10,000 Birds

AUGUST 2, 2015

There are few places in the United States where simply driving around can leave you with a list of 30+ species, many of them large and spectacular. It’s a family vacation, sure, but there’s always time for birding and in Florida, the birding often finds you. I’ve spent the last week in southwest Florida.

Owls 196

Owls Florida Tenant United States 196

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 8, 2017

The last weekend of January found me in the frosty Pacific Northwest, meeting some long over due work and family obligations. After leaving the sunny weather of Mexico, setting out for a short hike with morning temperature of 28 degrees was a shock to my system, to say the least. Dang it was cold, I gotta get back to Mexico!

Wildlife 104

Wildlife Seattle Bald Eagle Geese 104

10,000 Birds

JUNE 7, 2017

The cactus are not the only things down here that are protected in this manner. When it comes to a one stop shopping for food and shelter, no other plant is as widely used as the Cardon Cactus family. Members of the genus Pachycereus , there are a couple of species which are quite prevalent here on the southern Baja.

Elephants 105

Elephants Woodpeckers Squirrels Shelters 105

10,000 Birds

MAY 6, 2016

Rehabbers are very responsive, although constantly living under the gun makes us sometimes vent about species that aren’t necessarily the ones in question. Three: Why would anyone , no matter what their species, want to become tangled in human hair? I asked a group of wildlife rehabilitators: “What are some of the Worst Bird Myths?

Wildlife Rehabilitation 174

Wildlife Rehabilitation Porcupines Raccoons Birds 174

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 7, 2014

It’s relatively easy to classify birds into family groups based on physical characteristics. We view them as our enemies when they eat our crops and as an extension of our family when we see them at our feeders. We worship birds, we hunt birds, we protect birds, and, yes, we eat birds. So, I just sit here, amazed at this book.

Birds 207

Birds Egypt Family Eagles 207

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 27, 2017

Located about 20 miles from Lakeview, Oregon, and sitting at an elevation of 5100 feet, this 208 acre lake is home to many species of fish, including Largemouth Bass, Crappie and Bluegill. With shore side access limited to the northern end of the lake, that protection allows for a large population of water based birds.

Dogs 103

Dogs Mules Deer Oregon 103

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 28, 2011

The conservation need is urgent: great attention has rightly been paid to Brazil’s Amazonian rainforest but not enough resources have gone to the Pantanal and the Cerrado, of which only 4% and 5%, respectively, are protected. Talk about a win-win!

Brazil 197

Brazil Wildlife 2011 Birds 197

10,000 Birds

MARCH 11, 2011

That larger clade is in turn sister to a clade containing the four remaining totipalmate bird families, which do still seem to be related, and which needed a new order name once pelicans were removed. But meanwhile, let’s look at the four avian families that comprise the brand new order Suliformes.

2011 151

2011 Pelicans Papua New Guinea Birds 151

10,000 Birds

MAY 7, 2019

So, for example, Essay #15, “Individual Variation,” uses Herring Gulls to introduce the concept that one species, even one species at a specific age, can vary widely in appearance. John Schmitt, who illustrated Raptors of Mexico and Central America amongst many other books and magazine articles.

Birds 114

Birds North America Breeding America 114

10,000 Birds

JULY 27, 2023

When you have birded a single area as much and for as long as I have birded Michoacán, it becomes progressively harder to find first-time species (“lifers”) there. I had seen several species turn up in new and unexpected places there, but none of them were birds that I had never seen before.

Bats 130

Bats Mexico ALA 2020 130

10,000 Birds

MARCH 10, 2011

The vast majority of Baltimore Orioles that breed in North America return to the tropics between Mexico and northern South America for the cold half of the year. A trip to the coastal plain may net you up to seven species of warblers, from the omnipresent Yellow-rumps to Chats and Cape Mays. But how does the apply to Orioles?

