 km (3 miles) wide from north to south.

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Arrowood Farm Brewery: Starling Brett Farmhouse Ale

10,000 Birds

Like most North American birders, I never pay much mind to the European (Common) Starling ( Sturnus vulgaris ). Sure, they’re always a dependable, can’t-miss tick whenever you need them to be there, whether it’s the first day of the year, or the first few minutes of a Big Day or Christmas Bird Count. And, if you care to admit it, they do look rather attractive in their own sweet way, with their bright yellow beaks and their shimmering, purplish iridescence.

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PDF 9.21.23

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Best Bird of the Weekend (First of July 2020)

10,000 Birds

Summer felt officially “on” this weekend in many parts of the northern hemisphere. That summer generally signals a decline in local avian diversity probably hasn’t sunken in yet, but rest assured the birds you saw this weekend may grow tiresome in another month. In my case, the same old same old swallows up at the lakeshore did nothing to diminish gorgeous days at the beach; the Bank Swallows and I both had a great time.

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Summer birding in Shanghai

10,000 Birds

Summer in Shanghai is not the best season for birding – most birds seem to agree with me that it is too hot. And yet, there are still birds to see … The Black-crowned Night Heron is one of my favorite common birds in Shanghai. If it wasn’t so common, I would be quite happy to travel some distance to see it. This Eurasian Hoopoe has just been pushed aside from its feeding spot by a Crested Myna – and even a juvenile, what a shame!

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The first Pied Oystercatcher chick of 2020

10,000 Birds

Our first Pied Oystercatcher eggs for this year’s breeding season were laid early and were due to hatch last weekend. This pair of Pied Oystercatchers never seems to have a problem with incubating their eggs. They take it in turns over the twenty eight days sitting or hovering over the eggs. Once the eggs are close to hatching they will display aggressively and call out.

2020 170
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A Few of my Favorite Things

10,000 Birds

I often feel the need to remind my readers in this forum that I am neither a biologist nor a photographer. I am a birder, who began photographing birds as an identification tool. Eventually, taking all those photos produced some that weren’t bad. And, with time and tens of thousands of photos (I like the constant shoot mode), I picked up some rudimentary skills as well.

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CST Sample_VideoTour

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Kings County Brewing Collective: Penguins in Space

10,000 Birds

In the course of our nearly weekly reviews here at Birds and Booze, we’ve come across an impressive variety in the depictions of birds on packages of beer, wine, cider, and spirits. Sometimes it’s a dignified depiction of a local species with some significance to the producer – especially when it comes to wineries, who are always eager to advertise their sense of place and a deep connection between the land and their product.

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Living in Paradise

10,000 Birds

As is standard operating procedure, once a song gets stuck in your head you must pass it off to someone else. In this case it is you, the innocent reader who should thank me for not setting the title of this piece to “Just Like Paradise” Not that I have anything personal against David Lee Roth but this isn’t a blog post about something that can be likened to paradise.

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Birding in the Delhi area Part 2

10,000 Birds

As I simply saw too many interesting birds during my short Delhi birding trip in 2019, I decided to cover the trip in two separate posts. Having a scientific background, I correctly posted part 1 before part 2, which is below. There is no ornithological rationale for which birds are featured in part 1 and 2 – it is merely a question of following the alphabet wherever it led me.

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Back to Tierra Caliente

10,000 Birds

What with lockdown and all, it had been a while since I had made the one-hour drive down to Paso Ancho, my closest option for birding a full-blown tropical thorn forest habitat. At 3,300 feet (1,000 m), this is the edge of what Mexicans call Tierra Caliente, the Hot Country. But geographers and biologists would call it the northern edge of the Balsas River Basin, a hotbed of west Mexican endemism.

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Gabriel PDF Webinar

Speaker: Gabriel Wagner Presenter

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Neversink Spirits: Neversink Spirits Gin

10,000 Birds

Juniper is a decidely wintery spice, and its piquant, piney flavor is generally used to season game, offal, and charcuterie, steaming heaps of sauerkraut, warming cordials, and other hearty fare best enjoyed during the shorter, darker days of the year. But take that same juniper and distill it into gin and you get a spirit with a sweet, floral bouquet that transforms this pungent evergreen berry into a cooling drink for even the most sweltering summer days – and one that’s made even better when

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Summer Birding at Conboy Lake NWR

10,000 Birds

I recently drove from my home in Portland to Conboy Lake NWR in southern Washington for a birding day-trip. Located on the eastern slope of the Cascades near the base of Mt. Adams, the refuge is one of the few breeding locations for Sandhill Cranes in Washington. According to eBird , just over 200 species have been observed at the refuge and just under 1,000 checklists have been submitted.

