10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 21, 2012

While New Zealand is famous for its endemic oddities, once upon a time New Zealand also had many birds from groups and families that are no longer found here. The mysterious piopio were recently recognized for what they were, New Zealand’s representatives from the oriole family. And eagles.

Eagles 102

Eagles New Zealand Bald Eagle Collecting 102

10,000 Birds

JUNE 9, 2021

Only recently was it discovered that one group, which breeds on the Shetland Islands, flies across the Atlantic to winter off the coast of Ecuador – ten thousand miles away from its cousins who breed in Scandanavia and western Russia. Once it was thought that all Red-necked Phalaropes migrated overland to the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean.

Alaska 215

Alaska Breeding Kenya Africa 215

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 20, 2014

It confirms many of the once-radical notions put forward or refined by Shannon Hackett and her colleagues in 2008, and several since, and it proposes solutions to some of the most deeply unresolved questions about how major bird groups are related to each other. ( “Metaves” was purported to contain the groups in Jarvis et al.’s

Family 279

Family Birds Parrots 2014 279

10,000 Birds

MARCH 1, 2011

Or These Blasts From The Past Preening Juvenile Yellowthroat Welcome to New Zealand! Researchers comparing these traits across groups of closely related species – parrots, tits, sparrows, darwins finches etc – find no general correlation between neophobia and exploration. I like the neophobia-exploration issue too.

Cats 149

Cats 2011 Costa Rica Deer 149