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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.
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.
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.
I came late to bird feeding, and when I was finally able to put out a “thistle” sock and a seed feeder (or two or six), I was amazed by the learning curve. There is a long list of articles and books on how to feed birds in your yard. Feeding Wild Birds in America: Culture, Commerce & Conservation by Paul J. And conservation.
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.
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!
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?
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.
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.
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.
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!!
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.
Watching birds, birding, is inexorably tied to autonomous motivation. Maybe that’s why birders just might be obsessive about it or at least, very much into the hobby, the birding way of life. We get serious about quality optics and spend hours studying field guides about birds because we really really want to.
A breeding bird atlas is a special kind of book. For birders, it’s the extremely large book, shelved in a place where it can’t crush the field guides, used to research the history of a bird in their area. It included surveys of nocturnal and marsh birds, and a point count survey of songbirds.
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.
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!
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.
I first encountered Molly Hashimoto’s bird art in California. Hashimoto’s prints and water color bird portraits differ in materials and style from Harper, but she shares with him a talent for portraying common birds in a lively, accessible, yet new way that belies the artistic processes employed to create the finished image.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Especially the bird breeding season, which passes by at the blink of an eye. Travis got to experience things he normally wouldn’t (like spending about 5 hours every day in a pool) and seeing the world famous Canadian Forces Snowbirds aerobatic team (I can post a photo of them right? It hasn’t been a summer to remember.
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?
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.
I can’t resist loving my first week of birding each year. Just today (Saturday) I got to celebrate a Cooper’s Hawk, Berylline Hummingbird, and Lesser Goldfinch — common birds all, but still great when they are FOY. We had a nice collection of birds of prey for the day. Was it practicing?
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?
Like so many trips this one is more about the journey than the destination which brings us to why they have a guest post (hopefully the first of several) on 10,000 Birds. We hope that our journey will provide important information about many Neotropical bird species as well as inform conservation.” We were ecstatic!
Not professionally – these people come in SUVs and probably never recapture their gas money from the fish they catch (though come to think of it, neither do I with my bird photos). This is ok as birds do not have teeth anyway). One strange thing about Chongming is the inevitable presence of people fishing. That means that.
Most of us know all too well the bittersweet mood returning from a birding trip evokes. Actually, even those parts of a birding trip can be sweet. These thoughts crossed my mind as I returned from a week of birding bliss as a guest of the Honduras Institute of Tourism. What was your best bird of the weekend?
Last time I talked about the amazing Great Frigatebirds , today I’ll introduce the birds that give the island its name, the terns. Today the airstrip still dominates the island, with the narrow strips of greenery on either side providing the space for the thousands of nesting birds that make the island its home.
I was pleased to discover that Hooded Warblers can be found consistently at my mother-in-law’s home, but they weren’t my best bird. Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend was any of the five Atlantic Puffins he saw on Eastern Egg Rock off the coast of Maine. What was your best bird of the weekend?
He’d like to thank his mom, his agent, and of course the Birding Academy. This bred both indifference, and on the flip side a tendency to overly pester the few charismatic birds they did come in contact with. Does anyone here have personal experience visiting the Charles M. ” This weekend, remember a bird you love.
Growing up, you may have been told that a baby bird doesn’t need flying lessons. After three years of observation at a Bald Eagle nest in Washington state, I believe that young birds do, in fact, learn to fly — and they appear to learn much the same way we do. … Birds Bald Eagle raptors'
From the 1913 USDA Farmers Bulletin #513, Fifty Common Birds of Farm and Orchard: “The bluebird is one of the most familiar tenants of the farm and dooryard. For rent the bird pays amply by destroying insects, and takes no toll from the farms crop. ” Nest Boxes (Bird Houses) from 1912. It was in 1926 that Thomas E.
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