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Any time of year that features skies filled with birds pretty much all day demands attention pretty much all day. Corey had a great weekend of birding, from morning flight on Saturday to an exploration of some nice coastal habitat on Sunday. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment.
Unfortunately, this makes it sound a bit more interesting for birding than it turned out for me – though admittedly, I spent less than a day there. And the area was recommended to me, so most likely my limited birding skills are to blame, rather than the birds themselves. ” That seems a bit unfair to me.
(This photo is actually of a TK seen a few days later, but it was at our favorite birding gas station pit stop that we also stopped at on our first day. Excellent 10,000 Birds posts have been written about Pico Bonito and Honduras by Corey and Carlos , so I’m going to focus on some of my most memorable experiences.
My family took our annual post-Easter Egg hunt hike at Powder Mills Park, where I spied several gorgeous matched pairs of Wood Ducks along with lots of different woodpecker species. What was your best bird of the weekend? Tell us in the comments section about the rarest, loveliest, or most fascinating bird you observed.
If you read my last post, you will know that my last three weekly outings were not overly productive, as far as birds are concerned. But any birder can tell you that a bad day birding is better than a good day almost anywhere else. For me, that has a lot to do with all the beautiful places I get to be, while looking for birds.
Many of us are still enjoying the final weekend of May, so let’s cut to the chase and talk about our best birds. My best bird this weekend was an Eastern Wood-Pewee calling from a bare branch. What was your best bird of the weekend? Birding best bird weekend' How about you?
Somehow it seemed fitting that after our last theme week – Bird Love Week – that we should spend a full seven days examining what could be the results of that theme. It’s Baby Bird Week on 10,000 Birds and the adorable, fuzzy-wuzzy, itsy-bitsy, baby birdies will be everywhere! Can you handle the cuteness?
Considering Broome often experiences cyclones and strong winds it does make sense for the birds to build a more substantial nest to survive the extreme weather. Crested Pigeons only lay two eggs and the nest we observed in our local park successfully hatched out two young.
The sight, the sound and the smell, coupled with the sheer spectacle of seeing so many birds at once, makes viewing a big seabird colony an avian experience that can’t be compared with any other. These birds are all cliff nesters. Incidentally, there have been no recorded cases of bird flu at Bempton this year.
So Eduardo set aside the afternoon to show me some of the city, and take me birding in two city parks. Being a westerner — raised in California, and now living in western Mexico — I was perhaps most excited about the migratory birds that breed in eastern North America. Two other birds, both residents, surprised us.
This shouldn’t have to be stated, especially in a book on bird evolution by an evolutionary biologist with a Ph.D. How Birds Evolve: What Science Reveals about Their Origin, Lives, and Diversity by Douglas J. Futuyma is a synthesis of theory and research about evolution and birds. that’s three birds).
Bird Day is a lovely, little jewel of a book. The idea is to portray one bird for each hour of the day in words and art, presenting the diversity, beauty, and wonder of avian life. Angell’s black-and-white illustrations bring sparks of energy and visual clarity to the fascinating bird behaviors described by Huber.
In theory the eggs are laid, the adults share the incubation of the eggs for 28 days and then fluffy chicks emerge. There are other pairs that nest in rather obscure areas, but as soon as the eggs hatch they walk the chicks several kilometres to a better feeding area. If only it was that easy!
One good thing about birding during a pandemic–the forced restrictions on place and time translate into more time to observe what birds do. Bird behavior–endlessly fascinating, but so much still hidden and unknown. Extreme behaviors also push scientists to look at birds in new ways.
October oversees a general cooling of the Northern Hemisphere, but the birding tends to heat up in the beginning of the month. I enjoyed neither birding nor guzzling lattes during this work-encumbered weekend. Corey enjoyed some decent fall birding both Saturday and Sunday morning. How about you?
the book follows through mating and egg-laying, incubation and hatching, and the rearing of three young to successful fledging. As an experiment, I also ran this book by a non-birding friend. he also described a Great Crested Flycatcher that appears in one shot as a “key lime pie bird”, which seems surprisingly apt.
Any worthwhile discussion of baby birds will wisely lean heavily towards young shorebirds, which are surely among the most adorable of all immature avifauna. And despite our evident New World bias here at 10,000 Birds, we have a fondness for Old World shorebirds like thick-knees. A very special experience!!
In her free time she travels near and far to find birds to continue building her life list, though many of her favorites can still be found right in her own backyard. She has contributed many pieces to 10,000 Birds and writes about her birding adventures on her blog, newbirder.tumblr.com. Lots and lots of birds.
We here at 10,000 Birds thought this would be a perfect time to look back and figure out what each of us considered our Best Bird of the Year, just like we did last year. Not only did we not expect to see this seabird this far inland, it was a life bird for me! We would like you to join in!
Do birds use odors and a sense of smell to communicate with each other? The Secret Perfume of Birds: Uncovering the Science of Avian Scent focuses on this last question, but you might find yourself fascinated by the first two, which come early in the book but linger on in the imagination as author Danielle J. ” (p.
There was a time when I thought each bird species had its own individual song. Then I found out that there was this vocalization called a ‘call,’ so I thought each bird species had its own individual song (but just the males) and individual call. Bird communication is a complex and evolving science.
I couldn’t help thinking this–me, the anthropomorphism hater– as I watched a pair of Philippine Eagles tend their nest, raise a chick, and tear monkeys apart in Bird of Prey: The Story of the Rarest Eagle on Earth , a well-crafted, beautifully filmed documentary with a mission. 1980’s Filmstrip, photo by Eric Liner.
