10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 2, 2021

Where a birder goes in the Caribbean determines which birds are seen including toy-like todies, Carib hummingbirds, cool pigeons, quail-doves, unique avian families and outrageous woodpeckers. One such special place is the Centro Manu, a small family run reserve that features several star bird species of Costa Rica’s Caribbean lowlands.

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Costa Rica Puerto Rico Birds Owls 264

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 1, 2023

It is home to four diverse forest ecosystems (deciduous, mixed, boreal, and lowlands), experiences seasonal weather systems ranging from cold dry Arctic winters to humid, thunder-storm filled summers, and, according to the latest official checklist, hosts four professional sports teams with bird names.* state and Canadian provinces.

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North America Birds Owls Canada 209

10,000 Birds

MARCH 20, 2015

After all, Teale Fristoe, the designer of Birds of a Feather , had offered a free prototype to try out so it’s not as if I was risking my own money on this seemingly odd experiment. Each player plays a card and can count any species from the same habitat group as the card played. ” That’s right, Desi, you are.

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Game Family Birds Groups 197

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 15, 2020

Even photos of the rarest of birds can be found, even heart-wrenching images of bird species that are no longer with us. Species like the Gyrfalcon , the aerial powerhouse of the tundra, of stunning, breeding-plumaged May warblers. These are all of the toucan species that occur in Costa Rica.

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Costa Rica Birds Species Woodpeckers 264

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 19, 2020

With 500 pages, this guide is a bit on the heavy side, but still not too much, having in mind that half of the region falls into the tropics and the edition is dealing with almost a thousand species (989 to be exact). Distribution maps show the relative abundance of a species in the region and also indicate resident or visiting status.

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Africa South Africa Swaziland Lesotho 264

10,000 Birds

MARCH 14, 2022

A family motel and passion for responsible ecotourism brought her home to the Oregon Coast where she and her husband, Erik, adventure and record a podcast ( Hannah and Erik Go Birding ), created in an effort to inspire others to get out and bird. I learned of the trip right as it had been delayed and made a vow that I would be on that ship.

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South Africa Mice Albatross Africa 263

10,000 Birds

JUNE 16, 2021

The Trogon family (and order, since the order only includes one family) is quite widespread, being found in all the tropical (and some subtropical) regions of the world. It is also fascinating to see how similar Old World trogons look to their New World relatives, right down to the same flamboyant color patterns.

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Mexico Indonesia North America Arizona 182

10,000 Birds

JULY 18, 2020

I savor the timeless experience of scanning these tropical waves for storm-petrels and lost jaegers. Local guide and birder David Mora Vargas has been spending much of his time at his family’s farm in the Sarapiqui lowlands. Check it out: Juvenile Tiny Hawk Show in Sarapiqui. An adult Tiny Hawk from another day and place.

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Costa Rica Birds Thailand Family 211

10,000 Birds

MARCH 12, 2021

I don’t know whether head brewer Chris Schell – a Delmar native with a decade of craft brewing experience – is a birder or not, but each beer is adorned with trippy, vaguely sci-fi depictions of birds by Boston artist Ian Tartasky , some of which seem to be identifiable to species.

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New York Boston 2019 Collecting 262

10,000 Birds

JULY 24, 2021

Even so, he still knew many species and always yearned to learn about the wildlife he encountered. Groups them by family too and by their shape” His extra long arm extended and passed me that precious book. One such surprising experience happened with grouse. “Check it out!”

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Costa Rica Chickens Pennsylvania Litter 264

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 23, 2023

As usual, my experience with such boardwalks was somewhat underwhelming, as was Eshowe as a whole, but there were still a few birds worth mentioning at the forest and in the area surrounding Eshowe. These Hadada Ibis were right in the garden of the place where we stayed. But the same species was never found again.

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South Africa Africa Birds 2018 147

10,000 Birds

MARCH 4, 2020

Hey, in 1959 Walt Disney set up a studio on the island and filmed Swiss Family Robinson there! By late March, hordes of Laughing Gulls and multiple species of pelagic terns gather for their turn. It was this post right here on 10,000 Birds I ended up bookmarking as the definitive source for ID’ing these two species.

