10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 18, 2012

One of the defining characteristics of birds, besides the obvious features of wings and feathers, is their bills. From toucans to curlews and from hummingbirds to flamingos, birds display an almost otherworldly diversity in these body-parts. Bills are instrumental in defining three of the senses in birds – taste, touch and smell.

Mammals 245

Mammals Mozambique Birds Colombia 245

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 7, 2015

As a result, some of the most popular and exciting birding destinations in the world run on Tico time. Having visited quite a few outstanding ecolodges in my blessed life, I’ve learned that exceptional birding destinations must first and foremost harbor exceptional, accessible birds. Are there hummingbirds?

Costa Rica 250

Costa Rica Birds Farming 2014 250

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 13, 2014

First, let’s start with the good: Scientific testing of drones near birding hotspot Cape May, NJ has been postponed to avoid messing with Red Knots and Piping Plovers (like the cutie above that Corey photographed there a few years back). (On Sea World San Diego just welcomed the world’s first “test-tube” penguin.

San Diego 202

San Diego Penguins Ohio Geese 202

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 243

Alligators Chickens Research Reptiles 243

10,000 Birds

JULY 18, 2020

In Costa Rica, our July birding news usually consists of interesting sightings during the mid-summer tours. These and other important birding related questions come to mind and during a normal July, I would be personally and actively helping answer them. Which tours saw the most roosting owls?

Costa Rica 251

Costa Rica Birds Thailand Farming 251

10,000 Birds

MARCH 26, 2013

I was reading Carrie’s post last month and got to thinking about car birding in general. Personally, I am a big fan of car birding, despite the necessary fossil fuel burning that is involved. For many birders, the thought of car birding is as natural as using a field guide. The weight of my argument crushes all others.

LACS 136

LACS North Dakota Costa Rica Idaho 136

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 1, 2014

Birding in the Amazon Rainforest has its pros and cons. The lure of an staggering number of species at a particular location is a draw for many people. However, rainforest birds live in specific microhabitats and are often much easier to hear than to see in the dense multilayered rainforest.

Peru 209

Peru United Kingdom Birds South Africa 209

10,000 Birds

APRIL 5, 2021

I knocked down several first birds of spring this weekend (not literally) but will always give Best Bird honors to a Saw-whet Owl , especially one showing as well as the one Ivy and I located at Owl Woods on Easter. Corey was extremely pleased to finally get out and about birding again after his family all caught COVID and recovered.

Texas 197

Texas New York Owls Birds 197

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 13, 2014

Some birders like to see just birds, while others like birds, but don’t mind stopping or even taking detours to see other creatures along the trail. I like to see birds for a long time and hear their vocalization; even if these are common species. Pelagic birding was so different. Birding is supposed to be fun.

Peru 212

Peru Birds Albatross Experience 212

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

This, 2022, has been a curious year for books about birds and birding. Dragan]: Europe’s Birds: An Identification Guide , by Hume, Still, Swash, and Harrop is a photographic guide. The artwork of “Europe’s Birds” is dazzling, the text condensed and comprehensive, and the layout and design are without peer.

Sri Lanka 258

Sri Lanka Malaysia Suriname Malawi 258

10,000 Birds

APRIL 14, 2021

Trinidad’s cloud forests typically aren’t birded much. These magical forests hide isolated treasures like the critically endangered Golden Tree Frog – not to mention several species of birds not found anywhere else in the country. Not for long though, as the walking began shortly thereafter.

Trinidad 264

Trinidad Groups Parrots Eagles 264

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. If half the Warblers go extinct, that would be a lot of species but you’d still pretty much have Warbler DNA.

Bald Eagle 198

Bald Eagle Zoos Philippines Apes 198

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 13, 2020

Factors like temperature, weather, and availability of food sources drive avian distribution, but the single most influential factor regarding how many species you might see this month is YOU. My business trip to Florida to host the Tests and the Rest Winter Conference 2020 was more than just a professional success. How about you?

2020 181

2020 Florida Ducks Owls 181

10,000 Birds

MAY 20, 2014

Bird Navigation is an amazing, mysterious thing. For years, birds have outsmarted scientists over this issue, mainly I think because people looking into navigation originally made the incorrect assumption that birds are birds and there is a navigational method that they use. Also, consider this. But what about pigeons?

Humane 260

Humane Compassion Research Cooking 260

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 15, 2014

As I crept through the forest and wondered where the birds were, a hint of movement caught my attention on the other side of a tree fern. They give you an unfair, unnatural advantage and anyone who watches them doesn’t know the real deal when it comes to birding. The moth sheet : This is one heck of a sweet bird feeder invention!

Costa Rica 222

Costa Rica Birds Arizona Woodpeckers 222

10,000 Birds

MARCH 7, 2011

home about advertise archives birds conservation contact galleries links reviews subscribe Browse: Home / Conservation / Want to Go Bird Banding in Amazonian Peru? Want to Go Bird Banding in Amazonian Peru? One way volunteers help is by participating in a bird banding workshop called Bird Ringing Forever.

Peru 226

Peru 2011 Deer 2010 226

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 7, 2022

While not on the scale of bird migration, it is routinely and somewhat lazily described as the biggest annual migration of humans in the world. Like a film star wearing a whig and big sunglasses in a public place, this bird at first glance looks fairly nondescript. Once the bird takes up a different position, it gets more interesting.

China 245

China Pythons Birds Rabbits 245

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 5, 2019

I remember it as the one in Niagara where the Arctic would come on down to bring ice for the roads, cold blue for the sky, and, with luck, birds from the north. Looking for Northern Shrikes and redpolls was a test for winter gear and wind chill factors but the birds weren’t going to be there in the hot days of summer.

