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15 Australian Birds (Episode 6)

10,000 Birds

When I was a kid (and don’t you hate it when blog posts start like this, with the author apparently just assuming that you care about how he spent his childhood), the first pets we had were a pair of Budgerigars. ” Funny how the difficulty of breeding a species can be illustrated in simple monetary terms.

Birds 147
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The Parable of the Goat Mites

10,000 Birds

And so, these goats ate the flora of the island: unique species of Indian paintbrush and woodland star, bushmallow and wirelettuce and morning glory. And so, most had been neutered, adopted out to soft-hearted landowners as odd pets, conversation pieces. Also, they were infested by a species of ear mite unknown to science.

Goats 159
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Africa’s endangered species

10,000 Birds

More than 150 bird species are known to have become extinct over the past 500 years, and many more are estimated to have been driven to extinction before they became known to science. The Gray Crowned-Crane is a new addition to the list of the world’s Endangered species, creeping up a category from Vulnerable.

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Birds and People: A Book Review

10,000 Birds

We sing about them, we paint them, we use them as mythic and poetic symbols for our spiritual and emotional feelings, we wear them in myriad and often colorful ways, we adopt them as household pets. Cocker writes about the species within each family with a literary specificity softened by a tone of conversational patience.

Birds 204
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Licking Clay: the Macaws of Tambopata, Peru

10,000 Birds

The field site I am assigned to is located in one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world and home to a particularly rich avifauna that numbers well over 500 species. Hundreds of riotously colored birds representing 14 species of macaws and parrots flock and frolic together in less than fifty meters of forest canopy.

Peru 254
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Birding Shanghai in January 2023

10,000 Birds

I tried to get a better idea of what exactly the definition of cuckoo-dove is but am still not very clear about it – Wikipedia only offers the rather formal definition “any of several species of bird in the genera Macropygia , Reinwardtoena, and Turacoena of the pigeon family.” But I may well be wrong.

Birds 147
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Birding the Kruger Park (3): Malelane area

10,000 Birds

The HBW allows itself a rare moment of dry humor when discussing the sounds of the species: “Most vocalizations of this species are harsh and unmusical. ” The Latin species name caudatus does not really mean much – just that it has a tail. When I asked for one in a German pet shop, they just laughed at me.

Swaziland 147