10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 26, 2022

Yesterday morning was simply one of those incredibly eventful birding sessions, about which I may expound upon in parts within the coming weeks. From genuine rarities to undocumented polymorphism – the magic of birding was truly in full swing. A concrete wall halving one of the ponds was a popular rest spot for several birds.

Elephants 261

Elephants Ducks Humane Family 261

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 22, 2022

It is not particularly big but has a reported 430 bird species including migrants, though during my short stay it seems I missed most of the key attractions among them. It goes like this: While fishing, the bird tucks its head down and uses its wings to create a shady area. Pel’s Fishing Owl, where were you?

South Africa 147

South Africa Africa Birds Fish 147

10,000 Birds

JULY 13, 2014

It’s mid-July, which among other things means that those of us in North America are starting to check local mudflats for returning shorebird migrants and waiting impatiently for the AOU to hurry up and create five species from the Clapper-King rail complex (the reasons for which we covered last year ). Birds still are dinosaurs.

Elephants 190

Elephants New Zealand Sparrows Ostriches 190

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 14, 2021

This is the second post in the Birding crème de la crème series (the first, focused on southern Asia, is here ). The bird-richest region of Africa is its equatorial East: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi (unlike the rest, the last one, Burundi, is politically unstable and not recommendable). SERVIR Africa Workshop.

Africa 188

Africa Kenya Uganda Tanzania 188

10,000 Birds

APRIL 7, 2015

I only had a few days in California while visiting my brother at Berkeley, but we couldn’t pass up on the opportunity to visit one of the most famous birding sites in the country: Point Reyes National Seashore. Add those life mammals to the life birds I already expected to see, and I was practically vibrating with excitement.

Seals 179

Seals Elephants Whales Whaling 179

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 17, 2023

David Tomlinson The recent announcement by the American Ornithological Society that it intends to replace names of all birds named after people has caused quite a stir here in the UK. I have a fascinating little reference book called Whose Bird? Collecting birds was clearly a dangerous pastime. We don’t need any more.

Falcons 210

Falcons Wounded 2003 Killing 210

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 24, 2021

You may have read my recent piece on Birding the Okavango Delta in Botswana here on 10,000 Birds. If you have never thought of India as a birding destination, I’d urge you to give it a good look. Fly into Delhi and within an hour you can be birding the lovely Sultanpur wetland reserve.

India 178

India Wildlife Tigers Rhinoceros 178

10,000 Birds

JUNE 17, 2014

It has been discovered that largosity and flightlessness, which perhaps fortunately tend to go together in birds, evolved more than once. Yes, the Ratites, as they are known, broke off from the other bird lineage as a separate monophyletic thing, separate from all the other birds today. This was on Gondwana.

Madagascar 195

Madagascar Ostriches Elephants New Zealand 195

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 9, 2019

An expanse of habitat as vast as Murchison Falls NP in Uganda, as excessively generous in beauty and biodiversity, permits endless ways to experience both its birds and animals. The Masindi Hotel holds the distinction of being the oldest and most historic hotel in Uganda and has some terrific birds on premises. Mind boggling, I answer!

Uganda 174

Uganda Senegal Africa Game 174

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 13, 2021

10,000 Birds is running a series of articles by and about tour guides, tour companies, eco-lodges, and other birding travel organizations. We want to help the birding tourism industry come back strong from the COVID pandemic. All very exciting, but for the birder Africa has so much more to offer. My name is Ashley Boon.

Botswana 169

Botswana Africa Angola Elephants 169

10,000 Birds

JUNE 3, 2015

I’ve never been one to be overly concerned about whether a bird “counts” People, and organisations, have complex and elaborate rules about whether a bird you saw or heard actually is a bird you saw or heard, which seems a very unnecessary way to add complexity to an already complex hobby. Red Lechwe.

Botswana 162

Botswana Lesotho Elephants Bald Eagle 162

10,000 Birds

JUNE 7, 2017

Members of the genus Pachycereus , there are a couple of species which are quite prevalent here on the southern Baja. The Aborigines Hairbrush , and the Elephant Cactus. And this is the bloom for the Elephant Cactus. Once the fruit is ripe, it becomes a primary source for many species.

Elephants 104

Elephants Woodpeckers Squirrels Shelters 104

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 11, 2012

They are not necessarily the biggest African animals, but represented those that were considered a real hunter’s worthy prey or “game” – the African Elephant, Cape Buffalo, Black Rhinoceros, Leopard and king of the jungle, the Lion (which of course doesn’t inhabit jungle but savanna!).

