10,000 Birds

JULY 21, 2014

'How do you solve a problem like the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB)? With all due respect to Maria von Trapp, combating the greatest infestation that U.S. forests have ever seen may not be as simple as learning to sing “do re mi.” These bark-burrowing beetles, which apparently hitched a ride in cargo shipments from their native Asia, have been starving the ash trees of eastern and midwestern North America to death for a dozen years now.

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Woodpeckers Illinois Science Chicago 273

4 The Love Of Animals

JULY 28, 2014

'Another fun video featuring internet celebrity cats! “Cat Summer” features Grumpy Cat, Nala Cat, Hamilton the Hipster Cat and Oskar the Blind Cat. The video, released by the official cat food of summer – Friskies Grillers, also pays tribute to the late Colonel Meow. For every video view until Labor Day, Friskies will donate 1 meal (up to 1,000,000) to shelters across the country in Colonel Meow’s name!

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Animal Ethics

JULY 1, 2014

'This blog had 842 visits during June, which is an average of 28.0 visits per day. A year ago, the average was 46.8.

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10,000 Birds

JULY 24, 2014

'New Year’s Day 2014. With binoculars around my neck, I am leaving home, wondering which will be the first species on my year list. On a parking lot, I pass by an invisible bird and continue to my local patch of the Ada Huja Danube Riverbank , where my first bird becomes the Rook. And yet, I have passed by one before that. The one I do not count.

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Feral Meat Species Serbia 258

Speaker: Steve Romanco

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10,000 Birds

JULY 10, 2014

'Since I have started to bird by kayak, it took me a lot of time to realise that paddling is not the synonym for birding and that I can bird without a paddle, although I cannot paddle without a pair of binoculars. Consequently, my first local patch becomes a largish Danube River floodzone opposite to Belgrade (Serbia) city centre (cover photo: April 1992).

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Serbia Stray Dog Protection Botswana 244

10,000 Birds

JULY 1, 2014

'I love reading children’s books, even though my child is well over the age when she asks to have them read at bedtime and my nephews fall asleep all too easily after playing lacrosse all day. I enjoy collecting children’s books about birds and nature that I come across in the expected (book stores) and unexpected (academic library conference reports) places.

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Puerto Rico Parrots New York City 2013 240

10,000 Birds

JULY 15, 2014

'Way back in January, my wife and I welcomed our second child into our family. Savvy readers of 10,000 Birds and mostly defunct (but not yet dead!) The Drinking Bird may have seen a drop-off in content starting right about then. Babies have a way of sucking up your time and energy in a way that a week-long heavy birding excursion can’t quite compete with.

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Birds Family Rights 227

10,000 Birds

JULY 14, 2014

'It is not everyday that you get the chance to see an active bird nest. And a nest that is right next to a road that sees very little traffic at all is rarer still. You can understand, then, why I was so psyched to come across a pair of Eastern Kingbirds busy feeding their nestlings. In fact they were so busy catching bugs and stuffing them into their nestlings’ mouths that they paid me, unobtrusively digiscoping them from my car parked across the street, no mind at all.

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Rights Birds Species 221

10,000 Birds

JULY 21, 2014

'The squawk is unmistakable, a harsh, high-pitched cry with undertones of bass, lasting about 2-seconds, followed by a second, then a third “Squaaawwwk.” It’s etched into my audio memory, which is quite a feat considering the problems I have recognizing even the most common bird cries. I look up and see three large green birds, the bright green contrasting with dark blue underwings, whitish-grayish foreheads and breasts shining in the winter sun, flying overhead.

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Chicago New York City New York Illinois 207

10,000 Birds

JULY 30, 2014

'When one thinks of taking a birdcation somewhere in the U.S., the same few states always come to mind first…Alaska, Arizona, Texas, and Florida. That’s where everyone goes, and for good reason. However, I am here to make the case for birding California. With the largest state list by a considerable margin and a mind-boggling diversity of habitats, I reckon we have some amazing birding to offer.

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California San Diego Birds Oakland 206

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10,000 Birds

JULY 24, 2014

'Miami, Florida has a reputation among the birding community for being overrun with exotic bird species. It is well-deserved. Spot-breasted Oriole , Purple Swamphen , Common Myna , White-winged Parakeet , Red-whiskered Bulbul and Monk Parakeet are the ones that garner the most attention among those interested in listing, since they are ABA-countable.

