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Imagine forty plus resident species of this esteemed family zipping around a place the size of a small state, many of which enjoy feeder juice, and you probably get the picture. Although feeders are easy, not all species visit them, and natural feeders can be better. Costa Rica is a fantastic place to watch hummingbirds.
Taking inspiration from Matthiessen’s 1967 book (long out of print), which combined his natural history essays with species accounts by Ralph S. Species Profile, Black-necked Stilt, p. There are also back-of-the-book sections: acknowledgments, a listing of Rare Shorebird Vagrants, Bibliography, and photographer credits.
Through multi-partnerships, cooperation, federal funding, and the private conservation efforts of one family, 616 acres were officially added to the Cherokee National Forest in September 2018. In the area live 15 species from Tennessee’s threatened and endangered list, as well as 11 aquatic species from the federally endangered list.
Of course, I also go there several other times each year; I have, after all, seen 160 species at this endemic-rich site. The reason for this annual pilgrimage is a single species, the Sinaloa Martin. All sightings southeast of the species’ Puerto Vallarta-to-Los Mochis breeding area are of migrating birds.
The authors wrote: [Species] “are the currency of field guides and of birding, but deciding what to treat as ‘species’ is inevitably a subjective endeavour. … We have tended to a liberal (= realistic) direction when recognising species.” There are no species distribution maps, only textual descriptions.
I had only seen this species once here, in 2018. Virginia Warbler: The Virginia Warbler is a common species in the thorn forest of the Balsas River Basin, so I had seen it often. Extra points for this species’ rockin’ name. How did I miss that? And then, on February 1st, I suddenly saw dozens.
In the case of most of these wonderful bird species, I probably know where they are most likely to be found. In ten years of hardcore birding, I have seen Aztec Thrushes only four times, never twice in the same year (2017, 2018, 2019, and now, 2024). Another local species that loves burnt-over areas is the Gray Silky-Flycatcher.
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.
A Field Guide to the Birds: Giving Field Marks of All Species Found in Eastern North America was published in 1934 by Houghton Mifflin (note–Peterson was 26 years old), after being rejected by four publishers. Adding the 76 new species in the Hawaii section, this makes coverage of approximately 884 species.
The Juniper Titmouse ( Baeolophus ridgwayi ) is a passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. One of my favorite bird species living by my house is the Juniper Titmouse. Although the Juniper Titmouse is not officially a threatened species, its numbers have been declining due to loss of habitat.
Sedge Wren – There are records of this species in Queens, generally along the coast in fall. Great Shearwater – At this point, seabirds are my weakest family in Queens with the most species having reported in the borough that I have not seen. It leaves Barnacle Goose as the last remotely possible goose species for me to add.
2018 proved to be one of my best birding years ever. In addition to spotting exciting new species in Florida, including the rare Snail Kite, travel across the country brought me into contact with birds in Oregon, California, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Alabama, and more. Not so much. And the third trimester?
I have observed this species many times (my eBird says 28 times this year alone) and never had one landing near me. and after the road construction (June 2018). Hidden from my view, it stood on a nearby tree and if it weren’t for those clumsy beats, I wouldn’t have noticed it. And that was the last I ever heard from the officials.
Recently, while guiding on the slopes of Poas, without too much effort, we had more than a hundred species. Such a birdy day and yet, one that still lacked quite a few species. Poas itself seems to be pretty straightforward but I wondered how far down both sides of the mountain should be included in my species list. Two hundred?
One in November 2018 included a one-day birding trip in the Drakensberg area, a mountain range in the border area between South Africa and Lesotho. In fact, this is probably a species that has substantially expanded its original range through the pet shop route and the resulting escapees. A challenge for young birders, maybe.
The Magpie Geese bred again in the Broome area during 2018. This year we have had high numbers of Magpie Geese once again in the Broome area and this last weekend we observed our first family groups for the season. Each family group consisted of an adult male with a significant knob on its head and two females.
This boldness isn’t restricted to exchanges with other grouse, either: in some locales, members of this circumpolar family are astonishingly foolhardy around humans. Sheep may timidly graze but these Black Grouse are another matter altogether. Blackcocks at the Lek (1901) by Scottish painter Archibald Thorburn (1860-1935).
On my wanderings I picked up quite a few species that were new for my year list but my Best Bird of the Weekend was one that countered cruelty with happiness. Mike, too, chose a bluebird as his Best Bird of the Weekend, though his was a different species seeing as he and his family avoided the cruelty of April by being in California.
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.
So, we need to lift a glass to 2018, a year that has given us Gulls of the World: A Photographic Field Guide by Klaus Malling Olsen and Gulls Simplified: A Comparative Approach to Identification by Pete Dunne and Kevin T. Species Accounts. Gulls Simplified covers 25 species. From the Laughing Gull species account.
Founded in 1963, the municipal population of mostly indigenous people has reached 31,000 by 2018, of which about 11,000 in the town itself. Birds The local birdlist has reached 462 species, and some 30 more are expected. Merlin pulls the data out of eBird and was particularly useful in narrowing down the number of species to consider.