Buffalo 193

Buffalo Rhinoceros Leopards Elephants 193

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 4, 2014

And Flamingos and Hornbills and a Secretarybird and birds with names like Hamerkop and Thick-knee and Eremomela (which I know is a scientific term, but which, when pronounced correctly, reminds me of a Yiddish term of endearment my grandmother used). And so, I went on the American Birding Association Safari to South Africa.

South Africa 250

South Africa Africa Leopards Penguins 250

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 23, 2015

The reactions of the birding scene to this addition have been rather varied. Some lament the invasive nature of the species and fear for the welfare of their native waterfowl. The ABA checklist committee has recently added the Egyptian Goose to the official ABA checklist, based on an established population in southeastern Florida.

Florida 160

Florida Fur Lions Elephants 160

10,000 Birds

JUNE 16, 2011

Most of the time when we think of birds, we think of the things that make them birds, and not the things that make them dinosaurs. You’ll hear people tell you that birds are dinosaurs, and that is supposed to blow you away and make you go all gaga about birds and evolution. are convenient secondary uses.

Birds 266

Birds Marsupials Primates Whales 266

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 27, 2017

About four years ago I first wrote about the Pink-headed Duck , a charming species related to the pochards (although how, exactly, is up for grabs, like so much duck taxonomy.) Now Global Wildlife Conservation is out to get some fresh evidence and hopefully re-discover the species, which was officially last seen in the 1949.

Ducks 119

Ducks Myanmar Elephants Wildlife 119

10,000 Birds

JULY 16, 2014

The animals aren’t quite so closely packed as Hollywood can manage, and they tend towards slightly smaller species, in general, but still, its impressive. The two star attractions for most tourists are Asian Elephants and Bornean Orangutans. I dipped on the elephants, but the river certainly delivered for orangutans.

Rhinoceros 167

Rhinoceros Apes Elephants Monkeys 167

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 7, 2011

He had always ignored my pointing out anyway and had continued to play with his toy elephants, and he will ignore my failure to point out anything now and continue to play with his toy elephants. Sure, every season has its typical set of birds. The birds of summer have gone. But to me, their departure means a lot.

Elephants 166

Elephants Neglecting Europe Breeders 166

10,000 Birds

JULY 16, 2012

Several years ago, I was asked to visit my nephew’s preschool class and talk about birds. Jake lives in southern Florida, so he and his friends had to be interested in learning about these birds, which they saw everyday, right? How old were the baby birds? I chalk it up to the original baby bird book, P.D.

Switzerland 203

Switzerland Birds Owls Lions 203

10,000 Birds

MAY 9, 2019

Just imagine a family excursion to Yellowstone to photograph grazing herds of elephants – equally wrong. I do count, write and eBird all crow species I encounter, but, I admit, without much excitement. Such news would usually end up in tabloids with some title reference to Hitchcock’s The Birds. Something was very wrong.

Protection 143

Protection Elephants Owls Laws 143

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 18, 2016

and dreaming of a place where the heat is moderate, beer snake-cold and birds innumerable… Let’s say, where the average annual maximum varies from 22 to 24 degrees Celsius / 72 to 75 Fahrenheit and where some 700+ bird species – 24 of them endemic – are waiting for an intrepid birder… Answer to the riddle?

Africa 123

Africa Uganda Gorillas Rwanda 123

10,000 Birds

JULY 22, 2014

Will Raup is a birder from upstate New York who helped Corey learn a lot about birds when Corey was first starting out as a birder. When you think of invasives, you think of the birds that have been helped by human beings to get where they are, such as House Sparrow or European Starling. This species is primarily an insectivore.

Cattle 169

Cattle South Korea Suriname Seychelles 169

10,000 Birds

APRIL 13, 2015

Ethiopia, a landlocked country situated in the Horn of Africa, has firmly established itself as one of Africa’s top birding destinations. Its great diversity of habitats hosts an incredible bird count of over 900 species, including Africa’s 2nd highest list of endemics and near-endemics (after South Africa). Yellow-billed Stork.

Ethiopia 232

Ethiopia Sudan Leopards Cattle 232

10,000 Birds

MAY 28, 2018

Just stepping away from the birds for a minute, because you can’t really do any kind of story about Kruger National Park, and not at least mention the animals. The best I could do to mix both the birds and the animals was in the picture at the top of this story. This Kori Bustard was one of my target birds.