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Fish Rights Species Birds 213

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

We all have them: families of birds that are maddeningly similar, forever leaving nagging doubts about our identifications. Someday I will get up the nerve to write about the ten, yes, TEN Empidonax species I believe I have seen in my little corner of Mexico. New World Warblers in non-reproductive plumage. Thanks again, Fabián!

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Mexico Argentina Experience Experiments 138

10,000 Birds

JUNE 20, 2022

Or would be, had I encountered more of them – so far, I have seen only a very small share of the approximately 233 woodpecker species, and got decent photos of an even smaller number – not much more than 10% of all of them. So, writing a post about them is easy.

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Woodpeckers South Africa China Singapore 230

10,000 Birds

JULY 9, 2019

Getting to actually see four species, in the last two weeks, and to hear two more is almost unheard of in my experience. The Great Horned Owls that live in the palm trees right above our RV have returned and brought with them a pair of fledglings. That was no deterrent from landing right in the middle of the road.

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Owls Arizona Tucson South Africa 150

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 9, 2015

However, there are those species which have a hard time bringing attention to themselves such as Yellow-shouldered Blackbird , Giant Nuthatch , and Vinaceous-breasted Parrot. Regardless of their popularity, these species and the threatened ecosystems they inhabit are equally spectacular. Curassows are such stately birds.

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Brazil California Condor Parrots Texas 213

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 31, 2019

I saw 863 species of birds, bringing my life list to 1,820. I also spent a week in northwestern Costa Rica on a family vacation, a long weekend in Barbados, a week in Georgia, and two week-plus-long trips to visit relatives in southern California. How can I narrow down the eight-hundred-sixty-three species to ten?

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2019 Barbados Uganda Costa Rica 139

10,000 Birds

MAY 17, 2015

He yelled a relatively unintelligible explanation as he ran to the car, abandoning his family, and sped to Jamaica Bay where he parked and ran out to the breach of the West Pond where he relied upon the kindness of other birders, who let him use their scopes while he got his breath back. Instead, it antagonizes us with petty worries.

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2015 Jamaica Canada Abandon 162

10,000 Birds

APRIL 20, 2014

While I was on a call with Corey, what should fly into the tree right outside my window but a Yellow-throated Warbler ? This species is quite rare during migration in my area and this bird was, in one sense, way too early but, for my purposes, right on time. What was your best bird of the weekend? Birding best bird weekend'

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2014 Birds Rights Experience 187

10,000 Birds

APRIL 12, 2022

I do not (yet) have any accessibility issues, and my only experience regarding anything akin to accessibility has been limited to the period when my daughter was in a stroller, which presents only a tiny sliver of the challenges faced by many. That’s the hashed-out area to the right of the top space in the photo below.)

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Portland Oregon Laws Experience 190

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 14, 2014

In this first installment, I will focus on my impressions and experiences in the highlands portion of our tour. Many Neotropical families and genera have some of their northernmost members here, such as the spinetails ( Rufous-breasted Spinetail ), Tangara tanagers ( Azure-rumped Tanager ), and guans ( Horned Guan ).

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Honduras Costa Rica El Salvador Arizona 213

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

These arid hills, cloaked in a mosaic of deciduous scrub and desert vegetation, form a northern outpost for several Neotropical species while also harboring several key endemics and southwestern Nearctic species. The birds we observed were nesting right into the cliff face. Think Arizona meets Costa Rica with a Mexican twist.

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Mexico Costa Rica Arizona Birds 191

10,000 Birds

MAY 17, 2020

Kroodsma waited for years for the right opportunity to record its different songs, a “cascade of sweet and liquid notes,” one naturalist said, “like the spray of a waterfall and sunshine.”. Like he does, say, for the Canyon wren. He had long wondered, Kroodsma says, how many songs, exactly, the Canyon wren has in his repertoire.

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Virginia Boston North America 2020 242

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 7, 2019

Travel to Tiquicia for birding is high on the list of most birders because it’s not too far from Canada or the USA, there is good tourism infrastructure, and most of all, it’s pretty easy to see hundreds of eye-catching bird species. Watch that one and keep an eye on the others because all sorts of species can show at any time.