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10,000 Birds

JULY 2, 2014

'I had the pleasure of attending the first Mountain Bird Festival in Ashland Oregon recently and it was great! The Wildlife Conservation Stamp Project was one of the sponsors of the festival which was hosted by the Klamath Bird Observatory. One of the major draws to the festival was viewing the Great Gray Owl, but that is for another post altogether.

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North America Oregon Birds Owls 206

10,000 Birds

JULY 13, 2014

'It’s mid-July, which among other things means that those of us in North America are starting to check local mudflats for returning shorebird migrants and waiting impatiently for the AOU to hurry up and create five species from the Clapper-King rail complex (the reasons for which we covered last year ). So while you’re waiting for that or for low tide, here are a few reads and bits of news on bird taxonomy and systematics that have caught my eye over the past few weeks.

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New Zealand Elephants Sparrows Ostriches 204

10,000 Birds

JULY 3, 2014

'I was happy to read that the wood stork ( Mycteria Americana ), a bird near and dear to me, was down-sited from the status of endangered to threatened species. On June 25, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is down-listing the wood stork from endangered to threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

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North Carolina Bald Eagle South Carolina Florida 204

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10,000 Birds

JULY 21, 2014

'Rick Wright is a well-known birding tour guide, author, blogger, and general wordsmith. He was a Beat Writer here on 10,000 Birds for awhile, contributing wonderful pieces, and we miss him a great deal. Fortunately, he agreed to contribute this guest post on a topic he is eminently suited to write about – the intersection of birds and words. It’s one of the stories every birder knows.

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New York City New York North America Species 199

10,000 Birds

JULY 27, 2014

'The Floe Edge is a magical place. In simplest terms it is where the landfast ice meets the open ocean, and it is a magnet for wildlife, especially in the 24 hour light of the Arctic spring. I don’t get there every year, but I managed to spend one day there again this year. A scant 24 hours to take it in. This June my brother-in-law and I took off to Kangiq (Cape Crauford), the western edge of of the mouth of Admiralty Inlet to Lancaster Sound.

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Polar Bears Seals Bears Laws 193

10,000 Birds

JULY 5, 2014

'The invasives are coming! The invasives are coming! The invasives are coming! No matter where you live on this beautiful earth the odds are good that some kind of invasive species is a familiar part of your avifauna. We at 10,000 Birds are planning on exploring the rich topic that is invasive species for an entire week, 20-26 July. But we want you to participate!

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Species Rights Birds 192

10,000 Birds

JULY 19, 2014

'This is not the week for a xenophobic birder. Here at 10,000 Birds we are going to dedicate the coming week, from today until Saturday, to invasive species. We plan to use the broadest possible definition of invasive species, including species that are expanding under their own power and even species that are not, to the best of our knowledge, causing harm to species native in the range into which the invaders are expanding.

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Species New Zealand North America Mammals 189

Speaker: Gabriel Wagner Presenter

10,000 Birds

JULY 8, 2014

'When birders way out on the east end of Long Island reported breeding Least Bitterns at Arshamomaque Preserve in the town of Southold, my interest was momentarily piqued but I figured that I wouldn’t have time to go looking for them what with work and family obligations. But after my epic 22-hour workday last Wednesday I had a couple of days of time off as compensation for making myself a gibbering wreck so I used yesterday, Monday, 07 July, as a day of birding.

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Virginia Breeders New York Fish 183

10,000 Birds

JULY 23, 2014

'The Eurasian Collared-Dove ( Streptopelia decaocto ) was first released in the New World on the island of New Providence, in the Bahamas. In the mid-1970s, a local breeder was burglarized and a few of his birds escaped, after which the breeder released his remaining stock of about 50 birds 1. Since its introduction, this dove has spread quickly across the North American continent.

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Breeders 2002 North America Bahamas 181

10,000 Birds

JULY 20, 2014

'This is an interesting time of year when people are coming and going while birds mostly sit still. Except, of course, that some birds are also coming and going too. The trick is to make sure your path crosses those of the right birds at the right time. While it was neither the rarest or most interesting bird I saw this weekend, the Eastern Bluebird that flew over my car as I drove through Virginia has to take Best Bird of the Weekend honors just because it will be my third blue bird in a row.

