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Fur and Fangs rather than Feathers and Beaks

10,000 Birds

Lion – much easier to see than an Aardvark In contrast to East Africa, encounters with mammals while out birding in Europe are relatively few. Over the years, though, I have enjoyed a number of memorable mammal sightings in Europe. Otters may be widespread in Europe, but they are usually elusive and difficult to see.

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Costa Rica on a relaxed birding pace

10,000 Birds

Few places boast so many different bird species in such a small area — over 900 species (more than Europe, or all of the United States and Canada combined), including 75 different families, like 51 species of hummingbirds, 48 warblers, and 45 tanagers. Costa Rica is synonymous with many things, and birding is clearly one of them.

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Tracks and Signs of the Animals and Birds of Britain and Europe by Lars-Henrik Olsen

10,000 Birds

For Europe, only very few books exist that cover the topic at all. So here it is, the review of Tracks and Signs of the Animals and Birds of Britain and Europe by Lars-Henrik Olsen. Was this going to be just another British-centred book of little use to the rest of Europe? Well, first things first: the book’s title.

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Big Ticks; What Was Your Last New Family?

10,000 Birds

But there is one kind of tick that I genuinely do enjoy, and as I do more and more birding it becomes harder and harder to get; new families. Getting entirely new families is easy when you start birding. Sometimes you may even lose them, like the aforementioned woodswallows which are probably no longer a family.

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Birding Lake Kerkini, Greece: Three Lazy Days

10,000 Birds

Lake Kerkini National Park in the north of Greece is the very best birding area in the Balkan Peninsula and definitely among the top ten hotspots of Europe. Last but not least, there were three species of shrikes, Red-backed , Lesser Grey and at least 2 Masked Shrikes , possibly 2 more, an entire family (not all were showing so well).

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Emiliana Natura Rosé (2020)

10,000 Birds

There’s a ( Eurasian) Blue Tit ( Cyanistes caeruleus ) flitting around some flowers and butterflies, while what is likely another European member of the family Paridae – possibly either a Willow Tit ( Poecile montanus ) or Marsh Tit ( Poecile palustris ) – seems to alight on the letter “T” in “Natura”.

2020 230
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Hang your hammock in the hummingbird family tree

10,000 Birds

But it was not always so: Ancient hummingbird fossils have been described from Europe in recent years, some with remarkable similarities (PDF) to modern New World hummingbirds, leaving scientists pondering the historical implications of these unexpected discoveries. However, two recent papers by McGuire et al.

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