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Cable Beach Pied Oystercatchers continue to hatch

10,000 Birds

Following on from the sad loss of our first Pied Oystercatcher chick of 2020 the other eggs are now also hatching. The pair of Pied Oystercatchers that nest to the north of the vehicle beach access were due to hatch this week. I mentioned the disregard to the signage asking for vehicles to not go into the dune system two weeks ago. The vehicles continued to ignore the signage.

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Best Bird of the Weekend (Third of July 2020)

10,000 Birds

One of the abundant ancillary benefits of identifying as a birder must be the commitment to the highest quality optics possible… or, at least, affordable. When bird activity flags, we can focus our bins and scopes on various other flora and fauna, as well as celestial bodies under the right conditions. Did anyone get a good look at Comet NEOWISE this weekend?

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Webinar 5.9.22

Speaker: Steve Romanco

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Where Are You Birding This Third Weekend of July 2020?

10,000 Birds

Welcome to the doldrums. As we ascend to the height of the season, we become more likely to encounter extreme weather coupled with extremely mundane birding. This is not to say that you won’t find great birds where you are, but only that they will likely be the resident breeders or wintering species you’ve already grown accustomed to. Do not allow familiarity to breed contempt… seek out something fascinating while birding this weekend and share your finds with us!

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Where Are You Birding This First Weekend of August 2020?

10,000 Birds

The year 2020 has delivered (mostly unwelcome) surprises just about every month. Who can guess what August will hold? I’m hoping for more birds! I plan to get out to enjoy some outdoor excitement in beautiful upstate New York. Corey will attempt the same in muggy, buggy downstate NY. How about you? Where will you be this weekend and will you be birding?

2020 155
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Birdy Boating in Baringo

10,000 Birds

I wrote previously about the prolific birding that is to be had in the small town of Baringo, Kenya. That post dealt specifically with the dry scrub that surrounds Lake Baringo, however. The lake itself is a whole other pot of gold. At an elevation of 970m, Lake Baringo is a typical freshwater Rift Valley lake with much of the usual suspects. But for a Caribbean birder like myself it was sensory overload.

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Where Are You Birding This Second Weekend of July 2020?

10,000 Birds

While those of us in the Northern Hemisphere are just getting used to the idea of summer, birds have been in tune with the season for a while. From a phenological perspective, we are mired in the middle of the current season, which typically means minimal avian diversity. Fret not, for nature reveals new surprises every week. See if you can uncover one this weekend!

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Test

Testing

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Brewery Ommegang: Idyll Days Pilsner

10,000 Birds

It’s hard to believe that a few weeks ago I was checking the weather forecast every day, eagerly anticipating any warm, southerly winds that might carry with them new arrivals during the height of spring migration in May. But that’s all a distant memory now in these first few days of July: migration ebbed to a mere trickle over a month ago, before giving out for good with an inevitable but always disappointing suddenness.

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What It’s Like to Be a Bird: A Review of the New Sibley Book

10,000 Birds

“Look around, look around…” The refrain is from Hamilton , a demand and a plea to look with the brain and the heart and then to look again. Listening to them, I thought the words could also be applied to one of the more positive phenomena of the past few months, though in a very different context. People stayed home and looked around.

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Collaborative list – June 2020

10,000 Birds

So, just as our heroes head back out into the woods, the woods go quiet. After their incarceration, a bit of birdsong would be just what was needed to lift the beats back to their normal ebullient selves but, alack and alas, summer approaches. But in bigger news, could this be the month that UK outbirds Costa Rica? At time of writing (usually a couple of days early to avoid the deadline panic), UK is fielding 63 species.

2020 157
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A Field Guide to the Birds of Mongolia

10,000 Birds

From its boreal forest to steppes which once trembled under the hooves of Genghis Khan’s hordes, and from the Gobi Desert to the Altai Mountains, Mongolia is still wild, sparsely populated country where you may consider searching for Altai Snowcock , Demoiselle and White-naped Cranes , Pallas’s Fish Eagle , Oriental Plover , Relict Gull , Pallas’s Sandgrouse or the Henderson’s Ground Jay.

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New Production Test

Speaker: cha cha dwyer

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