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Pat’s 2020 Bird List, Mostly from Costa Rica

10,000 Birds

The prospect of identifying a certain number of species in a given amount of time pushes us to pay more attention to birds no matter what the circumstances (although I suggest keeping the exclamations about species identifications to yourself during such solemn situations as funerals, graduations, and watching episodes of The Sopranos).

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Gull for a Godwit in Costa Rica

10,000 Birds

This beauty of shorebirds is the Hudsonian Godwit , a master of extra long flights and refined species preferring scattered boggy places for nesting way up north and estuarine wintering habitats way down south. This fun site is known as the Teleferico Road , a place where the blend of habitats can result in a huge number of species.

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The Little Big Year-week 46: All this fun comes to an end

10,000 Birds

When we returned to Tucson, from the Bahamas, I was approaching a milestone number, 1300 bird species, and drove myself hard, climbing, hiking, searching, and driving all over the state of Arizona looking for those last eight birds. By 7:30, two of the owls starting calling back and forth across the small ravine, and I had my 1300th bird!

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How to Know the Birds: The Art and Adventure of Birding – A Book Review

10,000 Birds

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. The Checklist is more than a taxonomic listing of species and chapter number and title; it also contains useful notes on each bird family.

Birds 115
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Birding Inner Mongolia

10,000 Birds

Like many other species, the Chinese Nuthatch is expected to be affected by climate change. For this and a few other species, a 2003 paper tries to estimate this effect and concludes that depending on which of two scenarios will occur, the range reduction will be 79.8-80.4% Third note: no more notes. Let’s move to the birds).

Mongolia 188
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Germany’s Great Bustards and how to see them

10,000 Birds

I am not entirely sure whether most birders outside Germany know or realize that Germany still has a decent population of one of Europe’s most attractive and desired bird species: the Great Bustard Otis tarda. This is prohibited under German nature conservation laws and a moral no-go.

Germany 101
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Birding Shanghai in October 2022

10,000 Birds

According to Wikipedia, “A l owl ife is a term for a person who is considered morally unacceptable by their community” The local Nanhui shrikes are well aware that the word “lowlife” has an owl hidden inside, and mark the appearance of owls in their territory with harsh protests.

Birds 196