10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 11, 2013

If you’re into family ticks, and into armchair ticks, well, I hope you’ve been to New Zealand, because the island just got another endemic bird family. That the three species of mohoua (genus Mohoua ) are New Zealand’s newest family is hardly a surprise. Say hello to the Mohouidae.

Family 182

Family New Zealand Birds Parrots 182

10,000 Birds

APRIL 4, 2018

This weeks posting finds me north of the Whananaki area, which is north of Auckland, New Zealand. Unfortunately, there have been no new birds that I can check off my “Wish List” but if you have to hang out in a place, this is pretty awesome. We are spending some time here on my wife’s family property right on the water.

New Zealand 100

New Zealand Groups Alaska Laws 100

10,000 Birds

JULY 11, 2012

Wildlife conservation is concerned with protecting wildlife at the level of species or perhaps population. With the exception of species that number in the hundreds, conservation biologists are not as concerned with the fates of individual animals, it is only when such fates of many individuals are added up do they begin to worry.

Animal Rights 267

Animal Rights Rights New Zealand Animal 267

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 23, 2013

While I have previously praised the efforts of the Department of Conservation and other large conservation organisations, so today let me sing the praises of smaller groups, specifically the Rotokare Scenic Reserve Trust. Rare species, like North Island Brown Kiwi , have been reintroduced. New Zealand fantails were very common.

New Zealand 161

New Zealand Sanctuary Mammals Wildlife 161

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 11, 2021

You can easily see that this blog post is trying to appeal to two very different target groups – birders and those who like independent/alternative music. Unfortunately, I have never been to New Zealand and thus have not had a chance to see a kiwi. But an eagle it has to be, and this is a nice-looking species.

South Africa 240

South Africa China Germany Birds 240

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 22, 2012

New Zealand has one of the direst records of extinction is modern times, second on really to Hawaii in terms of bird species lost. I’ve also touched on how New Zealanders have responded to these extinctions, but not in as much depth. Where does New Zealand go from here? Stewart island big.

New Zealand 174

New Zealand Rats Mammals Possums 174

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 21, 2013

I often like to poke fun at how dangerous the wildlife of Australia is, as ever since the giant man-eating Haast’s Eagle went extinct the land life on New Zealand has been mostly harmless. New Zealand is New Zealand, as opposed to a frozen chunk of Antarctica or baking hot chunk of Australia, because of this kind of activity.

New Zealand 170

New Zealand Vanuatu Australia Hawaii 170

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 9, 2011

One common feature of the relationship between early explorers and colonists and the birds of the New Worlds was the tendency of said explorers to name birds after familiar birds from back home (although of course there was the counter notion that the same species deserved a new name – I’m looking at you loons/divers).

New Zealand 160

New Zealand Australia Penguins Family 160

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 7, 2021

There is much to enjoy and appreciate here and I only wish I could have tested out some of these species accounts in pelagic waters before writing about them (sadly, the 10,000 Birds pelagic to Antarctica was canceled this year). SCOPE & SPECIES ORGANIZATION. It covers 434 species across 9 orders and 18 families of birds.

Albatross 279

Albatross Penguins Family Groups 279

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 28, 2014

The colorful Purple Swamphen ( Porphyrio porphyrio ) lives in wetlands from Portugal and Senegal all the way east to New Zealand and the Samoan Islands, and a feral population is now well established in Florida. Here’s a quick overview of the six potential “Purple Swamphen” species: European or Western Swamphen.

Papua New Guinea 198

Papua New Guinea Philippines New Zealand Florida 198

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 29, 2012

Before humans spread across the oceans of the world, wiping out huge numbers of endemic insular species , pretty much every decent sized island far from the continents had its own species of rail. Those days are sadly gone, and very few flightless species of rail survive. Once upon a time the average bird on Earth was a rail.

New Zealand 175

New Zealand Species Groups Humane 175

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. There were once two species of goose, a merganser, and a pair of raven species. New Zealand had eagles. And eagles.