Why can’t a baby bird just hatch out of the egg and fly away, or at least, be able to fly a little and not require weeks of constant feeding and attention? Some birds do this a little. But baby birds get eaten by predators too (often other birds), so I’m not impressed with the difference.
Shorebirds – or “shorbs” for the cuteness factor (as if that needed any enhancement) – remain one of the most fascinating families of birds for me. It seems like ages ago and almost a completely foreign concept, but once upon a time we used to travel for birding! There is still so much to learn!
It feels good to start a post with some truly attractive birds – such as two species of broadbills. If you like cute birds, you will probably like the Black-and-yellow Broadbill. Homework assignment: Is the bird in this video a male or a female? Maybe the birds I saw were not real. You can see why here.
The featured image above shows a female incubating eggs from my first resident breeding pair back in 2007. Violet-green Swallows will nest solitarily or in colonies and in my experience seem much more mellow than other swallow species. These elegant birds nest in cavities of various sites, including trees, cliffs, and nesting boxes.
Once again Pied Oystercatcher breeding season is fast approaching in Broome and we can expect the first batch of eggs to be laid within the next few weeks. We have also discovered that they are very rarely successful with the first eggs laid due to predation of either the eggs or the chicks. It is a spectacular and noisy sight.
In 2018, I read an article in Birding magazine by Jeff R. It was later re-published on the All About Birds website.) In other words, a “spark class” rather than a “spark bird.” with binoculars, field notebooks, smartphones, and field guides” looking for birds. Think about it for a minute.
Along Broome’s coastline there are a lot less shorebirds during this time of year and those that do remain are either non-breeding migratory birds or they are resident shorebirds that breed along our coastline. In this situation we always stop immediately because the chicks or eggs may be a lot closer than you think.
The Collared Finchbill is not a rare bird, and it is not endangered, but it is a particular favorite of mine. So, in order to show a few more photos of the bird than the usual two or three had I included this bird in a post of birds seen around Wolongshan, Sichuan), here is one dedicated to the species.
And if you take this phrase, “stamps in weathered passports,” my interpretation is that the experiences from travel are the “stamps” as sights, sounds, tastes, smells, textures, on your “passport,” or soul. Hannah overlooking a valley Traveling into Lesotho from the Sani Pass is an experience more than just the journey to the top.
Just look at this bird: Do birds get any blander? Had I not been with some European birders who knew what they were about I would never have noticed the adult Barred Warblers in the vicinity, of which I only got fleeting glimpses, and would likely have been flummoxed completely by this bland little bird.
There are few bird names that will elicit great big smiles and Penguin is one of them. Other contenders are Kookaburra, Shoebill, and Umbrellabird, but people smile when they hear these names because they know a song or because they can’t believe these are real names of real birds. <pause> Do I have your attention now?
This is the time of year when the Pied Oystercatchers breed and already three of the sixteen pairs along this stretch of beach have successfully laid eggs. The first pair to lay eggs this season have only a few more days of sitting and then they will be very busy guarding their chicks from predators.
Each year 120,000 birds visit the island to breed from March through August in burrows that riddle the landscape. A pair of birds in a nesting burrow share the parental responsiblities and change shifts under the cover of darkness. After mating, a single egg is laid and incubation duties are shared by both parents.
Among birds the Egyptian Vulture uses rocks to crack Ostrich eggs, the New Caledonian Crow and Woodpecker Finch (one of several Darwin Finches of the Galapagos Islands), uses sticks to extract grubs from inside a branch. This is similar to the fact that all birds, even first time breeders within a species build identical nests.
It is thought that the gray morph mimics a bird eating hawk. In this way, the cuckolding Cuckoo can convince its cuckoldee, the Reed Warbler, to back off when the Cuckoo comes around, allowing the Cuckoo to toss out one of the Warbler’s eggs and replace it with one of its own, to be raised by the hapless Warbler parents.
Feathers are the unique ingredient when it comes to birds. Platypus have bills, bats and bugs can fly, and reptiles lay eggs, but only birds have feathers. The introduction gives both a simple overview of how birds use their feathers as well as brief idea of how humans have been fascinated by feathers since prehistory.
While some birding runs work well solo, most are greatly improved by good company. In many ways, birding can be so much more than just looking at birds. We nailed down a few lifers for Ivy, the best of which was Yellow-crowned Night-heron at Big Egg Marsh, which we don’t ever see upstate. How about you?
It is near a river, attracting some birds that like to eat wet food. As the national bird of Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, the African Fish Eagle is usually very busy whenever it stays in these countries, giving speeches, opening shopping centers, etc. The birds I asked about this pretended not to be related to anyone though.
Of course, I jest a bit in the above paragraph because as a sometime New Jersey birder I have birded the Delaware Bay and seen sights such as the memorable image below, in which thousands of Red Knots, Dunlins, and Short-billed Dowitchers fly up as if connected telepathically. million in the late 1990’s.
While so many spent the weekend obsessing over eggs, others cast their eyes to the feathered fruit of eggs… not necessarily Easter eggs, but different, non-chicken eggs. Maybe this whole comparison falls apart upon closer scrutiny, but these are still fine days to be looking at birds! How about you?
There were three profound questions my birding group discussed while we birded Trinidad and Tobago, back in December 2012: (1) How many Bananaquits could fit on a banana? (2) 3) What was the best guide to the birds of Trinidad and Tobago? The bird guide question was a conundrum.
The chapter titles of Feather Trails: A Journey of Discovery Among Endangered Birds represent both ends of the spectrum: “A World Full of Poisons,” “Malaria,” “Forest Intruders,” “Lead Shock,” “Shot.” Conservation. It’s not easy.
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