March, 2020

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Unflappable by Suzie Gilbert–An Author Interview

10,000 Birds

Suzie Gilbert has once again ventured into new territory and written a novel–a crazy road trip adventure entitled Unflappable. Faithful 10,000 Birds readers will remember Suzie as our wildlife rehabilitation beat writer. (And, if you’re a more recent fan, you can read some of her classic posts; the links are below). Suzie wrote about her experiences as a bird rehabber in Flyaway: How A Wild Bird Rehabber Sought Adventure and Found Her Wings (2009) and used those experiences as the s

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What is TNR? TNR explained.. take 4

4 The Love Of Animals

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Social Distancing

10,000 Birds

I am a nerd. The nerd part of me, which dates back to before the word was popularized, did not do me well during my pre-teen years. In spite of its title, the movie The Revenge of the Nerds did not help. The more recent development of “nerd chic”, however, has made life easier for nerds everywhere. Thank you, Sheldon and Leonard! I am also a deep introvert.

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How to See Sunbitterns in Costa Rica

10,000 Birds

Some birds seem familiar but that’s just because they are the ones we grew up with, the birds that were hopping or flying around the neighborhood. The familiar ones, the usual birds, of course depend on where someone spent their childhood. Those of us who raced bikes with banana seats through the streets of Niagara Falls, Cleveland, or Jackson shared space with Northern Cardinals and American Robins.

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Webinar & PDF Test

Speaker: Steve Romanco

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Finding birds in Deliblato Sands, part 1/3: the largest sand dune system of Europe

10,000 Birds

It has been a while since I wrote on where to watch birds (unbelievable, I know), and will now focus on the nature reserve of Deliblato Sands and the adjoining Labudovo okno Ramsar Wetland, about an hour east from Belgrade, Serbia. This area is so conveniently close to the city that you can choose to go only for the morning and to be back by noon, or to spend the entire day in the sands.

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Birding News from Costa Rica at the Start of the Pandemic

10,000 Birds

How quickly things can change. A month ago, I was helping fellow birders see their first Emerald Tanagers , their lifer Sunbittern , and wondering where Mary and I could go next, which birds we could chase during the upcoming weekends. Not anymore. As the pandemic suddenly gained speed and we saw our first cases in Costa Rica, we realized that we were in for some big changes.

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Pirates of the Caribbean

10,000 Birds

The island of Tobago in the southern Caribbean is much wilder than one could imagine. Hey, in 1959 Walt Disney set up a studio on the island and filmed Swiss Family Robinson there! Such is the allure of Tobago – the British, Dutch and French fought over it a record 31 times , more than any other Caribbean island. Today, it very much retains its wild side.

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Bird Litigation:  Greater Sage-Grouse and Oil and Natural Gas Leases

10,000 Birds

Because its habitat consists largely of land that is valuable for oil and natural gas exploration and extraction, protection of the Greater Sage-Grouse has long been the subject of extensive litigation. Additionally, the Trump Administration has made it a priority to increase oil and gas leasing, in many cases on key sage-grouse habitat. A substantial amount of that land is managed by the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”).

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First Phoebe of 2020

10,000 Birds

I saw my first migratory Eastern Phoebe of 2020 this morning at Cunningham Park in my home borough of Queens, where I was looking for my first Rusty Blackbirds of the year. (I found them too!) The phoebe was busy flycatching over a vernal pool, often hitting the water as it chased bugs. For me, it is now officially spring! Over the last ten years my average first phoebe has been the 20th of March, meaning that this year’s bird was five days earlier than average but only two days earlier than la

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Northern Gannet Show in New York Harbor

10,000 Birds

Few birds are as spectacular as a Northern Gannet in a plunge dive. The way they briefly flare up and turn over, pulling their wings in as they plunge, bill-first, like an arrow into a bullseye, is one of those things you just have to see to comprehend. To see literally thousands of them doing so, and in the middle of one of our great modern metropolises, is something to behold.

