10,000 Birds

APRIL 5, 2023

Perhaps a little more shock-inducing and paradoxical than concepts of birding at sewage ponds or graveyards, an oil refinery seems to be the antithesis of a desirable place for a birder. From Yellow-hooded Blackbirds to Purple and Common Gallinules , there are almost too many birds to focus on!

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10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 6, 2022

While these birds are very much liked by Chinese birders, the species could unfortunately not be named the National Bird of China as the Latin species name of the bird is Grus Japonicus. it would not be the national bird of the USA either. Incompetent photographers can always blame the bird.

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10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 13, 2025

Still, they keep cropping up – and some are specific to the world of birds and birding. When describing humans, I bet you do not talk about your “Clothed Companions” either. Of course, we all know that cliches should be avoided like voice messages. Here are ten that I find particularly annoying.

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10,000 Birds

MARCH 24, 2021

The reason that La Mesa is my new favorite local birding destination is not just that it is so close to home; it is the great mix of habitats that it offers. On the way, I pass through a wonderful mixed habitat with lots of native trees that keep fruit-eating birds happy, and flowers that attract all of our region’s hummingbird species.

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10,000 Birds

APRIL 1, 2020

I’ve always birded from home for as long as I can remember. Now, every day I end up subconsciously birding from before my eyes open in the morning. Not being a fan of human structures in my images, I’ve never done much bird photography at home. Tropical Mockingbirds on a neighbor’s tree. Great Kiskadee.

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10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 18, 2018

There is a virtual flock of new and interesting bird science news all of the sudden, including the rediscovery of an extinct Bahama Nuthatch. It was always thought that humans first inhabited the island of Madagascar about four or five thousand years ago or so. If they are the only evidence of humans, then not fine.

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10,000 Birds

MAY 13, 2022

The only bird-related activity I can think of is looking at bird photos I took in Singapore in 2015, and adding some irrelevant comments to them. Presumably, birds living in Singapore do not understand German. And I spent my time in Singapore birding, not shopping. “Odd, me?”

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10,000 Birds

AUGUST 26, 2021

Fortunately for birdwatchers, many of these birds like to sit on the power and other lines, of which sometimes curiously three or four run in parallel. I am not sure what the birds were congregating for where I took these photos. Little Owls have a somewhat less interesting diet consisting of insects, small mammals, and birds.

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10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 1, 2020

But birds don’t seem to care about what ails us humans. Corey had an excellent weekend’s birding, adding three species to his year list for Queens, Eared Grebe , Tundra Swan , and Red-shouldered Hawk. That was before he lived there and as such, Eared Grebe is easily his Best Bird of the Weekend. How about you?

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10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 24, 2020

That means it also has many tropical birds that a foreigner living in China can see without risking to leave the country (which would mean 2 weeks of quarantine on reentry at best and complete exclusion at worst, depending on the ever-changing regulations). Apparently, many bird species have employed the same concept as me for a long time.

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10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 1, 2021

Oriental Scops Owls are quite possibly my favorite bird at Nanhui. Bird-shaped cuteness. Estren said that humans should be mindful of their bias for cute animals, so animals that would not be considered cute are also valued in addition to cute animals. Of course, this would probably get me a telling off from Mark J.

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10,000 Birds

JULY 15, 2024

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. I usually restrict my unfair jokes to humans.

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10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 14, 2020

This year has been bountiful in books about bird behavior (reference and otherwise) from the likes of David Allen Sibley , Helen Macdonald, Jennifer Ackerman , Wenfei Tong, and others. The latest is the encyclopedic and delightful Peterson Reference Guide to Bird Behavior , by John Kricher. What do we mean, anyway, by bird “behavior”?

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10,000 Birds

JANUARY 29, 2020

But here is the truly tragic part: I was not birding during those years! My hosts had arranged for me to stay in a beautiful private home, high on a ridge overlooking the city, and the forested area surrounding the home attracted some very noisy (and, for me, exciting) birds. The White-throated Magpie-Jay: such a beautiful bird!

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10,000 Birds

JUNE 13, 2021

The bird is just chilling out, waiting for the urge to fly. The bird below is also waiting, but not to fly. One might assume this is a falconry bird, but it’s not. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of birds knows the efficiency and delicacy of their respiratory systems. Now imagine you have the lungs of a bird.

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10,000 Birds

JUNE 13, 2022

Some more photos of Australian birds mixed with irrelevant facts and mediocre half-jokes, as a way to pass away the time while being under lockdown in Shanghai (note: it is over now but this post was written during the lockdown). It must be a bit frustrating for a flower to be less colorful than the bird visiting it though.

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10,000 Birds

MAY 23, 2014

Birds have no boobs. Birds hatch out of eggs, like some species of snakes, who also have no boobs, although with a snake the fact is more readily apparent. Not so with birds, who are taken care of by either the mother or both parents until they are old enough to fly. No birds feed their young milk.

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10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 19, 2020

This was actually the place where the late Richard ffrench spent much of his time as a music teacher, amassing countless observations of birds that would later form the basis of one of the essential birding guides for Trinidad and Tobago. The subtle white edging to the gape of this bird indicates it is near breeding time.

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10,000 Birds

JANUARY 17, 2014

But occasionally it’s clear that something has happened to the parents, or the whole tree has been cut down and there are no alternatives, or the birds had the bad luck to be born in an area where one or more idiotic, soulless humans let their cats roam around outside. Put the baby birds in the nest.