South Africa 109

South Africa Africa Rhinos Mongoose 109

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 4, 2011

I am cautious, I am vigilant, and I will go anywhere, so long as the place has birds. Seriously, ducks must be the toughest creatures ever, the Chuck Norrises of the bird world, because they endure this thing all the time. But there is one thing I would rather avoid at almost all costs – swimming in murky waters.

Zoos 184

Zoos Elephants Tigers Ducks 184

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 24, 2018

Nearly 30,000 of these acres is set aside as dry wilderness habitat for other birds, animals and other various living creatures. We returned to the visitors center to look around inside, have some lunch, and do a little birding while we there. As we were heading back to the truck, this Solitary Sandpiper walked out on a small sandbar.

New Mexico 113

New Mexico Mexico Tucson Costa Rica 113

10,000 Birds

APRIL 29, 2015

Anyway, while there are many species that I’m always pleased to see (I’m a particular fan of the aquatic kobs, lechwe and pukus) it was only on my last visit that I saw one of the more attractive species for the first time, the Nyala (pronounced Nnya-la, not Nye-al-ah). With an elephant for scale.

Africa 161

Africa Wolves Goats Sheep 161

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 8, 2015

Other species I can recognize are colloquially called crocodile bark tree, due to the bark pattern, and paper bark. For you and me, there are about 200 bird species, but for proper tourists, there seem to be only five species in the reserve: Bengal Tiger , Leopard , Sloth Bear , Indian Wild Dog (Dhole) and the Gaur.

Tigers 243

Tigers Boars India Chickens 243

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

Pafuri lies in the northernmost part of the Kruger National Park and is described as “some of the most potentially productive birding territory in South Africa” on the SANParks website. A slightly more surprising threat for the vultures comes from elephants. Elephants destroy the trees the vultures live and nest in.

Elephants 147

Elephants Congo Birds Africa 147

10,000 Birds

JULY 7, 2015

Birds of California , the new volume in the ABA series, arrived the day I returned. Every bird book seems to be about the west coast this month!) With the boat speed what it was, and being the only birder on board, to stop watching meant I might miss an interesting bird. That’s 22 Marine Mammal species and 43 Seabirds.

Dolphins 162

Dolphins Porpoises Whales Whaling 162

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 21, 2016

So close to the pole only a handful of bird species can survive, and even so, death toll is very high, hence their populations must be huge (millions). There are 11 species of birds that breed in the Ross Sea region. As a consequence, the Ross Sea has one of the highest concentrations of seabirds in the world.

Russia 162

Russia Penguins Whales Whaling 162

Critter News

DECEMBER 12, 2009

The Calgary Zoo is again under scrutiny as details emerged Friday about how a capybara, a species of giant South American rodent, died after becoming caught in a hydraulic door last weekend as it was being moved from one area to another. They were a part of the zoo’s breeding program for the rare birds.

Zoos 100

Zoos Animal Welfare Welfare Elephants 100

10,000 Birds

MARCH 11, 2011

Which, naturally, got me to thinking about the newly erected order Suliformes, a development I mentioned in my December column, 2010′s Top 10 Developments in Bird Taxonomy and Systematics , but which I thought deserved further examination, for it’s one of those stories that defines the era in which we are living and birding.

2011 151

2011 Pelicans Papua New Guinea California 151

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 25, 2013

And besides, it’s nice to see something that isn’t the same 12 (now 13) species of seabird (plus Molly Meep Meep, a Black Brant ) There may not be as many as in October, but they are there, and they can be cool. And there aren’t just cool birds rocking up, migratory bats do too. A Hoary Bat. A wave goodbye.

Whales 157

Whales Whaling Sharks Bats 157

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

Knowing that there are reserves with long lists of 600 or more species, I set my threshold at more than 600 birds… and found only a few such hotspots. Such places are clearly under-visited, under-birded or eBird isn’t that popular in those parts of the world. Other countries still have to reach the 300 birds threshold.

Asia 263

Asia Malaysia Papua New Guinea Thailand 263

10,000 Birds

MARCH 13, 2012

“ There is, perhaps, no better place in the world for birds than this country. Despite discovering dozens of bird species, he is however not remembered in any English names of birds. Wahlberg travelled even more extensively and amassed a huge bird collection. Image by Hugh Chittenden. Image by Adam Riley.

Mozambique 181

Mozambique South Africa Africa Collecting 181