Eagles 102

Eagles New Zealand Bald Eagle Collecting 102

10,000 Birds

MARCH 2, 2011

home about advertise archives birds conservation contact galleries links reviews subscribe Browse: Home / Birds / Petrel Paradise Petrel Paradise By Duncan • March 2, 2011 • 4 comments Tweet Share I’ve mentioned before that New Zealand is a great place for enjoying petrels.

New Zealand 176

New Zealand Albatross 2011 Cooking 176

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 9, 2019

In the end, I truly did set out to reduce the number of birds that I feature here from 1302, my years total species, down to 10-12. The Southern Brown Kiwi on Stewart Island, New Zealand, that ran down the path in front of me, was never captured. The first bird in that grouping would be the White-crowned Helmut-shrike.

2018 171

2018 Costa Rica South Africa New Zealand 171

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 ). Gowen et al.

New Zealand 205

New Zealand Elephants Sparrows Ostriches 205

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. Until recently the species certainly only hung on to existence on two small islands in that group, but this distribution is an artefact of a long decline.

New Zealand 162

New Zealand Penguins Endangered Species Species 162

10,000 Birds

JUNE 9, 2021

You can’t say the same about migration: you can’t say that every book about birds is necessarily about migration, for the simple reason that only about 4,000 bird species migrate (with some 1,800 of those traveling long distances). (Well, purely physical attributes play a part, too: they’re pretty good looking.).

Alaska 221

Alaska Breeding Kenya Africa 221

10,000 Birds

APRIL 13, 2016

The English language, or at least the adherents thereof with more time on their hands than sense, has bestowed us a great number of names to collective nouns for groups of birds. The site also seemed to suggest a few that seemed flat out wrong; parrotlets aren’t baby parrots, they are a type of small parrot, same with owlets and peeps.

New Zealand 106

New Zealand Parrots Rats Bats 106

10,000 Birds

MAY 18, 2011

Fernbird ( Bowdleria punctata ) by 57 Andrew ( Creative Commons non-commercial ) I say we have an Old Wold Warbler, but we used to have two down here, as the Chatham Fernbird ( Bowdleria rufescens ) is usually treated as a separate species now, sadly this is one of New Zealand’s many extinct birds.

New Zealand 159

New Zealand North America Family Farming 159

10,000 Birds

JUNE 17, 2014

The original story is that emus and ostriches and moas and such evolved as a separate group of birds from all the other birds, from the basal birdish thing that gave rise to all the living birds, and became a large land bird. This was on Gondwana.

Madagascar 210

Madagascar Ostriches Elephants New Zealand 210

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

As I sat waiting for the bus home there was a wind, hardly a rarity here in New Zealand, but it was a warm wind, and that certainly is. The spring the birds I’ll show you today is far from the seat of New Zealand’s government where I now work. And it really does feel like spring, finally. Long may it last.

United Arab Emirates 161

United Arab Emirates Saudi Arabia Oman Yemen 161

10,000 Birds

JULY 19, 2011

I’m not sure what the collective noun for a group of petrels is, but the vets and wildlife carers of New Zealand might be forgiven for thinking that it might be a wreck after this week. This is the largest species of prion and perhaps the one that best suits the alternative name whalebird.

New Zealand 191

New Zealand Vet Collecting Geese 191

10,000 Birds

APRIL 3, 2013

My Easter Weekend plans were up in the air until Tuesday evening, which is hardly the best way to do these things seeing as how Easter in New Zealand is still the tail end of summer (especially this year), and it can be hard to make plans so late. Not a species I have seen myself yet, but it is on my list.

Cooking 140

Cooking New Zealand Albatross Penguins 140

10,000 Birds

APRIL 7, 2015

Every section is excellent, Going from back to front, the Species Natural History section is where to go for answers to all your questions about penguins and then some. The introductory Penguin Who’s Who introduces each species visually. And that’s just the top section!

Penguins 209

Penguins New Zealand South Africa Albatross 209

10,000 Birds

MARCH 30, 2011

In that particular spirit I hope to set the record straight on two separate issues that revolve around a genus of parakeets found mostly, but not exclusively, in New Zealand. The kakariki are an odd group of parakeets, particularly in terms of their distribution. He lists four extant species, along with the two extinct species.

