10,000 Birds
NOVEMBER 17, 2021
I went to the rural park of Kilómetro 23 last Monday, so-called because of its distance from downtown Morelia. It is not one of my favorite sites, but it is worth visiting a couple of times each year. Still, the outing did not produce any new species for the year, or enough good photos for a post here. Instead, I have chosen to write about an idea I’ve had percolating for a while: to tell you what the most common species are down here.
10,000 Birds
NOVEMBER 10, 2021
It can easily come across as laziness, but I like to call it efficiency. Some of my continental friends may not think twice of having to drive for four hours to see a single bird. I on the other hand, have been frequenting a specific wetland I’ve written about on this blog innumerable times thus far. Reason being: it’s just about 20 minutes away from where I live.
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10,000 Birds
NOVEMBER 10, 2021
A week ago Monday, I drove half an hour to get to the area between the little towns of La Escalera, El Palmar, y Arúmbaro. As I was very surprised to discover recently, this area is at the same elevation as my home in Morelia. But Morelia is part of a large relatively homogenous ecosystem, while the La Escalera area sits right on the junction of our highland pine-oak forest system and the lowland tropical thorn forest biome.
10,000 Birds
MAY 3, 2021
Jim Wright’s latest book is The Real James Bond , the biography of the ornithologist whose name Ian Fleming stole for his secret agent 007. He writes “The Bird Watcher” column for the USA today newspapers in N.J. He is a deputy Marsh Warden for the Celery Farm Natural Area in Allendale, N.J. This is Jim’s first guest post on 10,000 Birds.
10,000 Birds
NOVEMBER 21, 2021
One of the target bird species for birders when they visit the Broome area is Yellow Chat. They are relatively easy to find year round and sometimes you are lucky when they pose for you. Some years we encounter Crimson Chats around Broome too and even less rare is the Orange Chat. The last record of an Orange Chat in the Broome area was in 2006. We have encountered Orange Chats before in Western Australia, but also in the Northern Territory at the Tennant Creek Poo Ponds.
10,000 Birds
NOVEMBER 28, 2021
As I have mentioned in the past we often place branches out for birds. The birds can then access water much more easily and we get the enjoyment of watching them all come in for a drink and bathe. At this time of year around the north of Australia the ephemeral lakes are drying out fast. All of the birdlife in the surrounding area comes to drink and bathe and you can easily observe a wide variety of birds by just sitting and watching.
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10,000 Birds
NOVEMBER 4, 2021
In my early birding years, rucksacks were of no importance and any could do. I would be leaving it behind anyway, in my kayak club, to continue birding with a paddle in my hands. Yet, as I started doing more land birding, I needed something a bit larger and sturdier. In 2013, I wrote of my non-necessity checklist. Commenting on rucksack, I said “I have never found a rucksack that I would consider ideal, but in order to call it usable, it should have around 40 litres of capacity and that arched f
10,000 Birds
JANUARY 25, 2021
With a worldwide pandemic still raging the tourism industry has taken a massive hit. And while we here at 10,000 Birds aren’t terribly concerned about the cruise ship industry or the airlines we are greatly concerned about the impact that the lack of bird tourists has had on the many birding guides, eco-lodges, and birding tour companies. Mike and I talked it over and came up with a small idea that we hope helps to some degree.
10,000 Birds
NOVEMBER 7, 2021
When you travel north along the highway from Broome towards Willare and Derby you come to a wide bridge with a sign that says “Cockatoo Creek” I would highly recommend that you pull up on the right after you have crossed the bridge and park where the plaque is for the official opening of it. There are still a few single lane bridges around the Kimberley and this bridge offers an area where you can easily birdwatch the water below.
10,000 Birds
OCTOBER 12, 2021
Birders who venture off the beaten path may run across a sign like the one above. But what is “wilderness” and how does it differ from any other federal land? The short answer is that wilderness areas are part of the National Wilderness Preservation System and they are protected by the Wilderness Act of 1964. Simply put, wilderness areas are the most protected public lands in America.
