10,000 Birds

MAY 5, 2020

The April arrival of the Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America, Second Edition was a supremely happy moment in a very difficult, sad month. A companion regional guide, Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Western North America was published in 1941; its fifth edition will be coming out in early September.

North America 200

North America America Hawaii Birds 200

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

The Durango Highway is arguably one of North America’s great birding roads due to the great variety of habitats, the spectacular mountain scenery of the Sierra Madre Occidental, and the numerous Mexican endemics one can target. This poorly documented swallow is a breeding endemic to these high mountains. Photo by Andrew Spencer.

Mexico 187

Mexico Birds Costa Rica Arizona 187

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

The first is that the illustrations by Dale Dyer are based, and largely seem to be the same, as the illustrations for his previous guide Birds of Central America: Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama (co-authored with Andrew Vallely, PUP, 2018). Why are these issues? Doing this work takes time!

Costa Rica 205

Costa Rica Belize El Salvador Birds 205

10,000 Birds

JULY 8, 2020

One of the ways I could describe the unique mix of birds I can see here in southwestern Mexico, would be to divide our species into five categories. The invasive species are few, but, unfortunately, very numerous. But there is a final group of species here, about which I have not written very much.

Mexico 186

Mexico Birds Honduras United States 186

10,000 Birds

MARCH 17, 2022

American White Pelicans spend their winter months along the Gulf states, California, parts of Arizona, and Mexico down into Central America. They migrate north through the Western United States, breeding in pockets all the way up through Canada. No matter how many times I see them, this particular species remains breathtaking.

Pelicans 220

Pelicans United States Canada Arizona 220

10,000 Birds

APRIL 21, 2013

elegans ) are the largest rails in the Americas. Their taxonomic status long has been unclear due to their overall similarity and the fact that in eastern North America and Cuba, they hybridize. King Rails occur widely in eastern North America, in eastern and central Mexico, and in Cuba.

Species 213

Species North America Cuba Louisiana 213

10,000 Birds

APRIL 2, 2019

I like observing them, reading about them, grappling with species and subspecies identification, and even—on a good day—talking about sparrow taxonomy. Peterson Reference Guide to Sparrows of North America covers 61 species of the New World sparrow family Passerellidae that breed in Canada, the United States, and northern Mexico.

North America 143

North America Sparrows America United States 143

10,000 Birds

JUNE 24, 2020

This sort of biozone mixing can create a tremendous richness of species. Each of these habitats attracts its own group of species. I mentioned last week the Jamaican Nettletree, whose tiny fruit was attracting all kinds of species — even some I thought did not eat fruit or seeds. This one was a true lifer for me.

Mexico 234

Mexico Nicaragua Lamb Sparrows 234

10,000 Birds

MAY 17, 2016

I want to alert you to a recent study (from April) that looks at the plight of bird populations under conditions of climate change in Europe and North America. Data were collected from the North American Breeding Bird Survey and the Pan-European Common Birds Monitoring Scheme. Stephens et al. Let’s look at that first.

North America 113

North America Europe America United States 113

10,000 Birds

MAY 23, 2020

May migration in many parts of eastern North America was and is an amazing natural celebration. Yes, the birding is truly exciting but we just don’t have the annual parade of breeding plumaged, singing warblers, grosbeaks, and orioles. Yes, another bird looked for by North American birders in places just north of Mexico.

Costa Rica 264

Costa Rica Panama Nashville Baltimore 264

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 6, 2015

Here are some things I’ve learned from the Peterson Reference Guide to Owls of North America and the Caribbean by Scott Weidensaul: The Burrowing Owl is the only North American owl species where the male is larger than the female, albeit, only slightly larger. The 39 owls include five endemic Caribbean species.

North America 215

North America Owls America Dominican Republic 215

10,000 Birds

APRIL 13, 2022

Wood-Wrens , birds of the family Henicorhina , are very small wrens of Central and South America that like to live very close to the ground, in dense forest underbrush or elfin forests. The only one that occurs in western Mexico, where I live, is the Gray-breasted Wood-Wren. So why am I focusing on that species in this post?

