10,000 Birds

JUNE 4, 2020

What happens when you put a naturalist in a kayak, adrift in Africa? ‘There are no crocs around here,’ said a smiling bartender. I think the warlord Mzilikazi must have had a similar smile while raiding the Bahurutshe, not far from where I dropped my paddle into the river. Before it joins waters with the Matabele’s iliMphopho, the river of rapid rising and falling, known to the rest of the world as the ‘great, grey, green, greasy Limpopo’ of Rudyard Kipling’s writings, the Ngotwane River marks t

Botswana 188

Botswana Africa 2001 Fish 188

10,000 Birds

JUNE 2, 2020

David Sibley’s sketch of an Atlantic Puffin. I sat down at my dining room table, its wooden surface covered by a wrinkled white tablecloth scattered with work-from-home items; my laptops, notebooks, a speaker, various dishes and coffee mugs. Clearing a space, I retrieved my field notebook – untouched since April of 2018 – and flipped to a brand new page.

Puffins 157

Puffins Branding 2018 Florida 157

10,000 Birds

MAY 31, 2020

I can’t recall a year when birders were as thrilled to see the month of May pass as we all are in 2020. I wonder why that is… To add insult to the daily ration of injury, temperatures in Rochester plummeted from sweltering to near-freezing in the space of four days. Despite the cold, I had to take a run at our last migrants this weekend and was rewarded with a lovely morning of lakeshore birding that included an FOY Tennessee Warbler … don’t know how that one got past me

2020 157

2020 Tennessee Jamaica Birds 157

10,000 Birds

JUNE 5, 2020

This week’s wine is a very easy-drinking white blend from the South African winery A.A. Badenhorst Family Wines. It’s going to be a pretty easy post for us, too, as there’s not a whole lot going on here bird-wise to discuss. (By now, Birds and Booze readers know that we’ll gladly take any old bottle with a bird on it for a quick and dirty review for another busy week in this crazy world.

2016 154

2016 Family ADI Africa 154

Speaker: Steve Romanco

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10,000 Birds

MAY 31, 2020

Two weeks ago I mentioned that we rarely got rain at this time of year. However, sometimes it does rain and on 26th May we had our wettest May day on record for Broome! In town there was 93mm over a couple of hours and the rain has spread throughout the Kimberley in recent days. Gravel roads are now closed, but so is the Kimberley unless you are a resident.

Pythons 154

Pythons Australia Owls Wildlife 154

10,000 Birds

MAY 30, 2020

It has often been said that a murmuration of starlings is one of the most spectacular sights in nature. When a huge flock of birds wheels and creates beautiful patterns through the ebb and flow of swirling bodies against a setting sun, all one can do is sit in wonder. Starlings are not the only birds to fly en-masse in such delightful style, Dunlins can boast a two-tone effect as they turn, revealing their pale underbody before flipping back to the dark side, but starlings provide a sustained an

India 154

India Experience Experiments Species 154

10,000 Birds

JUNE 3, 2020

I hope you will forgive my rather lurid title. No, I am not going to tell you about some blood-sucking bird with hypnotic powers. I am only responding to my subjective impression of a single species’ appearance here; specifically, that of the Bronzed Cowbird. (For our Old World readers, yes, I am aware that Oxpeckers would be more deserving of this title.).

Birds 154

Birds Blackbirds Mexico Cattle 154