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The return of the Old Man

10,000 Birds

According to Storks, Ibises and Spoonbills of the World , a handsome volume written by James Hancock, James Kushan and Philip Kohl and published by Academic Press in 1992, Geronticus eremita “once nested in the mountains of central Europe, across northern Africa and into the Middle East. But this range is now much reduced.

Morocco 215
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Birds and Us: A 12,000 Year History from Cave Art to Conservation–A Book Review

10,000 Birds

They may be about bird eggs ( The Most Perfect Thing: The Inside (and Outside) of a Bird’s Egg , 2016), or a 17th-century ornithologist ( Virtuoso by Nature: The Scientific Worlds of Francis Willughby, 2016), or How Bullfinches learn songs from humans ( The Wisdom of Birds: An Illustrated History of Ornithology.

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Urban Renewal: Is It Safer for Songbirds in the City?

10,000 Birds

The scientists, who studied bird populations in Europe and China , speculate that urban areas may have some appeal for passerines that rural areas otherwise lack. Birds like cuckoos, who lay their eggs in songbirds’ nests, and whose young then off the hosts’ own chicks, tend to avoid cities.

China 101
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The Oriolest Oriole

10,000 Birds

This revelation shocked me when I first read it, but as it it turns out the troupial is not one of those next parasites and lays and leaves like North American cowbirds and cuckoos in Europe. Troupials raise their own chicks, generally 3 to 4 per clutch, they just steal the nest in which they raise them.

Baltimore 174
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National Audubon Society Birds of North America: A Guide Review

10,000 Birds

If you remember that the first edition of Sibley was published with “National Audubon Society” on the cover, raise your hand. Plate 28 from Audubon Bird Guide, Eastern Land Birds, by Richard H. Pough “with illustrations in color of every species” by Don Eckelberry, Doubleday, 1946. I didn’t.).

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Birding the Kruger Park (2): Bateleur area

10,000 Birds

Europe has one species (Eurasian Spoonbill), the Americas have one (Roseate Spoonbill), Australia two (Royal and Yellow-billed Spoonbill), and Asia has two as well (Eurasian and Black-faced Spoonbill). Studies on improving ostrich egg hatchability. Also, I learned that in the US , ostrich eggs are priced at $40-$75.

Ostriches 147
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What the Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds: A Book Review

10,000 Birds

From Hiro, we learn how Northern Pygmy Owls are “rule breakers,” not incubating eggs till all are hatched and then raising owlets that mature at the same rate even though the eggs were laid asynchronously (as most owl eggs are). I’m wondering if the subject of this book itself presented a challenge.

Owls 200