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10,000 Birds

JANUARY 3, 2023

Everyone loves baby birds; 10,000 Birds even had a Baby Bird Week once upon a time! Baby birds are cuteness personified, possibly even more so than other baby animals, including human babies, and pose interesting questions of survival and development. Aren’t they usually in their nest with their parents?”

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10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 9, 2021

The latter is possible, as the undisturbed areas of Nanhui keep shrinking, leaving less and less space for birds. Humans, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves. I have to say that the pattern suits the buntings much better than humans, though, and hopefully, it is also more pleasant for them to wear. They also look fairly cute.

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10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 14, 2023

As the rice paddies near Kota Kinabalu described in an earlier post , Tanjung Aru beach is not really a major birding spot in its own right. However, it is only a short taxi ride away from the airport where most travelers will arrive at – better to see birds instead of just eating fast food while waiting for a connecting flight.

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10,000 Birds

APRIL 22, 2024

I admit this is not quite on the level of fellow writers’ posts describing birding as an extreme sport. The bird has now started using its scientific name, Hemipus picatus , as it is substantially shorter. Perhaps the middle section of blog posts should be relatively boring in order to get rid of the more casual readers.

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10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 1, 2015

Alas, the team named for a bird fell short of the crown in Super Bowl XLIX. While many human beings felt anguish and rage at the loss, most avifauna appeared unperturbed. The non-Seahawk birds that caught my eye this weekend were Northern Cardinals , which always look their best burning crimson against a blanket of white snow.

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10,000 Birds

APRIL 25, 2022

It has been more than 5 years since I last went to Australia, and I was even less of a qualified bird photographer then than I am now. So, the basic idea is to show 15 species of Australian birds in each post and give you the usual trivia about them. I guess it is a bird though. Admittedly, it is mostly grey.

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Australia Koalas Parrots Birds 259

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 13, 2021

The poster bird of this area is the near-threatened Black-necked Crane. Not sure how I (or the bird itself) feel about the bird being named after a bird collector, though. A beautiful bird, but a disastrous name, if even some of the accusations against Przevalski of him being a massive racist are true.

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10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 14, 2014

I don’t mean people who steal birds. I mean birds who steal, sometimes from people. It’s a sad fact of life: sometimes birds take things that don’t belong to them. Crows, who are probably the most larcenous birds on earth, make off with anything they can get their beaks on. Raptors mug each other mid-air.

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10,000 Birds

APRIL 15, 2014

so I’m a bit behind in my intense pursuit of scientific findings related to birds. First, the bird butts. It is interesting to note that the vast majority of birds flying by out there are going the other way. But I do have a few items. All I see are their buts. But that’s not the most interesting thing I’ve seen recently.

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10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 25, 2021

Fortunately, I share this preference with birds, which we found away from the lake, mostly in some semi-desert areas. “ Not the bird’s fault, I guess. Possibly my favorite bird on the whole Qinghai trip was this Mongolian Ground Jay – thanks a lot to Bella from Alpinebirding for finding it.

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10,000 Birds

JULY 20, 2023

But then, birdwatching is boring most of the time, too – all the periods when there are no birds … As by now usual for me, the trip was done with Alpinebirding , which helped reduce the time spent not seeing any birds. Humans are not always bad for birds, only about 95% of the time.

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10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 15, 2021

It is a well-known birding hotspot, though access to some of its parts may be tricky without a local guide. There is quite a bit of construction going on, so in the future, the park may become much more accessible to tourists, and at the same time much less attractive for shy birds (and their birder followers). Birders, less so.

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10,000 Birds

MAY 13, 2021

In April, many birds come to Shanghai, stay for a day or two and decide to move on. Maybe the birds know something. On Tianmashan, a little bird pool (with attached restaurant) has had few visitors this month. Switching to blue birds, Nanhui has Siberian Blue Robin … … and Bluethroat. Long live The Cure.

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10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 6, 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. That’s what makes us such good company: No birds to be seen at the moment?

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10,000 Birds

MARCH 15, 2021

Guyana is an Amerindian word meaning “land of many waters” but it could just as easily mean “land of many birds”. Before I delve into some of these avian treasures let me give you a few non-birding reasons to visit this gem of South America. Not a great look for a middle-aged birding dude. Wilderness. Guyana is WILD.

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10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 9, 2021

Each time, a small notebook tagged along with me, and I would note the bird species I spotted, then put it away. As we kept paddling, I continued, “It helps me remember when birds come and when they leave. It’s human nature: Once we think we know what we’re looking at, we mentally fill in the gaps and move on to the next thing.

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10,000 Birds

JANUARY 8, 2022

Not quite there yet… perhaps some day but not until most of us humans live in a sustainable manner that does not excavate and alter basic ecosystem functions we depend on. In the meantime, 2022 also represents another year to celebrate and enjoy birds. Nope, none of these are escapes, all are native, wild birds.

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10,000 Birds

MARCH 20, 2020

The Old World Passer sparrows are ubiquitous all around the world, typically where humans congregate most. Where will you be this weekend and will you be birding? Also be sure to come back Monday to share your best bird of the weekend ! The post Where Are You Birding This Third Weekend of March 2020? Sound like fun?

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