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PDF 9.21.23

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Birding Mkuze

10,000 Birds

Mkuze Game Reserve is in the Eastern part of South Africa, about 5 hours away from Johannesburg, and one of the best places I have ever been to for bird photography. In particular, there is one hide that is built over a watering hole, allowing great views of both birds and mammals (though for a dedicated bird watcher like me, those are more of an obstacle than a bonus).

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Crazy Eyes

10,000 Birds

When I was a young man growing up in Northern California, I thought I knew all about Juncos. Juncos are cute little woodland sparrows. They have dark eyes set in darkly colored heads, are quite attractive, and have a gentle disposition. Then I moved to central Mexico, where I discovered that Juncos are actually crazed psychopaths who are clearly plotting your death.

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Best Bird of the Weekend (Last of February 2020)

10,000 Birds

The weekend that passed may have featured a day that pops up on our eccentric calendar only once every four years, but that chronological quirk may be the most interesting aspect of the transition from February to March. When will migration arrive?? I drew inspiration from the more-than-half-hardy Carolina Wren that sung its defiance in front of my house amidst melting snow and the first warm winds of spring wafting through the frigid Finger Lakes region.

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My Birding Spot During COVID-19: Willow Lake Preserve

10,000 Birds

I am a birder living in the epicenter of the epicenter of COVID-19 right now. New York City is the hottest of hot spots, and not in the fun, eBird meaning of the term but in the “holy moly our health system is going to collapse” meaning of the term. My home borough, Queens, has the most cases out of the Big Apple’s five boroughs. On top of that my day job – which at this point is an all-the-time-job – is being a union representative for registered nurses, a sometime

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CST Sample_VideoTour

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Echidna-egg laying mammal-500th post!

10,000 Birds

When I realised that this weekend would be my 500th post for this website I thought I could broaden the “birding” topic to “egg-laying” topic. In Australia we have two egg-laying mammals. These are the Platypus and the Echidna. We have observed a lot more Echidna in Australia than Platypus. Platypus prefer a water habitat and their location in Australia means we have rarely travelled to where they live.

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Best Bird of the Weekend (Third of March 2020)

10,000 Birds

You may have experienced one of the weirdest weekends of your life, what with all bars and restaurants closed and people maintaining a healthy distance from even close friends and family. Then again, you may have passed Saturday and Sunday in quite the same way you spend all your weekends: looking at birds and communing with nature. Sometimes the little things really do mean the most.

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Best Bird of the Weekend (Second of March 2020)

10,000 Birds

Some times of year offer more avian excitement than others, and recent signs even as far north as I live suggest we’ve just entered such a period. Harbingers of the season to come have been emerging slowly buy surely. Did you catch any this weekend? For me, the view of Red-winged Blackbirds puffed up with territorial bravado signals the approach of spring, even if we’re have to endure a few more snowstorms to get there!

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Birds of Bolivia: Field Guide–A Book Review

10,000 Birds

One of these days, Jeopardy will feature a category called “Field Guides” and the first clue will be: “This landlocked South American country finally got its own bird field guide in 2016, but it wasn’t available in the United State until 2019.” The answer, as discerning Neotropical birders know, is: “What is Bolivia?” The book in question is Birds of Bolivia: Field Guide , edited and written by Sebastian K.

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Gabriel PDF Webinar

Speaker: Gabriel Wagner Presenter

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Great Knot, Red Knot and Greater Sand Plovers changing plumage

10,000 Birds

So, here we are in the second week of March and the start of migration from the shores around Broome has started! The first species to leave our shores each year are the Greater Sand Plover. Migration will continue each evening now until close to the end of May with the last species to depart for the Northern Hemisphere being the Red Knot. There is a table on this website showing the departure dates.

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Finding birds in Deliblato Sands Reserve, part 2/3: the Labudovo okno Ramsar Wetland

10,000 Birds

LABUDOVO OKNO Ramsar Site and an Important Bird Area represents a section of the Danube floodplain downriver from Belgrade, Serbia, and situated in the south of the Deliblato Sands Special Nature Reserve. It includes the flow of the Danube and the floodplains along the Danube’s banks, the flooded mouths of the rivers Karas (with its upstream meanders) and Nera, marshes of Dubovacki Rit, plains of Stevanove Ravnice and the islands of Zilava, Cibuklija and Zavojska ada.