10,000 Birds
SEPTEMBER 23, 2021
Yesterday evening I got home from the second Swarovski Skills Camp at Lake Neusiedl in the east of Austria. I am still tired from the long drive, but it was great to play with the very best toys for birders, to be able to share experiences and to ask the factory staff all sorts of silly questions. It was also great to finally travel overseas again, meet a lot of people I did not know (and some I did), to be in a new country… and not just the new country, but its best birding area, where al
10,000 Birds
MARCH 22, 2021
No matter how obsessed with birding you may be, you’ll have those weekends where other concerns dominate your thoughts. But enough about the New York Giants’ free agency activity. this is just my way of explaining why I plain forgot to post BBOTW at the usual time! I certainly looked at birds this weekend, particularly those menacingly sleek Common Grackles who progressed from absent to ubiquitous in a heartbeat.
10,000 Birds
DECEMBER 16, 2021
Have you ever birded a place so young that birds still have no names? Ten days ago, I was sitting in a boat in the Colombian Amazonia, listening to the chatter of numerous Large-billed Terns along a vast sandbank in the Rio Guaviare. The sunset was slowly blanketing the scene, making the water ever bluer and the forest deeper shaded. Then a group of birders appeared from the forest.
10,000 Birds
AUGUST 3, 2021
There was a time when I thought each bird species had its own individual song. Then I found out that there was this vocalization called a ‘call,’ so I thought each bird species had its own individual song (but just the males) and individual call. But then, somewhere along the time I saw my first Common Raven, I realized that not every bird species sang, some just called.
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10,000 Birds
JULY 28, 2021
I wrote, a few weeks ago, about seeing my first Sedge (now Grass) Wrens through the kind invitation of a local biologist, and new birder, on whose property these live. Last week he messaged me to ask if I could go birding with him just south of Morelia’s urban area. This site is along a small river, named Río Bello. My new birding buddy, Ignacio Torres, knew of this area because a company had built a large partially-paved access road as part of a plan to build a housing development on a pr
10,000 Birds
APRIL 18, 2021
I am so happy to be back on 10,000 birds – I have missed Mike and Corey and my fellow Beat Writers! Normally I rant about environmental dangers and describe heartwarming/mind-boggling/headscratching wild bird rescues. Occasionally I host wildlife rehabilitator vent-fests, where I post a question on Facebook and duly note the rehabber responses.
10,000 Birds
MARCH 19, 2021
When the disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (or SARS-CoV-2) acquired the name COVID-19 (short for “coronavirus 2019”) last February, many birders couldn’t help but notice the coincidental similarity between that abbreviation and name of one of the most familiar of all passerine families – Corvidae. Even more similar is “corvid”, the generic name we give members of this family, whether they be crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays, magpies, treepies, choughs, or nutc
10,000 Birds
MARCH 17, 2021
Pithecellobium dulce is a tree with many English names. The most common one, Manila tamarind, is wildly inaccurate, since the tree is native to southwestern Mexico, not Manila, and its only connection to tamarind trees is that both are in different subfamilies of the huge legume family. I first met the tree in Baja California, where it is known as guamúchil (gwa-MOOCH-eel), so I will call it that.
10,000 Birds
MARCH 15, 2021
Guyana is an Amerindian word meaning “land of many waters” but it could just as easily mean “land of many birds”. That’s because this fascinating part-Caribbean, part-south American country holds well over 800 species of avifauna making it without doubt one of my top three countries in all of the continent to visit. Before I delve into some of these avian treasures let me give you a few non-birding reasons to visit this gem of South America.
10,000 Birds
MARCH 18, 2021
The reception of bulbuls in the ornithological world is decidedly mixed. A typical description of the family is that of “a tropical African and Asian songbird that typically has a melodious voice and drab plumage”, another is “small, dull-colored passerine birds of Asia and Africa”, yet another states that they are “often rather plain” Individual species get even harsher reviews.
