10,000 Birds

JANUARY 29, 2020

But here is the truly tragic part: I was not birding during those years! The third weekend of January, I travelled to the coastal city of Acapulco to give a seminar on family finances at a church there. These turkey-sized birds, named for their raucous calls, can muster an impressive level of volume.

Birds 158

Birds 2006 Mexico Morocco 158

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 17, 2021

Still, the outing did not produce any new species for the year, or enough good photos for a post here. Instead, I have chosen to write about an idea I’ve had percolating for a while: to tell you what the most common species are down here. I’ll take the most common native species in taxonomic order.

Woodpeckers 319

Woodpeckers Mexico Species Cattle 319

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 17, 2019

Lots of birds, a lot of really cool birds! Some local populations of birds and animals couldn’t adapt to the radical ecosystem-wide changes and just died out but a fair percentage did survive and continue to persist where green space lingers. This is one heck of a sweet urban bird. Lesson’s Motmot.

Costa Rica 190

Costa Rica Birds Parrots Sparrows 190

10,000 Birds

MAY 8, 2013

Birds are supposed to have feathers and birds without feathers look incomplete, like they left home with shaving cream on their ear and toothpaste spots on their shirt. The smellier the better, particularly as, unusually for birds, many species can boast a robust sense of smell. Griffon Vulture , photo by Alan Tilmouth.

California Condor 176

California Condor Turkey North America Jordan 176

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 1, 2020

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.

Birds 214

Birds Research Science Costa Rica 214

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 29, 2016

Clicking on most of these photos will open a new tab taking you to my 10000 Birds posts on that respective species The post on the California Scrub-Jay above is here. One of the first species I noted were a pair of Anna’s Hummingbirds. A Turkey Vulture was soaring above… And a bit later, a Red-tailed Hawk.

Woodpeckers 101

Woodpeckers Turkey California Birds 101

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 1, 2022

On that glorious day, I observed ten critically endangered birds, representing 8% of their Costa Rican, or 2% of their global population!! In my previous post , I dealt with Rancho Naturalista Lodge itself and birding within their private reserve. But, let’s start at the beginning.

Costa Rica 226

Costa Rica Nicaragua 2019 Farming 226

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 3, 2019

“Target birds” The term can foster excitement but is easily contentious. It would be uber cool to lay eyes on a rare lifer, on species that only seem to live on the pages of a field guide but isn’t that somewhat discriminatory? Aren’t all birds worth watching? Looking for Bare-necked Umbrellabird ?

Costa Rica 201

Costa Rica Panama Birds Eagles 201

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 15, 2023

And since I suspect there may be others out there who, like I, feel something of a personal connection with 10,000 Birds’ regular writers, I feel the need to explain my absence. Two other countries we visited, Morocco and Turkey, have recently experienced catastrophic earthquakes. I’m sorry. My wife got to fly up for them.

Mexico 176

Mexico Morocco Cuba Jordan 176

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 30, 2017

Newly re-opened after budget cuts, the park sported one staff member in the office who generously gave us a map, one woman and her dog, and one family in the set of RV camping spots at the edge of the lake. Still, I felt the familiar excitement of birding a new place. Pretty standard, in terms of bird-fare. Totally not.

Alabama 113

Alabama Birds Deer Turkey 113

10,000 Birds

MARCH 23, 2020

Having finally found a Black Vulture for my Queens list , an important tick both because it was long overdue and because it was the tenth bird since my last set of predictions, it is time, once again, to look at what might be coming to my Queens list. Black Vulture – The bird that has been reported the most in Queens that I have never seen.

2018 157

2018 Birds 2015 2019 157

10,000 Birds

MARCH 14, 2020

Some birds seem familiar but that’s just because they are the ones we grew up with, the birds that were hopping or flying around the neighborhood. The familiar ones, the usual birds, of course depend on where someone spent their childhood. Turquoise-browed Motmot- yes, this shocking bird is normal in various places !

Costa Rica 225

Costa Rica Cleveland Turkey Parrots 225

10,000 Birds

MAY 19, 2015

Birds are a subset of dinosaurs (See: Honey, I Shrunk the Dinosaurs. Prior to the extinction of all of the other dinosaurs, resulting from a cosmic impact event about 65 million years ago, the ancestors of modern birds were different from modern birds in many ways, but also similar in many ways. So how did beaks evolve?