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Best Bird of the Weekend (Last of March 2020)

10,000 Birds

We all have a lot on our minds these days. With hope, a little time in nature—or at least looking at something wild from your window–took your mind to a better place this weekend. All this time in front of a computer has me craving an epic hike but we barely got off our block this weekend. However, my whole family did take time to appreciate the understated beauty of Mourning Doves.

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Threatened Birds of Nanhui, Shanghai

10,000 Birds

By some measures, Shanghai is the most populated city in the world. That does not make it sound like a very promising or important bird habitat. And yet it is. Why? Shanghai is located on the coast of the East China Sea and lies right on the East Asian–Australasian Flyway. This means that every year, millions of birds fly by the city on their way between their breeding grounds in Northern Asia and their wintering spots in Southeast Asia and Australia.

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Webinar 5.9.22

Speaker: Steve Romanco

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Best Bird of the Weekend (Second of March 2020)

10,000 Birds

If you’re wondering if life as we have known it in many countries around the world may be giving way to a more disintermediated existence, replete with toilet paper stockpiles and schooling via livestream, you may not be entirely wrong. Then again, this global bedlam may be just a fevered memory in a few months. Society may change rapidly, but nature moves forward slowly, at a glacial pace one epoch at a time.

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Brown-headed Thrush

10,000 Birds

Kasia Rinkai Park on Tokyo Bay will host the slalom canoeing events for the upcoming (correct at time of writing) Olympic Games, Tokyo 2020. In the meantime, it played host to my target bird for the trip. The Brown-headed Thrush , Turdus chrysolaus , is a very typical thrush and you may wonder why anyone would get excited about such an indistinguished bird.

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Australia is closed-sorry….

10,000 Birds

The header photo above is what is normal in Broome in mid-March in the middle of the afternoon on Cable Beach. I have the beach to myself along with the shorebirds, crabs, occasional jellyfish and maybe there is a crocodile out to sea. However, nothing else is normal. Australia has now been closed to anybody who is not an Australian citizen. I am sorry.

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Australian Magpies in Victoria

10,000 Birds

Late last year I mentioned the presence of Australian Magpies around Broome. There is a variation in the plumage of Australian Magpies across Australia and as such they looked different in Victoria. Whenever I walked from Foster to Fish Creek or Foster to Toora I encountered several family groups of Australian Magpies. They were not always cooperative when I wanted to photograph them, but I did manage to capture their plumage from most angles over several days.

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Test

Testing

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What Will My Next Five Queens Birds Be?

10,000 Birds

Having finally found a Black Vulture for my Queens list , an important tick both because it was long overdue and because it was the tenth bird since my last set of predictions, it is time, once again, to look at what might be coming to my Queens list. The last ten birds have taken a very long time: when I last asked what I would add to my Queens list it was September 21, 2015 !

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Where Are You Birding This Third Weekend of March 2020?

10,000 Birds

If you are living on the same planet the rest of us are, you surely need a diversion this weekend. Why not make World Sparrow Day , which we celebrate on March 20, an all-weekend affair? The Old World Passer sparrows are ubiquitous all around the world, typically where humans congregate most. Your challenge is to see how many you can rack up while still maintaining a healthy social distance.

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Consolation species

10,000 Birds

I should have been on my way to Istanbul by the time this post came out. That trip was to take my wife and I to Turkey, Jordan, and southern Spain, with stopovers near Paris. And while it was to be a work (ministry) trip, I had still managed to schedule it right during the migratory peak along these two major corridors. I was soooo excited about getting to know the Middle East, as well as some of its exotic species.

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Where Are You Birding This Final Weekend of March 2020?

10,000 Birds

I doubt I need ask if you are birding this weekend; assuming you are healthy and still sane, you have little better to do than spend time chasing, appreciating, and basically communing with avifauna. The question of where you are birding, however, assumes special significance when people are urged to maintain safe social distances even in parks and on trails.

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New Production Test

Speaker: cha cha dwyer

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