10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 26, 2021

Family-owned since 1972, the property’s first guests were volcanologists from the Smithsonian Institute. These researchers preferred this property for their research due to its close proximity to the Arenal Volcano and resplendent natural environment. Over time, the lodge grew into a haven for birders and naturalists alike.

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Costa Rica Reptiles Research Industry 157

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 2, 2021

He also believes that we are living in an era of incredible scientific research, one in which new genetic technology and findings from diverse scientific disciplines have turned assumptions upside down, opened up new lines of thought, and provided answers, or at least probable answers, to many of our questions about why birds do the things they do.

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Science Albatross Research Birds 233

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 3, 2021

There was a time when I thought each bird species had its own individual song. Then I found out that there was this vocalization called a ‘call,’ so I thought each bird species had its own individual song (but just the males) and individual call. © 2021 Barbara Ballentine and Jeremy Hyman & Quarto Publishing.

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North America Research Birds Groups 279

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 3, 2022

Few places boast so many different bird species in such a small area — over 900 species (more than Europe, or all of the United States and Canada combined), including 75 different families, like 51 species of hummingbirds, 48 warblers, and 45 tanagers. It was close to 5 a.m., More about it in the weeks to come.

Costa Rica 258

Costa Rica San Jose Nepal Europe 258

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 23, 2023

At vulture family gatherings, it is always a bit of a bother for the organizers to cater to the needs of the Palm Nut Vulture. The White-eared Barbet is another bird species with an annoyingly sensible Latin species name, leucotis (white-eared). But the same species was never found again. It must be frustrating.

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South Africa Africa 2018 Birds 147

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

An associated issue is that the Belize and Costa Rica guides share many of the same descriptions of species, written by Howell. Similarly, descriptions of species repeated across volumes do not lose their accuracy with each publication. Other species are splits and lumped and have had their names changed. Why are these issues?

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Costa Rica Belize El Salvador Birds 233

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.

Woodpeckers 251

Woodpeckers South Africa China Singapore 251

10,000 Birds

JUNE 6, 2021

If you’ve had an encounter with a wild animal – a bird stunned by hitting a window, a fox hit by a car, or a family of raccoons unexpectedly found residing in your attic – you know how hard it can be to find help. This is a valuable resource you can pass along to your friends and family, wherever they live.

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Wildlife Wildlife Rehabilitation Animal Raccoons 264

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 1, 2020

A logical and outstanding successor to The Genius of Birds (2016), Ackerman’s award-winning book about bird cognition, The Bird Way explores the diversity of bird behavior, the norm and the extremes, with an emphasis on cutting-edge research and findings that explode assumptions. Yet, the research projects are never the whole story.

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Research Birds Science Costa Rica 244

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. It is still volcanically active with researchers periodically discovering new flows.

South Africa 264

South Africa Mice Albatross Africa 264

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 1, 2023

The official Ontario bird checklist, produced by Ontario Field Ornithologists , June 2022 listed 506 bird species**, putting it in the top tier of U.S. Small Species Accounts: Each species is allotted one page (with certain exceptions) offering basics–bird names and size, one or two photographs, and a one-paragraph description.

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North America Birds Owls Canada 231

10,000 Birds

APRIL 8, 2024

This post starts like every birding blog post should start – by showcasing some bulbul species. The researchers speculate that this is because of the contrast against the green canopy background – an explanation that seems a bit spurious to me if applied to captive birds. Yes, I am joking.

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Birds Owls China Research 153

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 25, 2015

A new paper out this month attempts to paint the most comprehensive picture yet of the origins and diversification of the American sparrows, wood-warblers, blackbirds, cardinals, tanagers, and their kin, an enormous group of birds more than 800 species strong. The paper is by leading researchers F. Keith Barker, Kevin J.

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Sparrows North America South America Blackbirds 267

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 8, 2020

Guiding aside, Howell is a research associate at the California Academy of Sciences and the author of many books, including Petrels, Albatrosses, and Storm-Petrels of North America (Princeton). We have tended to a liberal (= realistic) direction when recognising species.” And that is what recommends Steve N. And now – the photos.