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.
In one of the first of Dee’s observations about gullers he calls them: “men leaving their homes and their families to spend time peering at arsey birds in some of the arseholes of the world.”. Publication date 2018. ” Dumps, “most alive at its face, a slow-breaking wave of fresh-dropped rubbish”, gulls… and girls! Book details.
Family obligations kept me on the sidelines during Global Big Day, but I did manage to sneak in a little birding before traveling. That netted them 136 species, and more birding on Sunday morning got Corey even more. This past weekend marked one of the peak moments of migratory bird activity globally, at least in an aggregate sense.
Saturday, May 5 is Global Big Day , when eBirders around the world strive to collectively encounter as many species as possible. Last year’s Global Big Day accounted for at least 65% of all the bird species on the planet. Unfortunately, family commitments are killing my Big Day or any other kind of birding this weekend.
we learn) that are home to coveted boreal species, breeding wood-warblers, and two species of Grouse. There are 461 species on the Maine checklist. This field guide covers 265 species, the ones most likely to be seen–residential and migratory, almost all nesting birds, many wintering birds.
July often means travel, which sometimes means tourist attractions, which occasionally means exotic or introduced bird species. The reason I ask is because my family and I visited the Bronx Zoo this weekend. Following me here? We may know these birds well, but should we love them?
Covering 1,261 species with data and taxonomy current up to August 2017, the field guide is an exciting achievement. And, then there are the more familiar birds–Wood-warblers, sandpipers, hawks–some species migrants, some species with a wide range. Can you guess which of the species cited above are endemic?
I am shocked to be writing this post already, and doubly shocked that I’ve seen six new species for Queens since I guessed what my next five Queens birds would be just eight months ago, back in March. Eastern Whip-Poor-Will : It’s kind of amazing how rarely this species is reported in Queens. I’ll make it three!
Sometime back in 2018, I started sharing some of my photos by e-mail with my sister and aunt. But I felt that photos of Mexican species wouldn’t make much sense to west-coast Americans, so I added some descriptions of the birds and how I saw them. It’s all about the avocados. S triped-headed Sparrows.
This is the last post covering my time birding the Kruger Park in November 2018. Thus, this study on the feeding ecology of African Harrier-hawk is imperative for understanding the species adaptation to environments and also a crucial factor to be considered while examining their economic status.” No clue what it is though.
The simple answer is monetary gain, there is a global black market for these items, regardless of the species’ vulnerability for extinction. The same weakness is found in The Feather Thief (2018), a book similarly about an obsessive thief with flexible boundaries of right and wrong.
After an incredibly wet start to 2018 as a result of several tropical cyclones and other rain events the land remains saturated around Broome and as a result of this there are several bird species breeding that we don’t even encounter in dry years. Juvenile Australian Painted Snipe.
I should add that the Big Owls taking over NYC social and even hard print media, dominating conversations with my nonbirder friends and family, are not the only owls in the five boroughs, but like a musical, the closer you are to Broadway, the closer you are to fame and fortune (and maybe even a higher quality rodent for dinner, who knows?).
The crunch is on, and with less than two weeks left in the year, we are trying to squeeze out as many more species as possible. Last week, we quite impulsively jumped in a rental car and drove 2600 miles round trip to south Texas to pick up 34 new species. L ittle Big Year species – 1280. Bahama species – 38.
We are entering the mixed colony of 11 species ( Grey , Squacco , Purple and Black-crowned Night Herons ; Great , Little and, recently, Cattle Egrets ; Eurasian Spoonbill (below) and Glossy Ibis ; Pygmy and Great Cormorant ). I do have experience with this species from Bodrum, Turkey; it is daring, bold and cocky, and is impossible to forget.
I haven’t yet been birding in Europe but whenever I occasionally skim a field guide about the birds on the other side of the Atlantic, I’m always encouraged to find that I’m already familiar with many species found over there, even though most of my birding experience has been limited to eastern North America. I remember the talking (Song?)
It’s not often that we have the opportunity to glimpse the home life of albatrosses, nor of any seabird species. For most seabird species, the male takes the first shift and the male and female then alternate, but the period of time for each shift varies according to species. Princeton University Press, March 2018.
Every single species, even the European Starlings above, count as one bird on the year’s checklist. Sadly, though I managed to sneak out of the house while friends and family entertained each other, the goose had flown the coop. On January first my year list, just like every other birder’s year list, reverted to zero.
It’s also the first drink featuring a non-North American species (I’ll admit there’s a bias in my selections that’s largely dictated by geography). If not, it’s certainly worth looking forward to the 2018 release of Kiwi Rising. Happy drinking and good birding! Jack’s Abby Craft Lagers: Kiwi Rising Double IPL.
Their populations, plus those of other species that ‘wore’ the coveted long, colorful feathers used for women’s fashionable hats, were being dangerously depleted by hunters intent on feeding the millinery industry. Aurum Press, June 2018, 336 pp. The late Victorian age was not a good time to be an egret!
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