Mexico 185

Mexico South America Species America 185

10,000 Birds

JULY 7, 2021

and Canada and winter in northeastern Mexico, while the sedentary wrens of central Mexico, Central America, and South America are now to be identified as Grass Wrens. But its two mixed-breed children would make an 80’s British soccer club proud, with their punk hairstyles. Did they show up for us?

Barn Owls 253

Barn Owls Owls Mexico Leopards 253

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 9, 2013

Unlike the more common American Goldfinch, the Lesser Goldfinch’s ( Spinus psaltria ) plumage does not change color during breeding season. Eastward, frequency of individuals with black on auriculars, neck, and back increases; southward into Mexico, nearly all adult males have completely black upperparts 1.

California 163

California Species North America Oregon 163

10,000 Birds

APRIL 29, 2020

Perhaps one of my reasons for going to the lake was that it guarantees more species in one day than any of my other sites. But I am also always eager to get a better handle on the migration dates for our wintering species, and April is a great month for that. How on earth do they breed so quickly up north?)

Mexico 162

Mexico Breeding Ducks North America 162

10,000 Birds

JUNE 19, 2024

Bald Eagle Species Name: Haliaeetus leucocephalus. Range: Most of Canada, Alaska, All of the contiguous United States, and Northern Mexico. Status In Alaska: Breeding resident. Endangered Species list in 2007. Steller’s Sea-Eagle Species Name: Haliaeetus pelagicus. Golden Eagle Species Name: Aquila chrysaetos.

Alaska 202

Alaska Eagles Bald Eagle Deer 202

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 23, 2022

Most of our readers are not likely to be able to ID this bird, because it only occurs in Mexico and Guatemala. But it wasn’t the day’s first FOY species. As it turned out, these were not the only bad photos to help me flesh out my 2022 year list that day (species 201-211, on February 12th).

Mexico 176

Mexico Guatemala South America United States 176

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 28, 2019

One of the ironies of birding in North America is that the easiest way to see many species that breed on the shores of the Arctic Ocean is to go to tropical coastlands. Marbled Godwits, like the Willets shown above, breed on the northern Great Plains. Only their reflections give any sense of the beach beneath them.

North America 120

North America Mexico Breeding America 120

10,000 Birds

APRIL 2, 2013

A breeding bird atlas is a special kind of book. For ornithologists, it is the documentation of a multi-year project designed to record the distribution and abundance of birds in a specific area (in North America, usually a state or a province), utilizing a mapping method involving blocks and grids.

Pennsylvania 222

Pennsylvania Breeding Birds Sparrows 222

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 14, 2013

They packed up in June of 2013 and headed south from San Diego with the southern tip of South America as their destination. We hope that our journey will provide important information about many Neotropical bird species as well as inform conservation.” Very little is known about this enigmatic species.

South America 180

South America San Diego Mexico America 180

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 30, 2014

There’s a new proposal before the American Ornithologists’ Union’s North American Classification Committee to split Painted Bunting into two species (yay! — maybe, more later) and to name the new species “Eastern Painted Bunting” and “Western Painted Bunting” (no!).

Mississippi 265

Mississippi Mexico Alabama North Carolina 265

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 21, 2015

Heermann’s Gulls form large breeding colonies on arid islands in the Gulf of California, Mexico, from March through July. The largest colony exists on Isla Raza, where an estimated 90–95% of the total world population breeds 1. This photo by Basar from Wikipedia Commons shows the adult in breeding plumage. v=FUBX_tlHySc.

San Francisco 158

San Francisco North America Seals Sanctuary 158

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 25, 2021

A lot of birds take a shorter trip to Florida and the Caribbean, many spend the winter in southern Mexico, and some species even fly all the way to southern Amazonia (this drink is for you Veerys). This tail bobber is a common species of mangroves and any other wet spot in the lowlands. Cloud Forest near San Ramon.

Costa Rica 220

Costa Rica Kentucky Louisiana Species 220

10,000 Birds

MARCH 30, 2019

It’s also a big time for bird movements, a period punctuated by waves of migrants, first the early ones, then a time of many species, and finally, those last “late” migrants moving north. While our winter residents bulk up to head north, they are joined by other species coming from South America.

