October, 2016

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There’s a bear! There’s a bear!

10,000 Birds

In the most of Europe, Brown Bear is a mythical creature that lives only in mediaeval tapestries and folk tales. It has become extinct, one may say, but such formulation hides the gruesome fact: it has been exterminated. By us. About a quarter of the world’s Brown Bears live in Europe (including the Russian part of it), some 55,000, divided into nine separate and evermore fragmented populations – some of them dangerously tiny, a dozen or two dozen animals only.

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Russian Tortoise

4 The Love Of Animals

One of the most popular breed in tortoise domestication is the Russian tortoise, also go by several other names like – Horsefield tortoise or Steppe tortoise etc. They are usually found in dry climates – like deserts and grassland areas … Continue reading → The post Russian Tortoise appeared first on 4 The Love of Animals.

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Statistics

Animal Ethics

This blog had 929 visits during September, which is an average of 30.9 visits per day. A year ago, the average was 34.1.

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Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer

10,000 Birds

Mark Gamin, a Cleveland lawyer, likes cats and birds both. He likes books too, which made him the ideal reviewer for Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer. This is Mark’s first contribution to 10,000 Birds. Agonizing quandaries concerning invasive species are well-known to wildlife biologists. In Oregon, the Barred Owl is taking over Northern Spotted Owl territory and threatening that smaller bird’s survival.

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Webinar & PDF Test

Speaker: Steve Romanco

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A Wild Bird Rehabber Says Farewell

10,000 Birds

When my book “ Flyaway: How A Wild Bird Rehabber Sought Adventure and Found Her Wings ” came out in 2009, one of my favorite reviews was by Corey Finger of 10,000 Birds. At that point I didn’t know about 10,000 Birds; I had been a wildlife rehabilitator and mother for years, with no time to surf the net for amazing birding sites. Corey is a birder, not a rehabber, but he understood what I was trying to convey – what makes rehabbers tick, and why we keep going, and why we need help.

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It Takes a Genetic Village: Saving the Florida Scrub-Jay

10,000 Birds

“Everything counts in large amounts …” That lyric may be all well and good for Depeche Mode (make that, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame shortlisted Depeche Mode), but sometimes, smaller amounts count just as much. Take the Florida Scrub-Jay. (Photo above by Louise Hunt, courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology) At just about 5,000 individuals, Florida’s only exclusive endemic is Endangered.

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Some Birds to See in Costa Rica around Carara National Park

10,000 Birds

Carara National Park isn’t just any old protected area. It’s one of the top birding hotspots in Costa Rica and Central America. Actually, it’s not really the park on its own that is responsible for such accolades but the protected area in conjunction with the surrounding mega blend of habitats that include rainforest, tropical dry forest, mangroves, an estuary, and the usual addition of open fields and second growth that always boost the bird list.

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Birding Cape Town

10,000 Birds

I’m a big fan of city birding. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy getting away from it all out in some remote forest or desert, but a good city can combine some excellent birding and outstanding diving, drinking, dining and sightseeing. Of these great cities Cape Town is fast becoming one of my favourite birding spots in the the world. Perched near the spot were the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet, it combines an utterly outstanding location with excellent wine country, a fabulous historic

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A Sunning Yellow-billed Cuckoo

10,000 Birds

Last Sunday, in between taking pictures of Butterbutts , I was walking through some rather tall weeds at Jacob Riis Park when a Yellow-billed Cuckoo flushed, flew over a fence, and disappeared. Though I was pleased to get an identifiable look at a cuckoo in October I was kind of bummed that I didn’t manage an image. Nonetheless, I found the strength to carry on and birded around the park for awhile, not really finding anything terribly interesting.

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Peg Leg Hummer

10,000 Birds

In the wild and wonderful animal kingdom, being born with a birth defect, or receiving a maiming injury is most certainly going to be fatal, and usually pretty quickly. Being born without a foot, for a bird, would certainly qualify as this type of ailment. In the long run, feeding and sleeping, are all things that would be effected to the point where quality of life, and life expectancy would be dramatically altered.