New Zealand 148

New Zealand Fiji Parrots Tonga 148

10,000 Birds

JULY 31, 2013

Baches hold a prized place in New Zealand culture, being once described as “something you built yourself, on land you don’t own, out of material you stole” (most are on firmer legal ground these days). New Zealand Fantail. Lochmara Bay with Queen Charlotte Sound in the background.

New Zealand 165

New Zealand Charlotte Hunting Family 165

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 18, 2012

I think it’s likely that next year’s AOU North American checklist supplement will reflect some of the new information. And some distinctive-looking species, like Surfbird and Buff-breasted Sandpiper are placed in genera by themselves. Also in this group is one of the rarest birds in the world, the Spoon-billed Sandpiper.

Family 185

Family North America Netherlands New Zealand 185

10,000 Birds

JUNE 27, 2019

They give short shrift to New Zealand’s birds, lumping them with odd names no one here uses because the names are shared elsewhere and God knows America isn’t going to take a hit for us. Then someone decided that the Canary Island birds were a separate species. I’m not blind to the list’s faults, though.

Iran 134

Iran Barn Owls New Zealand Europe 134

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 14, 2011

Long before I moved in New Zealand, or visited or even knew much about the wildlife here, way back then I knew about the Poor Knights. In New Zealand I’d even dived the astonishing Milford Sound in Fiordlands National Park, but I didn’t make it to New Zealand’s most famous dive site until January of 2009.

New Zealand 186

New Zealand Belize Vanuatu Fish 186

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 26, 2011

They are rock stars in their family (or group of families, depending on what taxonomists have been smoking lately), a family that includes Scarlet Macaws , Crimson Shining-parrots , Golden Parakeets and Rainbow Lorikeets , and that is no mean feat. I guess New Zealanders really like flightless birds.) At any rate Kakapo matter.

New Zealand 189

New Zealand Parrots Sanctuary Family 189

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 18, 2012

The lake was filled with families of Dusky Moorhens and Purple Swamphens (or Pukeko as we call them in New Zealand), all tending small groups of black chicks. The other common duck species is the Hardhead , a local species of diving duck, but the rarest species (of which I saw only one) is the Musk Duck.

New Zealand 173

New Zealand Ducks Australia Japan 173

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 10, 2011

But genetic and morphological data both point to this conclusion, and additional evidence places tubenoses and penguins within a group recently dubbed Aequornithes, or “higher waterbirds.” Within Procellariformes, the arrangement of major groups of tubenoses is not entirely settled.

Albatross 187

Albatross Penguins Groups New Zealand 187

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 7, 2011

While I often tease Corey about how many albatrosses we have down here in New Zealand, the fact is that the United States has three species of Albatross that breed within its boundaries, albeit one of them only very rarely, and visit the western shores of North America. It took ages, but it was a constant delight.

Albatross 179

Albatross Hawaii New Zealand United States 179

10,000 Birds

APRIL 25, 2019

I was just curious what the US birders dream about, so I posted a question in the ABA’s FB group: a) what are the most popular foreign destinations and b) where would you go with unlimited funds? 4%: Mexico, West Papua (Indonesia), New Zealand, South Africa, Kenya. 10%: Australia, Papua New Guinea. 8%: Brazil, Panama.

Papua New Guinea 214

Papua New Guinea America Costa Rica Sri Lanka 214

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 3, 2017

Its organization and content is unorthodox in several ways, which I think is exciting; new approaches to field guides give birders opportunities to rethink how we identify birds and a good excuse to buy yet another field guide. or birders who live there (but, how can you bird it all?). 210-531), indicated by brown page tabs.

Australia 109

Australia Birds Penguins 2015 109

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 22, 2013

But it seems sort of appropriate in hindsight that a family so strange would end up alongside a similarly unpredictable group of birds in the flamingos. But that’s a group for a different time. Despite their predilection for the watery realm, there are some species of grebes that are long-distance migrants.

Jordan 200

Jordan Guatemala Birds South America 200

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