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Chile Birds South America North America 219

10,000 Birds

MARCH 31, 2022

Not bad given that the 5 families in the inner circle of the laughingthrush family have a combined number of about 68 species. ” Fortunately, most of these researchers could be taken off their antidepressants after proper sound recording was invented. This post shows some of them.

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San Diego Malaysia China Zoos 226

10,000 Birds

MARCH 3, 2020

That’s pretty amazing–Bolivia has more bird species than India! The source of this ranking, BirdLife International, lists Bolivia as currently having 1,439 bird species, including 18 breeding endemics. The guide covers 1,433 species, the number of birds documented at the end of 2014, the cutoff point for the book.

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Bolivia Birds Brazil Switzerland 187

10,000 Birds

JUNE 1, 2021

Pough “with illustrations in color of every species” by Don Eckelberry, Doubleday, 1946. The National Audubon Society Birds of North America covers all species seen in mainland United States, Canada and Baja California. The press material says it covers over 800 species, so you know I had to do a count.

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North America America Birds California Condor 279

10,000 Birds

MAY 19, 2015

The feature distinguishes birds from other species; All birds have them, no other species do. Beaks vary across different kinds of birds, and this great diversity in beaks is part of the great diversity of the 10,000+ species of birds that exist today; Beaks thus facilitated the diversification of birds. So how did beaks evolve?

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Alligators Chickens Research Birds 228

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 1, 2022

campus gardens – the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Centre, located 3 km east of the town of Turrialba. This species qualifies as Critically Endangered because extensive habitat destruction and capture for the cagebird trade are causing extremely rapid and continuing population declines.

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Costa Rica Nicaragua 2019 Farming 253

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 6, 2015

Here are some things I’ve learned from the Peterson Reference Guide to Owls of North America and the Caribbean by Scott Weidensaul: The Burrowing Owl is the only North American owl species where the male is larger than the female, albeit, only slightly larger. And the term is ‘non-reversed size dimorphism.’).

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North America Owls America Dominican Republic 238

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 27, 2021

I stopped at the Red Crossbill , realizing that the species indeed “occupies an immense range, including North America, Eurasia, and northern Africa” (HBW) – including Baxi forest, China. It is hard to see any scientific value in defining a bird species as a country endemic. Progress of sorts, I guess.

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China Birds Nevada North America 248

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 18, 2021

All sorts of exotic and beautiful species may be seen. This would sound attractive even to me, except for one fact: almost all of those exotic and beautiful species are common down here in central Mexico. Southeastern Arizona is unusual, precisely because its species mix is as much Mexican as it is American.

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Arizona Mexico Los Angeles Dallas 264

10,000 Birds

APRIL 22, 2021

Just last year, 5 new bird species and 5 new subspecies were discovered in a few short weeks of fieldwork on the islands of Taliabu, Peleng and Batudaka. In recent years Indonesia has been competing with the Andes as the region giving rise to the biggest number of undescribed bird species (naturally, all of them endemics).

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Indonesia Timor Brunei Guinea 264

10,000 Birds

JULY 21, 2014

This research suggests that the boom isn’t due to an influx of newcomers, but rather because more local birds are flourishing and successfully rearing families. Specifically, researchers found that in EAB-infested areas, the birds preferred ash trees to other trees, and seemed to favor the ashes with the most severe damage.

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Woodpeckers Illinois Science Chicago 273

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 6, 2022

This is “the deep cradle of Western ornithology: the birthplace of bird study,” he tells us as he writes about gazing at the 8,000-year old depictions of “flamingos, herons, raptors, avocets and many other species” (p. Common Guillemot research at Skomer Island, Wales.

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Dissection Birds Research Europe 241

10,000 Birds

MARCH 2, 2021

The guide has been expertly, even lovingly revised, expanded and updated (as the authors’ names indicate, this is largely a family affair). This second edition covers 685 species found in the continental U.S. and Canada, including some species as far north as Alaska, an increase over the 500 species covered in the first edition.