Alligators 208

Alligators Chickens Birds Research 208

10,000 Birds

APRIL 30, 2019

He is the author of an internationally distributed book in Spanish about family finances and has recorded four albums in Spanish of his own songs. But every Monday, he explores the wonderful habitats and birds found within an hour of his house. This is Paul’s first post for 10,000 Birds. east of Morelia.

San Francisco 116

San Francisco Mexico Turkey California 116

10,000 Birds

APRIL 9, 2018

This is the third year that my family and some our close friends did a vacation together. The sun was out, the birds were singing, and I got to point out Northern Gannets patrolling offshore. Nuthatches are always fun birds and being able to watch them for extended periods is always entertaining.

North Carolina 100

North Carolina New York Delaware Puerto Rico 100

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 5, 2015

In Costa Rica, when speaking English, we use a combination of words associated with both North American and UK birding communities. Quetzal” In sounding like the name of a rap star, this also gives the bird a modern, catchy title that befits the fame and splendid appearance. How’s that for cool? We would love to see both.

Costa Rica 165

Costa Rica Sparrows Birds Eagles 165

10,000 Birds

MARCH 18, 2014

The birding in Florida is so easy that a kid can do it. I’m in Orlando for what is supposed to be a family excursion, but as anyone who considers a pair of binoculars to be an every day accessory, if there are birds to be found I’m going to make an effort to see them. Birding Florida kids Ospreys'

Florida 167

Florida Alligators Birds United States 167

10,000 Birds

JUNE 27, 2019

I’m a long-time champion of the IOC World Bird List as a standard for bird names. They give short shrift to New Zealand’s birds, lumping them with odd names no one here uses because the names are shared elsewhere and God knows America isn’t going to take a hit for us. But the name… oh god the name.

Iran 126

Iran Barn Owls New Zealand Europe 126

10,000 Birds

JULY 19, 2011

For 13 years now, friends and family have been gathering in an undisclosed corner of Potter County, Pennsylvania during the third weekend of July to create a glorious giant chicken of wood, straw, and gunpowder only to burn it. This year, though, the birding was better than usual. See why we keep the location undisclosed?

Chickens 174

Chickens 2011 Pennsylvania Birds 174

10,000 Birds

APRIL 1, 2017

As birders, we tend to spend more time in wetlands than most of our peers, neighbors, and family members. Unless those non-birding folks happen to be duck hunters or love to go fishing, they tend to stay away from the marshes, the riparian zones, the bottom lands. See the birds? Of course not, it’s rainforest!

Costa Rica 100

Costa Rica Birds Ducks Pelicans 100

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 7, 2013

Two-thousand-twelve was a pretty darn good year for me birding-wise and otherwise. Seeing 525 species was nice, as was the fact that I birded in four countries, nine of the fifty states in the United States, and fifty-one counties. Finally, my 2012 Year List easily exceeded the 500 species I had hoped to see.

2012 143

2012 Czech Republic Hedgehogs Birds 143

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 18, 2012

Few American birds have the publicity problems of the titmouse. A bird in the genus Baeolophus is neither a mouse nor…the other thing. The word titmouse descends from the Old English terms, tit (any small animal or object) and mase (small bird), essentially meaning one small, small bird. So be on the lookout.

Arizona 262

Arizona Oklahoma Texas Mexico 262

10,000 Birds

MARCH 26, 2012

Anhinga , otherwise known as Snakebird , Water Turkey , or American Darter * – and more formally as Anhinga anhinga – is a bird I have long wanted to see in New York State. In fact, he pointed out the exact same bird as the bird below. In fact, he pointed out the exact same bird as the bird below.

Florida 172

Florida Honduras Turkey Wildlife 172

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 27, 2017

Located about 20 miles from Lakeview, Oregon, and sitting at an elevation of 5100 feet, this 208 acre lake is home to many species of fish, including Largemouth Bass, Crappie and Bluegill. With shore side access limited to the northern end of the lake, that protection allows for a large population of water based birds.

Dogs 102

Dogs Mules Deer Oregon 102

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 10, 2011

And the famous Wandering Albatross has the largest wingspan of any living bird, nearly 12 feet across in the largest individuals. Four families are often recognized: storm-petrels, albatrosses, shearwaters and petrels , and diving-petrels. And species-level taxonomy of the tubenoses remains a great frontier for study and discovery.

