10,000 Birds

JULY 24, 2013

Two years ago I wrote about the earthquake that struck Christchurch, killing many people and wrecking on of New Zealand’s biggest cites. This weekend it was the turn of Wellington, where I live, to experience a strong quake, albeit onto one nearly as destructive or tragic. News earthquakes geology New Zealand'

New Zealand 146

New Zealand Cooking Killing Experience 146

10,000 Birds

JULY 6, 2011

One of only two species in the plover genus Thinornis , the other being Australia’s Hooded Plover , this species is another New Zealand endemic. The species in fact used to occur across New Zealand, but declined quickly with the arrival of introduced mammals. It was just this tendency that allowed me to see them.

New Zealand 161

New Zealand Penguins Endangered Species Species 161

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 6, 2012

Nature lovers who love to travel know that few experiences are more enjoyable than preparation for a big trip. Sunrise at Kaikoura in New Zealand (If you visit at the right time, you might see what Duncan saw here: albatrosses !). Your theoretical trip list will always be so much more extensive and exotic than your actual list.

New Zealand 131

New Zealand 2012 Singapore Japan 131

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. But my long wait to see antelope, zebras and everything in between is finally over.

Uganda 160

Uganda Sharks Africa New Zealand 160

10,000 Birds

JULY 18, 2018

When we were planning this trip, New Zealand, Australia, and most certainly South Africa got all my attention. It was an all around quality experience. New Zealand species 104. The last few visits were almost after thoughts, and boy was that a mistake! eBird.org checklists 235. US Species 101. Qatar species 9.

South Africa 100

South Africa New Zealand Costa Rica Qatar 100

10,000 Birds

JULY 23, 2012

After all, North America has no native hedgehogs and seeing something so outside of our normal experience was pretty exciting, even if the little guy quickly headed for cover and refused to show itself for Clay Taylor, who came upon the scene a minute too late. New Zealand has a host of hedgehogs but they are introduced.

Hedgehogs 168

Hedgehogs Hungary Opossums North America 168

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 163

Penguins New Zealand Zoos Birds 163

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 25, 2016

Of course if you are in Australia or New Zealand you probably won’t be reading this until Boxing Day, because it goes up late in the day here! The same experience was to be had at Rutland Water, so watch out for the sneaky upside down ducks! Finally it turned itself the right way up and was a Pintail Duck ! Pintail Duck.

2016 145

2016 Geese Birds Ducks 145

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 29, 2014

He introduces ideas and slowly builds on them, staring with the outbreak of Hendra in people and horses in Queensland before moving the story to his own experiences of great ape die-off when he was covering Michael Fay’s Megatransect in the Congo Basin. This lake is close to the cave. My photo of the cave was bad, sorry.

Humane 160

Humane Animal Africa Ukraine 160

10,000 Birds

JUNE 27, 2014

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. In my experience, parrots form a visibly and numerically important component of the Brazilian bird fauna.

Parrots 167

Parrots Brazil Mauritius Dominica 167

10,000 Birds

JUNE 3, 2014

Laughing Owl, 1909, New Zealand, photo taken by Cuthbert and Oliver Parr, pp. The Laughing Owl of New Zealand exhibited an apparent lack of fear of strangers and a propensity to spend time on the ground, making it easy pickings for introduced predators. And, they are fascinating. The photographs were never published.

Animal 261

Animal Mammals Hawaii Dolphins 261

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 21, 2016

The Oceanwide Expeditions are giving away one free cruise ticket for the month long expedition from New Zealand through the Ross Sea to Argentina. For obvious reasons, she has done no canoeing there, yet, her activity reports were the longest of all. The snow was falling, the wind was blowing… what else to do? Now you know.

Russia 161

Russia Penguins Whales Whaling 161

10,000 Birds

JUNE 9, 2022

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. A hard-working Chinese Blackbird almost certainly already incubating its second brood is certainly not a target customer for a La-Z-Boy.

Singapore 147

Singapore Mountain Goats Birds Giraffes 147

10,000 Birds

JULY 7, 2015

The descriptions are all similar: a graceful black-capped shearwater with clean white underparts and patterned upperparts that breeds in New Zealand and which is uncommon in U.S. It’s perfect for birders like me, birders who have some experience, but who get all queasy inside at the thought of identifying seabirds on their own.

Dolphins 162

Dolphins Whales Whaling Porpoises 162

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 18, 2012

And most recently, a team of researchers from New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Austria have demonstrated that New Caledonian Crows understand UCAs. Here’s the idea. Here, the crows are initially very jittery, frequently inspecting the hole of mystery. Taylor, Alex, Miller, Rachael, & Gray, Russell (2012).

Abandon 217

Abandon Abandoning Abandonment Research 217

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 19, 2011

They represent the best of New Zealand’s birding, the astonishing rarity, the fascinating endemism, and the cheering triumph of conservation. White-tailed Tropicbird by Nathan Swick Renato chose an impressive parrot: Birding is a wonderful experience in itself.

2011 173

2011 Birds South Korea North Dakota 173

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 3, 2020

Each chapter focuses on a specific geographic area of penguin population: (1) Antarctica, (2) South Georgia, (3) Falkland Islands, (4) South Africa and Tristan de Cunha, (5) New Zealand and Australia, (6) South America and Galapagos. The organization works out quite logically if you are planning a trip to, let’s say, New Zealand.