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North America America Species 2018 276

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 17, 2017

” While I’m well-known for my love of alcids, the rallidae are also a weird and wonderful bird family that deserve more attention overall. But those species that do fly, despite their stubby wings, often migrate long distances and some species are downright prone to vagrancy.

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Chickens Family Research Species 100

10,000 Birds

JUNE 2, 2015

I’m happy to say that Laura Erickson and Marie Read have written a book, Into the Nest: Intimate Views of the Courting, Parenting, and Family Lives of Familiar Birds , that is not too cute and that does not anthropomorphize. Some chapters focus on one species (Yellow Warbler), some on several related species (Chickadees and Nuthatches).

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Eggs Family 2006 New York 263

10,000 Birds

APRIL 30, 2017

Way back in the days when blog posts still got a lot of comments, I wrote a piece on why field guides that arrange species in a more or less strict taxonomic order regularly frustrate me. Taxonomy is constantly changing and so does the order of species in field guides. Order of bird families, non-songbirds. I see a problem.

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Brunei 2009 2016 2014 170

10,000 Birds

JUNE 9, 2022

If I was an ornithologist aiming for a grant, I would now definitely highlight the need for more research on this topic. The Grey-Streaked Flycatcher looks only marginally more interesting, and while the Latin species name griseisticta sounds vaguely mysterious, it only means grey-spotted.

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Singapore Mountain Goats Birds Giraffes 147

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 20, 2019

It is always hot in Kununurra and you can easily observe many of the bird species around town from your air-conditioned vehicle. We then go along Research Station Road, Stock Route Road and complete the circuit back into town along Weaber Plains Road. On our recent trip to Kununurra we travelled our usual route around the township.

Cattle 107

Cattle Research Family Rights 107

10,000 Birds

JULY 13, 2014

It’s mid-July, which among other things means that those of us in North America are starting to check local mudflats for returning shorebird migrants and waiting impatiently for the AOU to hurry up and create five species from the Clapper-King rail complex (the reasons for which we covered last year ). Elephant birds and their kiwi kin.

New Zealand 211

New Zealand Elephants Sparrows Ostriches 211

10,000 Birds

MARCH 15, 2017

I was looking for a new project to write about on Wikipedia, something unusual, and this species appealed for reasons I can’t quite define. Wikipedia doesn’t allow that lest it be overrun with all manner of research proving feminism causes cancer. It was both mysterious and plain. .

Science 113

Science Argentina South America Uruguay 113

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 5, 2013

A little bit of research when I got home unraveled the ways of publishers here and in Great Britain. First published in 1973 in association with the Asa Wright Center, the book focuses on species descriptions, with illustrations grouped together in plates positioned in the center of the book. The AOU has not accepted that split.

Trinidad 211

Trinidad Birds South America Research 211

10,000 Birds

JULY 13, 2016

Every time I travel into a new area, I try to do my due diligence and have a pretty good idea of what bird species I might expect to find. A few weeks ago, when we traveled to Guadalajara, Mexico, I researched the many different species, especially the hummingbirds. In mid June, the sun was out, and it was a beautiful day.

Mexico 108

Mexico Reptiles Research Dogs 108

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 10, 2012

The family Picathartidae consists of two very unusual birds; White-necked or Yellow-headed Picathartes , endemic to the Upper Guinea forests of West Africa; and Gray-necked or Red-headed , restricted to Lower Guinea forests of Central Africa. I have only seen this species in the massive and beautiful Korup National Park in Cameroon.

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Sierra Leone Ghana Cameroon Equatorial Guinea 273

10,000 Birds

MARCH 6, 2018

It’s not often that we have the opportunity to glimpse the home life of albatrosses, nor of any seabird species. This is essentially a survey of ornithological marine research told in the voice of one of its most passionate and experienced participants. What about incubation shifts?

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Albatross Penguins Research Breeding 114