10,000 Birds

AUGUST 2, 2013

Over the last two weeks, we raised our faces and sniffed. Severe fires create snags, they germinate seeds and sprout fungus, and most of all they create food and habitat for insects that in turn feed birds like Black-backed Woodpecker and Olive-sided Flycatcher , and encourage even some generalists like other woodpeckers and wrens.

Endangered Species 164

Endangered Species South Dakota Woodpeckers Sheep 164

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 27, 2015

Like my two previous visits I spent one day that I didn’t have to lead any field trips doing a run through central Florida looking for some of the specialty species of the region. The list includes Bachmann’s Sparrow , Red-cockaded Woodpecker , Crested Caracara , Snail Kite , and, oddly, Whooping Crane.

Cattle 215

Cattle Florida Bald Eagle Endangered Species 215

10,000 Birds

APRIL 4, 2013

We stop again and search the leaves: Rufous Treepie (a rather handsome forest crow), Greater Racket-tailed Drongo with its long streamers, Lesser Goldenback woodpecker… We’re winding through the forest. Raising and lowering its head, like stretching. The critically endangered Forest Owlet © Nitin Bhardwaj.

India 260

India Owls Tigers Endangered Species 260

10,000 Birds

JUNE 6, 2019

We stop again and search the leaves: Rufous Treepie (a rather handsome forest crow), Greater Racket-tailed Drongo with its long streamers, Lesser Goldenback woodpecker… We’re winding through the forest. Raising and lowering its head, like stretching. Several more Langurs, but not a trace of an owlet. Humbly, we approach on foot.

India 196

India Owls Tigers Cows 196

10,000 Birds

MARCH 20, 2011

The USFWS designated the whooping cranes in this population “nonessential and experimental.” What could motivate gunmen (I cannot call them hunters) in two states to deliberately kill North America’s tallest and most critically endangered bird? It may be as sick as deliberately targeting an endangered species for death.

2011 244

2011 Hunting Kentucky Hunters 244

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 10, 2014

White-headed Woodpecker. “[The Audubon study is] telling us that a whole additional suite of species will become highly threatened that aren’t the ones we’re worrying about now,” Stuart Butchart told National Geographic. … Conservation Audubon endangered species Extinction Week longspurs science'

Species 181

Species Science Los Angeles Birds 181