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.

Woodpeckers 273

Woodpeckers Illinois Science Chicago 273

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.

Feral 257

Feral Meat Species Serbia 257

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.

Chicago 204

Chicago New York City New York Illinois 204

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.

Miami 203

Miami Asia Florida Malaysia 203

Speaker: Steve Romanco

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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.

New York City 196

New York City New York North America Species 196

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.

Species 187

Species New Zealand North America Mammals 187

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.

New Jersey 181

New Jersey 2014 Virginia Birds 181

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.

Cattle 170

Cattle South Korea Suriname Seychelles 170

10,000 Birds

JULY 20, 2014

'Steve Young of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, is the coordinator of the Long Island Invasive Species Management Area. He kindly agreed to share his knowledge of this new threat to the beaches of New York and the animals and plants that rely on them. A new invasive plant is threatening the beaches of Long Island, Asiatic Sand Sedge or Carex kobomugi.

New Jersey 170

New Jersey New York New York City Japan 170

10,000 Birds

JULY 24, 2014

'Yesterday i introduced you, gentle reader, to the lovely work done by the acclimatisation societies of New Zealand in making the already interesting biogeography of this country even more complicated. Today I thought I’d talk you through one of the more evolutionary interesting effects of that movement, the Grallard. To explain what a Grallard is one must first go back to those societies and recall that one of their predominant preoccupations was game.

Species 167

Species New Zealand Ducks Game 167

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10,000 Birds

JULY 25, 2014

'Above: A stand of spotted knapweed along the Clark Fork. The yellow flower behind it is common tansy, another invasive. It’s bad enough to be an invasive species — the term shows a major fall in public esteem from the days when acclimatization was the rage. But as a descriptor, ‘invasive species’ doesn’t have a patch on ‘noxious weed’ Call something a noxious weed and there’s no doubt where you stand on it.

Montana 164

Montana Goats Sheep Species 164

10,000 Birds

JULY 23, 2014

'New Zealand has a very odd biota these days. There are the endemics, which are odd in their own way, and then there introduced species, which are so varied in their type and origin that you get the feeling you’ve arrived at the aftermath of a small zoo that escaped. In many ways, that is exactly what happened. People have moved useful plants and animals around with them as long as they had the wit to do so.

New Zealand 161

New Zealand Possums Rabbits Ferrets 161

10,000 Birds

JULY 24, 2014

'We all have invasive species on our minds this week, which should serve as an inspiration to those of us interested in expanding our personal range. Being a resident in an ecosystem certainly has its advantages, as does being a breeder (sometimes), but, every once in a while, you should visit someplace where you’re considered an exotic! Maybe invasion is on my mind because I’m on the eve of an amazing voyage.

Colombia 161

Colombia 2014 Breeders Birds 161

10,000 Birds

JULY 19, 2014

'The Spot-flanked Gallinule Gallinula melanops is a common rallid of southern South America. It is easily seen and can be very approachable. These birds were seen as part of a 5-rallid morning on the promenade at Costanera Sur in Buenos Aires with this picture featuring 3 of them. The common name is self-explanatory while the latin name describes the dark marking of the head.

Argentina 160

Argentina Colombia South America America 160

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Experience

10,000 Birds

JULY 20, 2014

'Yesterday, Saturday, 19 July, an apparent European Golden-Plover was found in a sod field in western New Jersey in Pittsdown, which is in Hunterdon County. It was photographed by Alan Mart and the bird later took off not to be refound. Fortunately, some able and capable birders refound the bird early this morning and reported it to the listservs so I abandoned my fruitless seawatch on the coast of Queens, hopped in my trusty Ford Focus, and raced west through Brooklyn, Staten Island, and across

New Jersey 157

New Jersey United States Germany Abandon 157

10,000 Birds

JULY 20, 2014

'In Australia we definitely have our fair share of invasive species and the main problem is that we are such a huge land mass with such a small population. The population of Australia is concentrated mainly around the city areas along the coast and many invasive species have been able to spread with ease. A lot of the invasive species that we have nowadays are species that were brought into the country in very small numbers a long time ago and generally in good faith.

Australia 157

Australia Species Feral Cats Feral 157

10,000 Birds

JULY 22, 2014

'The ranger stood on the dirt road, facing south, and the rest of us, scattered about the parked safari truck, facing north and paying close attention to what she was saying. The sun was slipping quickly below the red sand dunes to our west, and the day’s warm breeze was rapidly changing to a chill wind. She talked about what we might see after we remounted the safari truck, which we had just driven out of the campground at the southern end of Kgalgadi Transfrontier Park, where we were staying i

Feral Cats 256

Feral Cats North America Feral Cats 256

10,000 Birds

JULY 24, 2014

'Germany is underrated as a birding destination. Nestled right in the middle of Europe, we have a little bit of everything, a nice cross section of Europe’s avifauna. We have, for instance, very beautiful birds, like European Bee-eater , Blue Tit , and Kingfisher. Then of course, we have amazing birds such as Wallcreeper , Hoopoe , and Black Woodpecker.

Germany 250

Germany Birds 2000 South America 250

Speaker: Gabriel Wagner Presenter

10,000 Birds

JULY 25, 2014

'On 22 January 1879, a pair of Egyptian Geese sat quietly on top of Isandlwana Hill and watched closely. Then, they had a plan. When I started birding in earnest during the 1980s in south-west Germany, no one talked about Egyptian Geese. They did not feature in any of our field guides, and were confined to many a traveler’s Afrotropical dreams.

Germany 150

Germany Geese Netherlands Kenya 150

10,000 Birds

JULY 23, 2014

'The Eurasian Collared-Dove , as Larry has already ably pointed out , has spread rapidly across North America since its release in the Bahamas in the mid-1970s. But for some poorly (or not-at-all) understood reason, its spread across North America has shown a very northwesterly orientation, so while birders as far away from the epicenter of the North American introduction in Florida as British Columbia get to see Eurasian Collared-Doves regularly we New Yorkers and other northeasterners are depr

New York 167

New York New York City North America Bahamas 167