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New Jersey 2014 Virginia Birds 183

10,000 Birds

JULY 7, 2014

'A few weeks ago I shared some images of a Boat-tailed Grackle getting fed by its mother and I promised additional shots of the grackles in a mud puddle in the near future. I had completely forgotten making that promise until I was back at Rockaway Community Park again yesterday morning parked next to the exact same puddle, waiting once again for birds to avail themselves of the fresh water in the puddle on what was turning into a rather hot day.

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Birds Blackbirds Family 180

Speaker: Steve Romanco

10,000 Birds

JULY 4, 2014

'Keep your eyes to the skies for your national bird, long may it soar! Citizens of other nations may live differently, but we in the United States enjoy a preponderance of long weekends. That must be why this is the greatest nation on earth, right? Ha, I kid! We’re great for lots of reasons, but long weekends help a lot. Happy Independence Day to all of our fellow Americans!

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United States 2014 Birds Rights 178

10,000 Birds

JULY 26, 2014

'Rose-ringed Parakeets ( Psittacula krameri ) have become the scourge of the householder in the Home Counties of the UK. Their raucous screeching kick-starts more mornings than alarm clocks and early flights from Heathrow Airport combined. There are many suggestions about their introduction into the UK. Theories range from the dull account of an escape from a Staines petshop to the more romantic notion that they starred alongside Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn when they filmed “African Qu

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Species Myanmar Tanzania Uganda 173

10,000 Birds

JULY 15, 2014

'I have a larger post coming out next week as part of a special 10,000 Birds topical extravaganza, so for now just three little things. First, and this is OLD news, dating to several years go. But did you know that there is a bat that specializes in eating birds that are migrating at night? Giant Bats Snatch Birds from Night Sky. Every spring, billions of migratory songbirds in Europe fly north to their breeding grounds.

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Los Angeles Bats Feral Cats New York City 175

10,000 Birds

JULY 17, 2014

'Keep your eyes to the skies for brilliant sunrises, like the one my buddy Beau Walsburger snapped in Virginia Beach this morning. The month of July is more than half over, but those of us enjoying summer still have many weeks of hot fun ahead. Folks on the chilly side of the Equator can take solace in the fact that spring will be here soon enough. I’ll be finishing up my Virginia Beach vacation and admiring birds on the Chesapeake Bridge Bay Tunnel on the way back to Rochester this weeken

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Virginia 2014 Birds 178

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10,000 Birds

JULY 30, 2014

'The Steller’s Jay ( Cyanocitta stelleri ) is one of the ubiquitous birds seen at Lassen Volcanic National Park in northern California. They are a non-migratory species found in western coniferous and mixed-coniferous forests, breeding from Alaska, western Canada, and the United States south through western Mexico to Nicaragua. Although they are normally non-migratory, populations that breed at high elevations typically move to lower elevations during the winter.

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Nicaragua Alaska United States Canada 172

10,000 Birds

JULY 4, 2014

'I can’t possibly remember when the Baltimore and Bullock’s Orioles were lumped into Northern Oriole. This happened in a good five years before I was born, and although I am in fact a super-genius, I haven’t quite got time-travel on that level down. But I grew up with old field guides and a mother who was disgusted by the fact that we’d swapped two cool birds with two reasonably-cool names for one bird with one, very uninspiring name.

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Baltimore California Condor Montana Cleveland 175

10,000 Birds

JULY 2, 2014

'Well, the blog is back just in time for me to post a story… which is annoying as it would be nice to have a week off without having to fabricate a story for Mike and Corey to cover my bone idle nature. Sadly, the downtime means that the usual post crafting process got slightly short-circuited this week. Usually posts take days to carve out of the blank page, with multiple reviews by my army of copy editors and fact checkers, a couple of hours down at the library leafing through historical

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Singapore Uganda Malaysia Seals 175

10,000 Birds

JULY 22, 2014

'Will Raup is a birder from upstate New York who helped Corey learn a lot about birds when Corey was first starting out as a birder. He blogs at The Nightjar – The tales of an Upstate New York Birder and otherwise stays busy being an eBird reviewer, taking care of his kids, and, recently, planning a trip to Europe where he hopes to see lots of new birds.

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Speaker: cha cha dwyer

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