Penguins 276

Penguins Georgia New Zealand Albatross 276

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 18, 2012

The entire experience lasted maybe less than five minutes before the bird disappeared. The bird proceeded to walk within feet of the driver’s set of my rental vehicle, giving me absolutely stunning looks before it began its retreat into the dense brush.

Guinea 137

Guinea Meat Australia Pets 137

4 The Love Of Animals

MARCH 17, 2011

Grief, friendship, gratitude, wonder, and other things we animals experience. Waterfall Dances: Do animals have spiritual experiences? On a beach in New Zealand, a dolphin came to the rescue of two pygmy sperm whales stranded behind a sand bar. by Marc Bekoff. Photo by Flickker Photos.

Emotional 100

Emotional Animal Whales Whaling 100

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 14, 2011

There are four common species in the Sanctuary, the Brown Teal (which being smaller than Mallards have correspondingly smaller and even more adorable chicks), the Mallard / Grey Duck hybrids (known as Grallards here), the New Zealand Scaup , and dominating one end of the lower lake, the Paradise Shelducks.

New Zealand 172

New Zealand Sanctuary Ducks Wildlife 172

10,000 Birds

APRIL 25, 2019

4%: Mexico, West Papua (Indonesia), New Zealand, South Africa, Kenya. 10%: Australia, Papua New Guinea. 15%: Colombia, New Guinea (irrespective of the part/country). They would like to experience it, but have no sufficient knowledge of its birding possibilities to choose one, or a few, instead of a continent as a whole.

Papua New Guinea 214

Papua New Guinea America Costa Rica Sri Lanka 214

10,000 Birds

MARCH 9, 2011

One bird I apparently heard at the landing (although it didn’t register to me) was the Fernbird , New Zealand’s only Old World warbler (or more accurately megalurid warbler ). Greg the Naughty Takahe ( Porphyrio hochstetteri ) Tags: Destinations , new zealand • Have you seen the cool 10,000 Birds t-shirts?

New Zealand 147

New Zealand 2011 Deer Cats 147

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.

Thailand 152

Thailand New Zealand Terrapins Asia 152

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 11, 2013

One of the nice things about Christmas in New Zealand is that we get to experience it in the summer, when things are pretty kicking here. Since I started this blog I’ve wanted to do a post on pohutukawa, or New Zealand Christmas tree, and every Christmas I have been away. Birds New Zealand Wellington'

New Zealand 166

New Zealand Hunting Sanctuary Ducks 166

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). or birders who live there (but, how can you bird it all?). Bruce Richardson.

Australia 105

Australia Birds Penguins 2015 105

Critter News

OCTOBER 3, 2008

Australian Association for Humane Research says that Australia experiments on more animals per capita than the European Union, the UK and New Zealand. They are trying to get figures for the Northern Territory.

Australia 100

Australia New Zealand Animal Research Animal 100

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 10, 2011

Many a birding trip starts with a longish drive from the airport to the first birding site with these common roadside birds being the first taste you get of a country’s wildlife, and I feel that many bird trip reports, interested mostly in mega-rarities, gloss over the amazing experience this first drive can give.

New Zealand 171

New Zealand Birds Thailand Falcons 171

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 145

New Zealand Birds Australia Kangaroos 145

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 20, 2014

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). Jarvis et al.

Family 279

Family Parrots Birds 2014 279

10,000 Birds

APRIL 13, 2011

Last Sunday marked the end of an era in New Zealand with the sad passing of the conservationist and ornithologist and all round inspiration Don Merton. The experience was to prove critical the following year when introduced rats reached crisis levels on the remaining island of the South Island Saddleback.

Species 214

Species New Zealand Rats Endangered Species 214

10,000 Birds

JULY 31, 2013

This scraggly collection of islands and deep long bays forms the tip of South Island closest to to North Island, but till this point my only experience of the area had been the long passage down Queen Charlotte Sound to reach the ferry terminal of Picton. New Zealand Fantail.

New Zealand 164

New Zealand Charlotte Hunting Family 164

10,000 Birds

MAY 16, 2011

In my experience, Cinnamon Teal x Common or Green-winged Teal hybrids are the rarest; I have seen pictures of only 2 such birds and a 3rd bird (the one mentioned above) in life. The flanks are partly striped but also finely vermiculated in part.

Ducks 217

Ducks North America Denmark America 217

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.

Australia 174

Australia Chickens Birds Seals 174

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.). and used for travel of the soul. ISBN: 9780691162997.

Penguins 188

Penguins New Zealand South Africa Albatross 188

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 7, 2021

Harrison writes in the introductory section “How To Use This Book”: “The basis of distinguishing confusion species is personal field experience gained over the past 60 or more years of sailing the world’s oceans during which all but one of the more than 430 species contained in this volume have been observed.”

Albatross 278

Albatross Penguins Groups Family 278

10,000 Birds

APRIL 24, 2013

Anzac Day started as a commemoration day for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps’ disastrous Gallipoli Campaign during the First World War. This provides me a roundabout way to discuss one of the quirks of New Zealand, the name of her people. Royal New Zealand Air Force roundel.

New Zealand 161

New Zealand Campaign Mammals Suffering 161

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 18, 2016

What experience do I have to confirm my qualifications? What do I want to deliver? My agenda is to help to make the Ross Sea an international marine protected area. This is WHY. And I do need YOUR VOTE for that. But am I qualified for the job?

Agenda 159

Agenda Protection New Zealand Argentina 159