10,000 Birds
MARCH 14, 2021
The last weekend of winter/summer looks a whole lot like the first weekend of spring/fall. That doesn’t mean, however, that winds of change aren’t blowing birds hither and yon. Some of the banner birds of your next season may have already arrived, but more will come every week. Be ready! I’m so focused on my birds of spring that I’ve been tuned out to what the last of winter has had to offer around here.
10,000 Birds
DECEMBER 30, 2021
Have you ever birded a place so young that birds still have no names ? … – part 2 – Once I finish this writing, with a strange mix of emotions I will put the Lynx field guide Birds of Colombia to the bookshelf for the first time, more than half a year after I received it. In my review , I commented that Colombia is one of those countries my dreams are made of, and I think that that sentence got me invited to the Manakin Nature Tours FAM trip of Inirida in Colombian Amazonia… I had such a b
10,000 Birds
DECEMBER 22, 2021
This time of year the canopies of the Neotropics are alive with countless warblers escaping the cold grip of the northern winter. Here in Trinidad, we routinely experience several of these migrants – most of these birds surely pass by unrecorded as not everyone is a birder and not all birders are huge fans of suffering from Warbler Neck. Some of the commonest species found throughout Trinidad and Tobago are American Redstart , Yellow Warbler , and Northern Waterthrush.
10,000 Birds
DECEMBER 23, 2021
Given the strict covid prevention measures here in China, I have not left the country in almost 2 years now. Fortunately, China still has lots of interesting birding locations left for me. But of course, it is also nice to remember past birding trips. One in November 2018 included a one-day birding trip in the Drakensberg area, a mountain range in the border area between South Africa and Lesotho.
10,000 Birds
DECEMBER 9, 2021
Somehow, it seems that most birders regularly visiting Nanhui feel that 2021 was a bit of a disappointing year. Not too many highlights, not too many species … hard to say whether this is just the usual nostalgia for a better but probably nonexistent past or a real phenomenon. The latter is possible, as the undisturbed areas of Nanhui keep shrinking, leaving less and less space for birds.
10,000 Birds
DECEMBER 8, 2021
Continuing here with the series on threes within the avian landscape of Trinidad and Tobago (in case you missed it, T&T has three each of trogons , antshrikes , spinetails , manakins , hermits , honeycreepers , and resident warblers ) we arrive at one of the more difficult species triads to encounter. Like the three resident warblers in T&T, the three species of bitterns recorded for T&T are only found on the larger island of Trinidad.
10,000 Birds
DECEMBER 11, 2021
It takes a detour to reach Cano Negro Wildlife Refuge in Costa Rica but oh how the trip is worth it. The mix of lowland rainforest, second growth and extensive wetlands makes it a very birdy place to bring some binos. With those avian temptations in mind, I make a point of visiting at least once a year. In 2021, I would have looked for crakes and Pinnated Bitterns in July but my scheduled visit coincided with heavy rains that flooded the entrance road (along with causing some terrible problems i
10,000 Birds
DECEMBER 2, 2021
Collins Birds of the World is “ a must for the travelling birder ,” as the BBC Wildlife Magazine reviewer has put it. And I cannot agree more. But I have to disagree with the publisher, HarperCollins, calling it an “ all-encompassing new field guide” – it is a world checklist and I say it with a lot of respect. Have you ever used illustrated checklists in the field, as opposed to full scale field guides?
10,000 Birds
NOVEMBER 27, 2021
It’s getting to be that time of year. That time when if you were keeping track of the bird species you had identified, and wanted to reach a certain number, you better come up with some strict birding strategies. If you were doing an actual Big Year, then you would have been strategizing since January. If it was more of a semi-casual Big Birding Year, you may have just been casually careful about when and where you sauntered to look for birds.
10,000 Birds
NOVEMBER 24, 2021
Last weekend we headed into the mountains of northern Trinidad – the concept of mountains is surely a relative one, although it is the highest conglomeration of hills in the country (and the northernmost outcrop of the Andes) the Northern Range never crosses 1,000m above sea level. While cloud forest exists above 700m, the majority of the mid-elevation forest is humid montane rainforest.
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