10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 20, 2014

’s bird family tree in a new tab and follow along as you read. It’s not clear: Our tree lends support for either three independent gains of vocal learning or two gains (hummingbirds and the common ancestor of parrots and oscine songbirds) followed by two losses (in New Zealand wrens and suboscines).

Family 279

Family Birds Parrots 2014 279

10,000 Birds

APRIL 7, 2015

She’s produced seven photographic books about the Galapagos Islands and books on the Andes, Antarctica, and New Zealand (her current home). Its title in the Great Britain and New Zealand editions is Penguins: Their World, Their Ways, a better title in my opinion.).

Penguins 209

Penguins New Zealand South Africa Albatross 209

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 7, 2021

Seabirds: The New Identification Guide is an identification guide to seabirds of the world, all of them. It covers 434 species across 9 orders and 18 families of birds. Other families are more complicated and these introductory sections are correspondingly longer and amazingly more detailed. SCOPE & SPECIES ORGANIZATION.

Albatross 279

Albatross Penguins Family Groups 279

10,000 Birds

JULY 30, 2014

Not forever mind, I’ll still be living here in New Zealand and carrying on as its beat writer here (I may even write about New Zealand again some time). Volunteering provides a very different experience to tourism though. Ugandan Mangabeys were part of my family once.

Uganda 162

Uganda Sharks Africa New Zealand 162

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 24, 2012

So I thought I could give fair warning about one of the more dangerous birds out there, even more dangerous than the Lesser Goldfinch , and one of the more common and familiar birds of Australia and New Zealand, the Australian Magpie. Australian Magpie! Dum dum DUM!

New Zealand 156

New Zealand Birds Australia Kangaroos 156

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 3, 2017

Illustrations were created using diverse visual and physical source materials–skin collections from Australian museums and a database of over 300,000 photographs (plus, of course, the artists’ years of field experience). Each family group begins with a small box summarizing the characteristics of the family in Australia.

Australia 109

Australia Birds Penguins 2015 109

10,000 Birds

JUNE 27, 2014

Parrots captivate me more than any other bird family. Second, they occupy an astonishing variety of habitats from temperate Araucaria forests in Chile to alpine scree in New Zealand to seasonally flooded rainforests in Brazil to rocky sea cliffs in Australia. However, they do not occur evenly across their familial distribution.

Parrots 169

Parrots Brazil Mauritius Dominica 169

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 9, 2015

I start today with an update from last week, were I spoke about New Zealand’s muted reaction to the official shortlist of tea towels… I’m sorry, flags , that have been picked as part of a longwinded and dull process to not pick a new flag. Cons – the Kiwis have a dumb flightless bird as their emblem too.

Australia 183

Australia Chickens Birds Seals 183

10,000 Birds

JUNE 29, 2011

I couldn’t tell you how many birds I’ve seen in New Zealand. I guess it must have been a slow news day. And it also occurs that had I not gone to see it and Corey and Mike had found out I would have gotten 10,000 demerits and lost my position as beat writer for New Zealand. So I went to see it.

Penguins 166

Penguins New Zealand Zoos Birds 166

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 19, 2012

We got a couple more species here, including Black-winged Stilt (inexplicably a species I had missed this year in New Zealand), the stupendous Indian Roller, Streak-eared Bulbul and also a heard White-rumped Shama. So the poor turtle got a bit of a shake around before I released him safely into a ditch.

Thailand 155

Thailand New Zealand Terrapins Asia 155

10,000 Birds

JUNE 9, 2022

Of course, it is quite common for human parents to set fire to their family homes in order to keep the adult children from moving back home, but this is not an issue for drongos. In conclusion, an experience that will put me off buying anything from that company ever. In New Zealand, the Spotted Dove is an introduced species.

Singapore 147

Singapore Birds Mountain Goats Giraffes 147

4 The Love Of Animals

MARCH 17, 2011

Grief, friendship, gratitude, wonder, and other things we animals experience. Chimpanzees and elephants grieve the loss of family and friends, and gorillas hold wakes for the dead. Waterfall Dances: Do animals have spiritual experiences? by Marc Bekoff. Paul says, “He would lick my face, or cry gently, or bark even.

Emotional 100

Emotional Animal Whales Whaling 100