Costa Rica 202

Costa Rica 2019 Birds Litter 202

10,000 Birds

APRIL 24, 2021

“That bird! That bird, chase it! Shearwaters scattered at our approach and the wind howled in our ears but it couldn’t dampen Wilfredo’s focus, nor his vocal insistence to “follow those birds”! As the prop motor revved and ocean spray flew by, I wondered, “Which birds”?

Costa Rica 264

Costa Rica Dolphins Sea Turtles Turtles 264

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 30, 2014

There’s a new proposal before the American Ornithologists’ Union’s North American Classification Committee to split Painted Bunting into two species (yay! — maybe, more later) and to name the new species “Eastern Painted Bunting” and “Western Painted Bunting” (no!). Gorgeous Bunting.

Mississippi 277

Mississippi Mexico Alabama North Carolina 277

10,000 Birds

JUNE 14, 2015

All the world’s redpolls probably represent a single species, and redpolls probably look different in different places more because of environmental influences on how their genes are expressed than because of stable underlying differences in the genes themselves. ” What to do? ” What to do?

Species 263

Species Research Humane Birds 263

10,000 Birds

MAY 27, 2024

Given how far Hokkaido is from Europe, it seems a bit surprising how many bird species wintering on this Japanese island have a name starting with “Eurasian” Or how many of these species I have also seen in my parents’ garden in Germany. It seems extra-pair paternity is very frequent in this species.

Iran 213

Iran Germany Research Humane 213

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 209

California Condor Turkey North America Jordan 209

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 11, 2015

This is Liz’s first contribution to 10,000 Birds. The rise in drone popularity over the past few years has been meteoric — and in our typical human arrogance, we’ve once again ignored the fact that for the past 150 million years, the sky has belonged to the birds.

Idaho 201

Idaho Bears Protection Birds 201

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 255

South Africa Africa Leopards Penguins 255

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 11, 2011

Founded by Roberto Chavarro and his family in the early eighties, this little reserve has been dropped slap-bang into the birding spotlight by the recent claims of the rediscovery of the Bogota Sunangel Heliangelus zusii , a species that is known from one record – a skin from 1909! returned to the USA. An amateur at best.

Colombia 256

Colombia Family 2011 Species 256

10,000 Birds

JULY 5, 2024

We had dear guests from the Middle East staying with us on Monday, my usual birding day. So this week, instead of writing about my latest outing, which did not happen, I will talk about a few of my favorite birds. These species are not only beautiful or charming, but have a personal resonance for me. ” (What a cool bird!)

Squirrels 245

Squirrels Mexico Kansas South America 245

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 4, 2019

One of the many things I love about Mexico is the quality of its “trash birds” You may have heard that phrase among birders; it refers to whatever species is so common at a given site that you become tired of seeing them. The king of deceptive birds in my area is the Blue Mockingbird. They are everywhere.

Mexico 158

Mexico Birds Sparrows Species 158

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 22, 2024

And after visiting these birds regularly for the past ten years, I take their situation very personally. And would those birds still be there, or had they been forced to move on? A recent local news article says its current maximum depth is 60 cm/2 feet, although I didn’t test this statement.)

Ducks 242

Ducks Pelicans Collecting Species 242

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. appeared first on 10,000 Birds.

India 225

India Wildlife Tigers Rhinoceros 225

10,000 Birds

JUNE 28, 2011

When my friends over at YourBirdOasis sent me a super squirrel-proof bird feeder to review, I had to think about who I knew who could really put the device to the test. In the context of my backyard, I doubt Bird appreciates Squirrel’s resoluteness either. I chose this as my test. are filled with cracked corn.

Squirrels 184

Squirrels Investigation Ethics Groups 184

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 8, 2022

I recently birded the Tualatin River NWR near Portland, Oregon, and made that my test case for a deeper dive into the Mobile Track. The refuge is a popular birding location , and it has 229 species observed and nearly 8,000 checklists submitted.

Portland 264

Portland Oregon Washington Geese 264

10,000 Birds

JULY 27, 2011

One of the things I do to earn a living is bird surveys, some for the federal government, some for private companies that want to assess an area for construction (like a wind turbine). There’s something very relaxing and calming sitting in one spot for four hours at a time and only focusing on birds, no email, no paperwork just birds.

Birds 163

Birds Cattle Blackbirds North America 163

10,000 Birds

APRIL 4, 2013

Now nearing 50 and duly lost in a mid-life crisis, Dragan Simic took to birding rather late – only half a lifetime ago, after successfully testing his inadequate skills in other life threatening activities, such as rock climbing and vertical caving. The Forest Owlet is an endemic species of this mountain range. Let’s go.”.

India 260

India Owls Tigers Endangered Species 260

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 13, 2014

We birders are very particular about the birds that we count. We can, of course, count wild, native, species. We can count vagrant species that made it to the area we are in under their own power. There are lots of birds we can’t count. There are lots of birds we can’t count.

Chickens 228

Chickens Florida Feral Eating Eggs 228

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 26, 2021

And apart from local people, primate researchers sometimes spot it, but it is a species seen by fewer than ten living birders. This book is essentially about those birds that breed on the continent south of the Sahara, a topic few birders are familiar with.

Congo 264

Congo Africa Madagascar Kenya 264

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 13, 2011

I had the good fortune to be asked to represent one of the UK’s national birding magazines ‘Birdwatching’ on a press trip to Southern Portugal earlier this month. In May 1992 European Union governments adopted legislation designed to protect the most seriously threatened habitats and species across Europe.

Portugal 255

Portugal Legislation 2000 Adoptable 255