North Carolina 140

North Carolina 2011 St. Louis Baltimore 140

10,000 Birds

JULY 6, 2021

If you had your choice of one bird family to pursue, to seek out and observe and photograph and kvell over, which one would you choose? A passion for one bird family is also very useful. Hummingbird species, on the other hand, number in the hundreds. So, when British natural history writer Jon Dunn (not to be confused with U.S.

Costa Rica 264

Costa Rica Brazil Ecuador Bolivia 264

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 9, 2020

Although, technically, I mostly felt your pain… for the past four months, while about a dozen beautiful migratory Wood Warblers were nowhere to be found here in central Mexico. What my previous experience had not prepared me for, was that this summer I would see many of those species for the first time all at once.

Mexico 167

Mexico Nashville Virginia Shelters 167

10,000 Birds

JUNE 2, 2021

But I felt that photos of Mexican species wouldn’t make much sense to west-coast Americans, so I added some descriptions of the birds and how I saw them. But most of our forest has a combination of both pines and oaks, with dozens of species from each family growing in the state of Michoacán. S triped-headed Sparrows.

Costa Rica 149

Costa Rica Birds Mexico illegal 149

10,000 Birds

MARCH 14, 2011

Kills in Canada, Alaska and Mexico are not included in the count. Further, the crane take in Mexico is a free-for-all: neither regulated nor recorded. Initiating a hunting season on a large, charismatic species like a crane is no way to resuscitate hunting. Nationwide, wildlife watchers now outspend hunters 6 to 1.

2011 241

2011 Kentucky Tennessee Hunting 241

10,000 Birds

JULY 3, 2018

In some cases, he took all adult males of the species or subspecies held by the museum. Or, to keep the priceless feathers hidden away in drawers, protected in small plastic bags, prized in secret. government (Johnson had worked in Iraq for USAID, where he learned about his friends and colleagues problems first-hand).

Collecting 103

Collecting Iraq Ostriches Science 103

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 7, 2021

Decades later, Richard Pough’s Audubon Bird Guide, Eastern Land Birds (I happily own the 1948 edition) included nest and egg descriptions for each species as well. And photographs of feathers in the species accounts, which surprised me. Text retrieved from the Hathitrust Digital Library. The first is accomplished well.

Eggs 222

Eggs Birds United States Sparrows 222

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 5, 2011

The Western Gull is a relatively common marine gull found on the western coast of the United States and northern Mexico. The island is also the largest colony of the species anywhere in their range, making it the capital of their tyrannical empire. Second, “Can I get away with it?” (Ans.,

Breeding 174

Breeding Collecting California Hunting 174

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 28, 2016

I must have keep 400 images in the file of just this one species. There is a small Federal Reserve, set aside on the white sandy beach near San Jose Del Cabo, in order to protect the nesting Least Terns. This late evening photo of an American Avocet is one of my all time favorites of this species.

Grizzly Bear 114

Grizzly Bear San Jose Bears Fish 114

10,000 Birds

JUNE 15, 2011

It didn’t take long to be set right though, as I managed to get my first native species, the Polynesian Starling , while drinking a Coke on the waterfront of Nuku’alofa, the small town on Tongatapu which is Tonga’s capital. Whereas Tongatapu was flat, ‘Eua was quite hilly and had a great deal more forest.

Tonga 160

Tonga Fiji New Zealand Parrots 160

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 7, 2017

The Crossley ID Guide: Waterfowl covers every residential, migrating, vagrant, exotic, and introduced swan, goose, dabbling and diving duck in North America (Canada and the United States): 62 Species Accounts on four swan species and one vagrant subspecies; 15 goose species; 46 duck species; plus accounts for hybrid geese, ducks and exotics.

Ducks 115

Ducks North America Geese Hunters 115

10,000 Birds

MARCH 7, 2023

Plume hunting raged supreme 150 years ago, when egret feathers were part of a worldwide trade in feathers and other bird parts, used for women’s hats and other articles of clothing (but mostly hats), delighting the upper classes and practically wiping out bird species. Congress and Senate who recognized the need to protect the birds.

Connecticut 147

Connecticut Washington Legislation Hunting 147