10,000 Birds

MAY 28, 2022

Today, along with teams in a few other parts of Costa Rica and elsewhere, I will be birding for a cause, watching birds to help one that only lives in Costa Rica, the Cabanis’s Ground-Sparrow. Although this endemic is high on the most wanted list of many visiting birders, unfortunately, it’s not an easy bird to see.

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Costa Rica Sparrows Raised Protection 264

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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Wildlife Rehabilitation Wildlife Barn Owls Oklahoma 252

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

The smooth mass of bronze (photographed at right by Jordan Mann) was a stylized version of a Great Auk —a bird that no longer exists. These forlorn figures, I learned, are the work of The Lost Bird Project. Each bird has been placed at the spot associated with its extinction. the epicenter of U.S. and elsewhere.

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Birds Ducks DC Jordan 260

10,000 Birds

APRIL 4, 2015

In reality I’ve returned from filming the second Champions of the Flyway Bird Race. Compared to the 135 participants of this, arguably the most grueling 24-hour birding competition in the world. Cyprus is the third largest island in the Mediterranean and is a crucial stop-over for migrating birds. And I had it easy.

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Israel Cyprus illegal Raised 259

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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Birds Raised Owls Humane 278

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 13, 2013

Last time it was birds and bling. Now it’s birds AS bling. Normally wildlife rehabilitators do not go around wearing birds on purpose. Swifts and swallows are notoriously hard to raise and/or rehabilitate, so rehabbers who don’t specialize in them tend to lose their heads when they’re successful. The NAILS they possess!”

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Wildlife Rehabilitation Birds Wildlife Raised 247

10,000 Birds

JUNE 18, 2013

But when you think about it, climate change might be more important to the people who read 10,000 Birds than a lot of other groups of people. The birds are in trouble and some of them are going to go extinct because of climate change. “The birds” as a whole will be “fine” but many individual species will not.

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Maryland Penguins Birds Wildlife 271

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 9, 2021

The beginning of August raises all kinds of mixed feelings, especially if you live in a temperate zone north of the Equator. I added yet another new Monroe County bird in the form of a Stilt Sandpiper this weekend, which is the only way this species earns my Best Bird honors. What was your best bird of the weekend?

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Birds California Raised Wildlife 264

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 16, 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. Mercedes Rivadeneira has been in the birding tourism and nature conservation business for over 30 years!

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Ecuador Birds 2019 Cattle 264

10,000 Birds

JUNE 3, 2020

No, I am not going to tell you about some blood-sucking bird with hypnotic powers. But when raised, they seem to have a sort of weird cape. But the bird is cool, and I need the photos to prove my points. In other words, they never raise their own young. The post The Dracula Bird appeared first on 10,000 Birds.

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Blackbirds Mexico Cattle Birds 218

10,000 Birds

APRIL 21, 2013

Some of us love to chase down preposterous vagrants, while others eschew bird chasing for contemplation of standard local fare and seasonal specialties. I raise this perennial issue because I found myself twitching a rare ABA bird this weekend. So Corey returned the next day to bag one as his Best Bird of the Weekend.

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Oakland 2013 ALA Raised 249

10,000 Birds

JUNE 2, 2012

In my previous blog Bird Photography Equipment Lens and filters I compared two telephotos which I use regularly, the 300 f/4 IS USM which is an excellent prime lens, and the 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 IS USM is the best zoom lens commonly used for bird photography. I also tried the Canon Extender EF 1.4X To my utter surprised it worked!

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Pro-Test Raised Birds Rights 248

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 6, 2011

Adam Riley, owner and managing director of Rockjumper Birding Tours , is a world birder if ever there was one, but has a special place in his heart for his home continent. Adam will be leading 10,000 Birds readers on an amazing odyssey into Africa starting… now! And Africa is the ONLY continent without an extinct bird to boot!

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Papua New Guinea Equatorial Guinea Madagascar Tanzania 255

10,000 Birds

MAY 9, 2014

At this time of year with every manner of bird on the wing, one needn’t ask whether you’ll be birding this weekend. A better question, then, might be with whom are you birding? Many civilized nations will be honoring over the next few days those women who have birthed and raised us. Birding May weekend'

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2014 Raised Birds 231

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 2, 2021

With my favorite Shanghai birding place at Nanhui getting gradually destroyed under the watchful eyes of the local government favoring Tesla over terns, I have been searching for some alternative Shanghai locations with less ongoing construction, fewer people, and hopefully more birds.

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Cats Kittens Birds Transported 264

10,000 Birds

MAY 31, 2012

Do you toss the bird your leftovers? Do you feed the birds then? It seems like the people that run an awful lot of parks don’t want you feeding the birds. Let’s take the issues raised in the sign above one by one and figure out how serious each issue is. Some parks offer pretty darn good reasons for it too.

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New York City Birds Geese Fast Food 263

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 13, 2021

The slate of birds available to the ardent birder in a particular place is a constant cycle of regulars, not-so-regulars, visitors, rarities, and vagrants. I chased birds for a few years when I first got started, but my laziness eventually took over. For the traveling birder, almost every bird is guaranteed to be a new bird.

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Birds Falcons Raised Species 264

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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China Mongolia Birds Russia 250

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 13, 2021

The Great Backyard Bird Count kicked off yesterday, and will continue throughout the weekend before ending on the 15th. The idea is simple: birders from around the world count birds at least one time for at least fifteen minutes, and submit their data through eBird or the Merlin Bird ID app. The highlights? A fine start to GBBC!