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PDF 9.21.23

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Expectations and Suggestions for Caribbean Lowland Birding in Costa Rica

10,000 Birds

Costa Rica is situated right between two oceans. To the north of this mountainous isthmus, we have the Atlantic. In the other direction, the Pacific. The pair of seas are close enough for the occasional adventurous frigatebird to just soar way up and right over to the other salty basin. The proximity of both slopes also facilitates seeing a lot of different species in a short span because the montane barrier has resulted in differences in terms of species and habitats.

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State of the Birds, Halloween Edition

10,000 Birds

It’s almost Halloween! As your resident writer of horror fiction (check out my latest at The Dark !) this is my time to shine. No one does the intersection of scary and ornithology better than me! The world of scary birds has been in flux recently, with many of the traditional leaders in the field shifting focus or falling by the wayside. Owls as a group, for instance, have gone from omens of doom to adorable hipster mascots – I blame J.

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You Are What You Eat: A Flicker Mystery Solved

10,000 Birds

It’s been a head-scratcher for quite some time. What’s with the yellow-shafted Northern Flickers in the eastern U.S. bearing some orange feathers? (As in the photo above, courtesy of C. Hansen) The birds in question weren’t anywhere near the mid-continental hybridization zone where they could fraternize with their western red-shafted brethren. New research in The Auk: Ornithological Advances appears to have zeroed in on the culprit.

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Best Bird of the Weekend (Fourth of October 2016)

10,000 Birds

Another weekend, another opportunity to regret not spending enough time outdoors. Anyone out there know how that feels? Between work and weather, I didn’t see much this weekend, but my kids and I spotted a mesmerizing flock of European Starlings wheeling about in intricate formations. Appreciation of invasive species may be somewhat heretical in some naturalist circles, but watching these huge winter flocks always entertains.

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Where Are You Birding This Third Weekend of October 2016?

10,000 Birds

Leaf peeping carries a special connotation for those of us more interested in what is flying amidst the foliage. But many parts of the northern temperate zones have attained the height of autumnal splendor just in time for the weekend. Whether you are focusing on leaves or birds, keep your peepers wide open! I’ll definitely be hiking around the Finger Lakes region for the best vantage point from which to drink in the vibrant colors of fall.

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Myrtle Warblers in Autumn

10,000 Birds

Before it was lumped with the western subspecies, the eastern version of the Yellow-rumped Warbler was (and may someday again be) called the Myrtle Warbler. Personally, I prefer to call them Butterbutts. Whatever you call them, they are near ubiquitous along the coast in the northeastern United States this time of year as they feed up on a variety of berries including bayberries, from whose genus, Myrica , the Myrtle Warbler gets its name.

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The Sunbird and the Parasite

10,000 Birds

I’m back! Back to the site, and back from 6 weeks in Africa (with four weeks gloriously cut off from any news of an election kind… I highly recommend it). Of course, travelling from Africa back to New Zealand is a big deal and I’m still somewhat fried (especially as real life hit with with a bat when I got back). So, just a quickie today… I’m a big fan of sunbirds, which are essentially the Old World equivalent of hummingbirds, minus the humming.

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Buff-breasted Sandpiper Overload (and Other Fall Birding Highlights in Costa Rica)

10,000 Birds

“Tis the season for migration, bi bi bi bi bird, bi bird bi bird.” This little ditty should be sung using the melody for “Deck the Halls”, and now would be the time to intone it, at least in Costa Rica. If you were trying to pick out Blackburnian Warblers and other migrants from the September foliage in Central Park, the shores of Ohio, or any other sites in the north a few weeks ago, a fair number of those birds have now made it to Costa Rica.

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Gabriel PDF Webinar

Speaker: Gabriel Wagner Presenter

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Best Bird of the Weekend (Last of October 2016)

10,000 Birds

At least one weekend a year, bats–particularly the vampiric kind–command more attention than birds, at least from most people. Nature lovers, on the other hand, find time for wildlife watching every weekend. Just be sure to choose a Halloween costume that doesn’t obscure your vision too much! I saw lots of different kinds of woodpeckers this weekend, but that big, honking Pileated always wins out over the others for Best Bird honors.

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Where Are You Birding This Fourth Weekend of October 2016?

10,000 Birds

In every temperate zone comes a moment in spring and a similar one in fall when, all of a sudden, POOF… like magic, the migrants are gone. Maybe you live somewhere reliable for rarities, in which case that unfortunate time may not fall for some time yet. But other locales, closer to the poles and further from the coast, may see migration drying up already, perhaps even over entirely.