Costa Rica 134

Costa Rica South America Tennessee Philadelphia 134

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 5, 2023

Terns are too often considered the baby brothers and sisters of gulls, and if you don’t agree, take a look at the number of books written about gulls (at least four in recent years) and then try to remember the last book you read about terns of North America. Note that these are not all species accounts!

North America 195

North America America Species Groups 195

10,000 Birds

MAY 24, 2016

One of the most impressive birds in North America is the Golden Eagle. It is found as far north as Alaska and as far south as Mexico, taking its place as one of Mexico’s official symbols. The oldest known Golden Eagle was over 30 years old, and as a species they prefer open and semi-open landscapes.

Albania 101

Albania Mexico Eagles Kazakhstan 101

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 23, 2016

Instead, they are summer visitors, moving up to Colorado in the warm months to breed before returning to wintering grounds in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexico. Lark Buntings are prairie birds, and breed in open meadow, sagebrush, and plains. annually from 1966 to 2010, for a total of 89%.

Colorado 101

Colorado Legislature North America New Mexico 101

10,000 Birds

JUNE 19, 2019

it is in Michoacán , in the southwest of Mexico. Lamb, who surveyed the birds of western Mexico from 1932-1955, and whose lists have been posted on eBird in recent years. I also presented this site and species in my first two posts on 10,000 Birds.) 1st Hudsonian Godwits in central Mexico. But my home is not in the U.S.

Mexico 126

Mexico Birds 2013 Lamb 126

10,000 Birds

APRIL 3, 2018

Of the 300 hummingbird species across the globe, North America only sees fewer than two dozen of them. Then, I learned that over 400 species of birds have been identified in and around these islands. And then there’s rufous, who journeys between Mexico and Alaska twice a year. So let’s plan that trip, shall we?

Texas 170

Texas North America Alaska America 170

10,000 Birds

JUNE 12, 2019

I like seeing as many species as possible on my life list, year list, state list, patch list, any kind of list. For my state of Michoacán in central Mexico, Lago de Cuitzeo is an unusually poor site for our specialty, which is west-Mexico-only endemics. The post Who cares for your ducks in the winter?

Ducks 115

Ducks Blackbirds United States Pelicans 115

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 6, 2018

It actually makes a lot of sense, the geographic features of the isthmus between North America (including Mexico, because Mexico is part of North America) and South America cut across political lines, as do birds. Of the native breeding species, 112 are endemic or “very nearly endemic.”

America 212

America El Salvador Costa Rica Honduras 212

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 2, 2013

But he does live in the States, and America does have albatrosses, and they can be easily seen in California, which is not only in the States but is actually a place I’m fairly sure he visits. I was lucky to work with the species on Tern Island in French Frigate Shoals. The Black-footed Albatross.

Albatross 157

Albatross Hawaii North America California 157

10,000 Birds

MARCH 22, 2017

I traveled up and down the beach, then out in to the arroyos for three days and came up with 45 species, a fairly decent number. I had targeted three species that I had hoped to spend some time photographing, the Wandering Tattler , Snowy Plover and the Horned Lark. Well, you know what they say, two out of three ain’t bad!

South America 103

South America Alaska Mexico Breeding 103

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.

Albatross 173

Albatross Hawaii New Zealand United States 173

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 18, 2012

The Yellow-throated Warbler is a wood-warbler that breeds almost exclusively in the southeastern United States. They winter in Florida, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America.

Florida 170

Florida New York City Dominica United States 170

10,000 Birds

APRIL 10, 2013

Clicking on the map will take you to an explanation of this important biome, including its climate and its plant and animal species. All four major flyways in North America — the aerial migration routes traveled by billions of birds each year — converge in one spot in Canada’s boreal forest, the Peace-Athabasca Delta in northeastern Alberta.

Obama 240

Obama 2008 United States North America 240

10,000 Birds

MAY 7, 2019

How to Know the Birds talks about 200 commonly found birds in North America (including one extinct bird, the Passenger Pigeon) in 200 brief essays, each exactly one page long. Each essay is entitled with the “big idea,” subtitled with the name of the bird species (common name and scientific name), and numbered.

Birds 114

Birds North America Breeding America 114