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Costa Rica Cooking Birds Chickens 204

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 23, 2021

In fact, this is probably a species that has substantially expanded its original range through the pet shop route and the resulting escapees. In fact, it seems to be one of the species employed by past ornithologists to establish their own monument in the shape of a subspecies. I was vaguely curious about the family name mousebird.

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South Africa Africa Lesotho Nigeria 231

10,000 Birds

JULY 3, 2015

Many of these species were very high on my life bird wish list, and the country itself would be a totally new experience: a vibrant and enchanting culture, a varied and tasty cuisine, and stunning and new landscapes. Unlike most other members of the family, this species of motmot occurs in quite open and dry habitats.

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Mexico Birds Owls Sparrows 174

10,000 Birds

MAY 7, 2011

It may seem like cruel and unusual punishment for we denizens of the New World to spend an entire week celebrating what is surely the coolest family of birds in the world, a family that is sadly absent from the Old World, but it can’t be helped. Read about them here but also get out and experience them.

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United States South America Cooking Family 182

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 6, 2022

we learn) that are home to coveted boreal species, breeding wood-warblers, and two species of Grouse. There are 461 species on the Maine checklist. This field guide covers 265 species, the ones most likely to be seen–residential and migratory, almost all nesting birds, many wintering birds.

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Los Angeles Birds District of Columbia Parrots 194

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 11, 2017

At the end of October, my family flew to Florida for a multi-day road trip aimed at the beautiful springs. Water quality was good that day, and we could perfectly see the waving eelgrass, the freshwater fish species, the adorable turtles. How to describe these underwater avian species? An Anhinga dries its wings.

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Florida Fish Turtles Shelters 100

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 8, 2013

They are usually in a group and our garden regularly has a family group of eight visit it. They have listed under “Other names” in one of our field guides “Happy Family & Yahoo”! If you have any experience with these birds then it makes perfect sense. One of the cheerful Grey-crowned Babblers.

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Australia Groups Family Experience 157

10,000 Birds

JUNE 27, 2014

Parrots captivate me more than any other bird family. For one, they are remarkably diverse with a little over 380 species spread over every continent except Europe (only introduced) and Antarctica. However, they do not occur evenly across their familial distribution. I am a self-proclaimed psittacophile. Most do not.

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Parrots Brazil Mauritius Dominica 167

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 21, 2018

This is a protected area that includes the Los Cusingos Bird refuge, where we were guided by Andres Chinchilla, a young man who as a child ran around the farm where his family worked, and was to become this incredible bird refuge. His years of experience in this area were quite obvious as we found 62 species in one morning.

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Costa Rica San Jose Chinchillas Family 184

10,000 Birds

MAY 15, 2011

What species is shown? Though wood-warblers, the mostly brightly colored birds of the family Parulidae, are only found in the New World we felt that birders the world over would be pleased to see a plethora of posts about these striking and sought after species. Read about them here but also get out and experience them.

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United States South America 2011 2012 155

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 19, 2015

One particular family of owls had particularly evaded me. Brian had been completely right – a real owl had answered the one on my smartphone! Almost the entire family had us surrounded. I even saw one throw up an owl pellet, a simultaneously gross and awesome experience. Three owl species seen, many more to go!

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Owls Florida Family Raised 150

10,000 Birds

MAY 5, 2015

GISS—general impression, size, shape—is intuitive, the result of an unconscious cognitive process derived from experience in the field. It is not a handbook, though it approaches species from a collective viewpoint. These chapters differ in length and content, depending on the number of species in each group.

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Birds New Jersey Science Groups 169

10,000 Birds

MARCH 29, 2015

Excellent 10,000 Birds posts have been written about Pico Bonito and Honduras by Corey and Carlos , so I’m going to focus on some of my most memorable experiences. I would have known this right away if I was up to date on my Alexander Skutch. Which is why seeing them was such a great experience. We may have been wrong.

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Honduras Birds Costa Rica Groups 248

10,000 Birds

JULY 1, 2011

On a recent family trip to Jones Beach, on New York’s Long Island, I had the opportunity to observe a small flock of gulls bathing, resting, and preening in some shallow brackish water that had collected behind the beach. Ugly, right? But also interesting in terms of what they can teach the careful observer about molt and aging.

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New York Collecting Sparrows Experience 180