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Where Are You Birding This Final Weekend of October 2016?

10,000 Birds

Without pointing to specifics, it is safe to say that the world seems pretty scary right now, particularly for those of us concerned with protecting nature and endangered animals and ecosystems. Good thing Halloween has arrived to replace real fears with pretend ones. Enjoy this festive weekend, but be ready, if and when your time comes, to allay our collective fears by supporting wise environmental stewardship.

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Shearwater Success: Seabirds Return to Rat-Free Islands

10,000 Birds

Score one for the good guys. After invasive rats had effectively extirpated Manx Shearwaters from two of the Isles of Scilly—British islands off the southwestern coast of Cornwall—Prince Charles and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) sprang into action. And the results speak for themselves: A new survey found 73 nesting pairs of Manx Shearwaters, and 30 chicks, on the islands of St.

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Webinar 5.9.22

Speaker: Steve Romanco

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Jumping out of my “Beat” today

10,000 Birds

Let me start off with being quite clear, there are no grizzly Bears on the Baja! I am actually jumping out of my assigned beat area, to share some photos from my trip to Kodiak Island Alaska. This trip was actually all about photographing the grizzly bears the inhabit the Katmai National Forest, I will not bore you with the flight details, from La Paz, Mexico to Alaska, but it included several planes, one of which was a De Havilland Beaver float plane.

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Are you ready for winter?

10,000 Birds

As the seasons progress and we wistfully look to the south after the retreating migrants, it is time to start thinking about the winter visitors and the residents that stay on to brave the cold months. Those of us who enjoy the fuzzy feeling of sustaining the birds through the winter should now be scraping out all the congealed mess that collects and rots in the bottom of the feeders and scrubbing them out to make sure that they are properly clean.

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Best Bird of the Weekend (Third of October 2016)

10,000 Birds

This time of year seems full of surprises, often good ones. I was surprised the weather was gorgeous in my area, notorious for early freezes. I was surprised lots of birds that might have left weeks ago were still hanging around. Most of all, I was surprised my consistently underperforming football team actually transcended its limitations and played big.

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Brown Falcon foraging after a bush fire

10,000 Birds

In the Northern Territory as with other States and territories there are rest areas provided to encourage drivers to stop and rest a while and not drive during the night if they can avoid it. These rest areas offer shade and picnic tables and often water and toilets too. You are permitted to camp at some of these rest areas and a particularly picturesque rest area is at Saddle Creek which is 108 kilometres/67 miles east of Kununurra.

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Test

Testing

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Exploring East Bay and the Yellow River

10,000 Birds

It was odd to realize that with a temperature of 85 degrees F and a breeze, I felt like “fall” had begun in Northwest Florida. My husband and I decided to take advantage of the “cooler” weather and embark on an afternoon boat ride from East Bay up the Yellow River. The marsh grasses had already turned from green to brown, creating the ruffled shoreline beneath tall pine trees.

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Best Bird of the Weekend (Second of October 2016)

10,000 Birds

One downside to birding in autumn– certainly not the only one –is how almost everything you see heading south is something you caught earlier in the year heading north. Another downside is how drab many of these migrants are relative to their spring appearances. However, one major upside, assuming you take advantage of what October has to offer, is a cup of something pumpkin-spice flavored to warm you up after a cold day in the field.

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Black-fronted Dotterels maintaining egg temperature

10,000 Birds

The Black-fronted Dotterel breeds throughout the year around Broome and usually close to fresh water. Although I have written about this small resident shorebird breeding in the past I have now been able to obtain photographs of it maintaining egg temperature on very hot and dry days. We always stop in at Ellendale dam when we travel north, because it offers such a great variety of bird-life.

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“….an owl a day….”

10,000 Birds

A chance remark may have opened the door to a whole new branch of alternative medicine. To complement homeopathic remedies, hypnotherapy and acupuncture, may I suggest Ornitherapy. Towards the end of a beautiful day in Boston’s Mount Auburn Cemetery, I was investigating some Blue Jay alarms and suddenly found myself face to face with an Eastern Screech Owl.

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New Production Test

Speaker: cha cha dwyer

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