10,000 Birds

JANUARY 29, 2017

The hours are ticking down to Super Bowl LI, a hotly anticipated contest between perennial contenders New England Patriots and the upstart, high-flying Atlanta Falcons. Will the Atlanta Falcons actually win the Super Bowl? Considering how humanity treats birds around the world, this is clearly a case of sports imitating life.

Falcons 115

Falcons Atlanta 2001 Game 115

10,000 Birds

MARCH 27, 2015

Some people do think the Northern Goshawk is undignified, at least compared to the falcons, as I learned while reading the excellent memoir H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald. As Macdonald herself amply proves, this is classic projection, another case of the human seeing in the nonhuman only what we want to see.

Falcons 260

Falcons Eagles Meat Geese 260

10,000 Birds

JUNE 5, 2015

I had a finder bring me a bird he’d correctly ID’d as a merlin – a not-too-common falcon – but when he brought him in, I could see he’d been trying to feed it BIRD SEED!” At least bacon is meat,” added Letitia Labbie. “We I opened the box, and there was a bowl of raw hamburger meat in there for him to eat.”

Squirrels 250

Squirrels Hamburgers Chickens Wildlife Rehabilitation 250

10,000 Birds

APRIL 8, 2011

Peregrine Falcon is certainly more elegant than Duck Hawk. Gray Jay : This drab but charismatic species demonstrates that the more a bird interacts with humans, the more colloquial names it will tend to pick up. Also known as Meat-bird, Moosebird, and Lumberjack. But it sounds so much more sophisticated to say Ouzel.

Hunters 195

Hunters Falcons Ducks Montana 195

10,000 Birds

JUNE 20, 2019

Below legal size for humans is still legal for pelicans. Barely outside of it, the quarry near Sidirokastro rewarded me with Alpine Swifts , European Honey Buzzard , Peregrine Falcon , Eurasian Crag Martins , Red-rumped Swallows and Blue Rock Thrush. Over time, an unusual bond of mutual likeliness was created. I’m in Greece, after all.

Greece 203

Greece Pelicans Buffalo Fish 203