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Florida Pelicans Geese Turkey 264

10,000 Birds

APRIL 5, 2011

My 8-year old daughter got interested in birds from a VERY early stage. By age 2 she could identify over 10 species of birds in our Johannesburg, South Africa, yard by call alone. So I guess for some people birding skills come naturally but, for others, birding skills need to be learnt. And perhaps 20 others by sight.

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Birds Game South Africa Wildlife 279

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 17, 2015

As this prodigal birder returned from his excesses and weakly raised his Bushnell’s, 2 Lesser Moorhens skittered across a small pond and disappeared into the weeds on the far side. Birds Lesser Moorhen' But God loves a sinner it would appear. As far as eBird is concerned, my 2015 campaign started at 14.30 Have a great 2015.

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Ghana Soreing 2015 Campaign 213

10,000 Birds

MAY 7, 2023

Black-eared Cuckoo Black-eared Cuckoos do not raise their own young, but place an egg in another bird species nest for them to raise as their own. We have observed many of the Cuckoo species here in Australia being raised by other bird species, but not the Black-eared Cuckoo as yet.

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Australia Raised Eggs Species 263

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 12, 2021

Are 12s right for birding? Or have you ever birded with 12s? With such a background, my decision to test the new birding frontier of Swarovski 12×42 extra-wide FOV binoculars didn’t appear strange at all – to me, at least. If you spot a small bird with, e.g., 8s, you will walk towards it until you get a better view.

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Birds Raised Rights Experience 264

10,000 Birds

APRIL 27, 2023

As sound photography has not been invented yet, I will therefore focus on the other birds encountered here. Alphonse Milne-Edwards (1835-1900), a director to the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, whose study of bird fossils led to the discovery of tropical birds such as trogons and parrots from prehistoric France.

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Italy China France Eggs 260

10,000 Birds

APRIL 29, 2020

The last time I had seen a Summer Tanager was during a Christmas Bird Count in 2012. Sightings in Trinidad have been sporadic, 38 to be exact since the formation of the T&T Bird Status and Distribution Committee. This is an immature bird, as evidenced by the yellow wash on his underparts. Amazingly, it was still there!

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Trinidad Birds Squirrels 2012 263

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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Singapore Birds Zebras Feral 264

10,000 Birds

JUNE 11, 2015

A manicured green lawn in front of the building and an iridescent blue bird on a smallish aloe tree. It was June 1999 and I was observing my first ever bird on African soil. The next bird was some crow-like UFO observed from the shuttle bus. I asked the bus driver about the bird and he asked me back: “The bi’d?” “Umm,

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Africa Botswana Europe Birds 250

10,000 Birds

JUNE 16, 2024

The Cuckoo Cuculus canorus has a bad reputation because of its habit of laying its eggs on the nests of other birds, who then raise their young. But in south-west Europe there is a bird that kicks out the sitting tenants and takes over the nest altogether. In other words, it was a rare bird.

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Europe Tenant Spain Eggs 299

10,000 Birds

JUNE 27, 2013

I leave acacias behind and enter the village, at first raised on low concrete platforms, barely half a meter above the tidal mud flat. The nearest seas were 1000 kilometers to the east and 1500 to the west, when I saw a Crab-plover on the front of the Africa Birds & Birding magazine, photographed on some beach in Mozambique.

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Mozambique India Fish Birds 235

10,000 Birds

JUNE 6, 2012

There are few families of birds as bewitching as the birds-of-paradise. They are feathered jewels with extraordinary breeding dances almost unrivalled in the bird world. Both those birds were females, which are brown on top with buff and pale undersides, but they are still elegant birds and bigger than I imagined.

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Indonesia Guinea Australia Cooking 246

10,000 Birds

JUNE 12, 2013

When people ask me what the best thing they can do to avoid birds pecking holes in cedar siding, my answer is, “Get aluminum siding.” But once you notice birds pecking (or squirrels chewing) in your siding–YOU MUST ACT FAST. So, what can you do when birds are making holes in siding? ” Effective?

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Sparrows Squirrels Minnesota Pigs 227

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 10, 2012

The family Picathartidae consists of two very unusual birds; White-necked or Yellow-headed Picathartes , endemic to the Upper Guinea forests of West Africa; and Gray-necked or Red-headed , restricted to Lower Guinea forests of Central Africa. White-necked or Yellow-headed Picathartes, Bonkro, Ghana.

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Sierra Leone Ghana Equatorial Guinea Cameroon 274

10,000 Birds

MAY 11, 2021

On April 16, 2021, the Diversity and Inclusion Committee of the American Ornithological Society (AOS), had a “ Community Congress on English Bird Names ” to discuss whether certain bird names should be changed and, if so, how quickly. Moreover, bird names exist within a larger culture, so changing them might have limited impact.

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Birds Russia Hawaii Woodpeckers 264

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 20, 2011

When climate changes, causing habitats to move, birds can get up and fly away to a new habitat, so really, they’ll be fine. I’ve been working on climate change lately (not causing it, but reading and writing about it) and birds have come up in a few places. Similar things happen to both fish and birds. Keep watching.

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Penguins Birds Cooking Fish 250

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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Trinidad Birds Parrots Falcons 263

10,000 Birds

MARCH 21, 2024

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.

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Mexico Birds Raccoons Baltimore 246

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 12, 2013

This bird is also highly endangered, with a known population of just over 1,000 birds. The non-profit Portuguese Society for the Study of Birds (SPEA) does not want to see this bullfinch go the way of the dodo, so it is raising funds to maintain the laurisilva or laurel forest this species requires.

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Raised Rights Species Birds 243