Albatross 177

Albatross Penguins Groups New Zealand 177

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 18, 2015

One – the Takahe is far too cool a species to lose. Two – there is so much distinctness amongst the different forms of the Purple Swamphen that lumping means we may as well lump all the world’s reed warblers into one huge species and be done with it. ” Birds Europe Purple Swamphen rails Spain'

Spain 157

Spain Hunters Africa Hunting 157

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 4, 2016

Summer is too hot, the birds are quiet in fall, and winter is too cold. I was very pleased to discover that we had chosen to stay in a place smack dab in the middle of a juniper-pinyon forest, which meant that finding one of my main two target species of the trip, a Juniper Titmouse , was amazingly easy. How gross is that?

Birds 101

Birds Mules Utah Deer 101

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 19, 2014

There is a fantastic paper just out in Science : “Sustained miniaturization and anatomoical innovation in the dinosaurian anceestors of birds” by Michael Lee, Andrea Cau, Darren Naishe and Gareth Dyke. But birds are dinosaurs. Birds have a number of features that distinguish them from, say, camels. As Lee Et.Al

Camels 196

Camels Whaling Whales Apes 196

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 20, 2014

The magnificent history and diversity of birds on Earth came into sharper focus this month with the publication of 28 new scientific papers in Science and other journals. One of the central papers, Whole-genome analyses resolve early branches in the tree of life of modern birds (Jarvis et al. American Flamingo photo by Dick Culbert).

Family 279

Family Birds Parrots 2014 279

10,000 Birds

MARCH 17, 2011

home about advertise archives birds conservation contact galleries links reviews subscribe Browse: Home / Birding / Where Are You Birding This Third Weekend of March 2011? Where Are You Birding This Third Weekend of March 2011? Mama mia, no birding for me! Share your plans in the comments below.

2011 150

2011 Birds Deer South Dakota 150

10,000 Birds

MARCH 5, 2023

I recently received a kind letter from a 10,000 Birds friend, who was worried that my recent irregularity in contributing to this website might indicate that something was wrong. First, we had our five-week trip to Spain, Turkey and Jordan in September and October. I assured him then, and assure you now, that I am fine.

Birds 188

Birds Mexico Jordan Ohio 188

10,000 Birds

JULY 6, 2022

Both Trinidad and Tobago share over a hundred species but within the mix are many that are found on one island and not the other. For those of us who travel and see different birds, I’m sure you’d agree that there are different degrees of novelty. A number of families exist on Trinidad but not Tobago.

Trinidad 247

Trinidad Turkey Species Squirrels 247

10,000 Birds

MARCH 15, 2011

This one is a doozy and your clue is that all of the shots were taken this year in Queens, NY, so a knowledge of what birds can be seen in my fine borough will be of great assistance to you if you have that knowledge. Remember to identify each bird by its full common name in the comment section below. Get yours today!

2011 177

2011 Bald Eagle Sparrows Parrots 177

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 26, 2022

In fact, I was already embarrassed two months ago, when the pandemic and at-home duties had forced me to write about the same michoacano birds for a couple of years running. (It’s It’s a good thing that I can access some 300+ michoacano birds! New places, new birds! ” Of course, I birded every moment I could.

Turkey 162

Turkey Spain Mexico Agenda 162

10,000 Birds

MARCH 9, 2011

I briefly entertained the idea that I had found a rare species never before seen in New York but quickly came to my senses and realized that I was dealing with a leucistic individual. This post has been submitted to Bird Photography Weekly #133. These Blasts From The Past Thrilling Turkey Facts What Makes You Stare So, Bufflehead?

Ducks 150

Ducks 2011 Jamaica Deer 150

10,000 Birds

MARCH 29, 2021

Currently he is the convenor for Birdlife Australia in his local area and, as that suggests, he loves sharing his passion for birds and all wildlife through outings and bird walks. Currently Ken continues to dream of overseas birding tours but will settle for ones down under. First the listing part.

Birds 262

Birds 2020 Australia Species 262

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 25, 2021

Since the 2nd edition of the Collins Bird Guide (published as “Birds of Europe” in the US) from 2009, the field guide market for European guides is practically dead. Each family is given a double-page spread. That kind of feature is something you cannot clearly see in those tiny illustrations in the Collins Bird Guide.

Europe 233

Europe Asia Cyprus Species 233