10,000 Birds

JANUARY 15, 2014

I didn’t know what species of woodpecker it was, but I knew it was just in the clearing on the other side of the road. Black-backed Woodpeckers are non-migratory, although there have been documented intermittent irruptions of the species outside their normal range. Point Reyes Station, California. Siegel and, D.

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Woodpeckers California South Dakota Chad 182

10,000 Birds

JUNE 13, 2021

When the photo was posted on social media, people immediately began making calls – to the local wildlife rehabilitation center, the state falconry club, and the wildlife division of the state wildlife agency. The bird is a captive-bred Peregrine/Gyrfalcon hybrid owned by people with an Exotic Species Permit.

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Wildlife Rehabilitation Tethering Giraffes Alabama 264

10,000 Birds

MARCH 2, 2011

After several minutes of this deep water foraging behavior, this White-faced Ibis made its way toward me into more shallow water Posed for a little while, and then began to preen I’m glad I took the time to visit Colusa National Wildlife Refuge on this day. • Explore These Related Posts Another California Bird?

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Wildlife Sacramento 2011 Jordan 157

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 4, 2015

As I always do on the way home, following a short visit to the San Francisco Bay Area, I take in at least one of the National Wildlife Refuges (NWR) found in the Sacramento Valley. California is blessed with 51 NWRs and Wildlife Management Areas (WMA), second only to North Dakota with 77. Click on photos for full sized images.

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Wildlife San Francisco Sacramento North Dakota 160

10,000 Birds

MARCH 5, 2024

Birders know that some of the finest birding locations in the country are on federal land , which include national parks , wildlife refuges , forests , monuments , and seashores , among others. The eleven largest national wildlife refuges are also in Alaska, including Arctic NWR and Yukon Delta NWR , each more than 19 million acres.

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Virgin Islands Alaska United States Nevada 249

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 4, 2012

Birders in Northern California have been treated to rare sightings of several species, sending avid twitchers from all over the west in our direction. Personally, I’m waiting for the irruption of Snowy Owls to reach northern California! We do hear them call though, especially this time of year.

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Owls California Jordan Sparrows 198

10,000 Birds

MARCH 2, 2015

I doubt we have to worry about Herring Gulls , Ruby-throated Hummingbirds or California Towhees going extinct, though their abundance and distribution will surely shift in time. That said, there are many species we should be extremely concerned about. The Pika’s story is shared with a number of montane bird species.

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North America San Francisco Suffering California 246

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 8, 2017

As many birders know, the last wild California Condors were captured by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) in the 1980s to be part of a captive breeding program. Both parties — FWS and Audubon — wanted the same thing: preservation of the California Condor. But they disagreed on the means to obtain that shared goal.

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California Condor California District of Columbia Utah 115

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

The Vermilion Flycatcher ( Pyrocephalus rubinus ) is usually found near the US – Mexican border but we were fortunate this year to find an adult male in northern California! The female of the species is beautiful in her own right but only the male had been seen here. Click on photos for full sized images. I was not disappointed!

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California Sacramento Wildlife Groups 121

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 26, 2012

This 12,000 square-foot facility, completed in February 2001, is one of the two primary oiled bird facilities built by the Oiled Wildlife Care Network (OWCN) in California. Last weekend I was treated to a tour of their San Francisco Bay facility, located in Fairfield, California, by the Wildlife Center Manager, Michelle Bellizzi.

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Bird Rescue Rescue San Francisco Pelicans 225

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 9, 2021

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. Corey is enjoying life visiting relatives in southern California and has seen a bunch of birds he hasn’t seen awhile.

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Birds California Raised Wildlife 264

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 9, 2014

For mankind to snatch away a species’ very existence is wrong on so many levels that I can’t begin to explain them. However, despite our best efforts to wipe them off the face of the earth, some of the more vulnerable species have managed to hang on. Fish and Wildlife Service. this species breeds.

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Albatross Endangered Species Bald Eagle Alaska 235

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 26, 2011

I spent this past weekend at the coast, travelling to Arcata for a Northern California Audubon Council meeting hosted by the Redwood Region Audubon Society. This area includes Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary, part of Audubon’s Humboldt Bay Important Bird Area (IBA). Unfortunately, we were a tad early.

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Sanctuary Breeders Alaska North America 230

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 12, 2021

At more than 15 million acres, California is the only other state with more than 5 million acres of wilderness. Wilderness areas are managed by one of four federal agencies: the Forest Service (FS); the National Park Service (NPS); the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS); and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

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Puerto Rico Alaska Protection Montana 289

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 15, 2014

Like leg hold traps, glue traps are indiscriminate, with non-targeted species making up a large proportion of their catch. My very first rescue was a House Sparrow caught in a glue trap,” says Donna Osburn, a wildlife rehabilitator in Kentucky. Birds birds glue traps glue traps sticky traps wildlife rehabilitator'

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Wildlife Rehabilitation Mice Rodents Rescue 279

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 27, 2015

Let me introduce my guest blogger, Lisa Owens Viani, co-founder of the California-based group RATS ( Raptors Are The Solution ), which educates people about the dangers of rat poisons. Syngenta warns that “Talon” is “hazardous to dogs, cats, pigs, poultry and other wildlife.” Thanks for your concern for wildlife, Syngenta.).

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Mountain Lions Rats Rodents Lions 269

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 11, 2015

Today’s post is written by Monte Merrick, wildlife rehabilitator and co-director of the Humboldt Wildlife Care Center/bird ally x in Arcata, CA. The species name is long enough to be the middle line of a formal English haiku. So we used MAFR, the American Ornithological Union’s 4-letter code.

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Los Angeles Wildlife Rehabilitation Killing San Francisco 250

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 11, 2014

While at the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival I could not resist making the drive north to Daytona Beach one day to witness the awesome gull fly-in from the dump to the beach. But my failure to find a rare species doesn’t mean that I saw nothing of note.

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Florida Panama Wildlife 2014 222

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 14, 2021

As of mid-November 2021, the Collaborative had submitted more than 4,200 checklists (up from 1,700 in 2018) and has observed 691 species in the United States (up from 618). Thus, there are now seven states with 200+ observed species. The state with the largest increase was Arizona , with 139 species added.

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West Virginia United States Puerto Rico Minnesota 238

10,000 Birds

JULY 11, 2012

In responding to Suzie’s post defending wildlife rehabilitation I began to think again about the areas in which animal rights and animal welfare overlap with the field of conservation, and the ways in which they don’t. People would often express surprise that I, someone that cared about wildlife conservation, would eat meat.

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Animal Rights Rights Animal New Zealand 270

10,000 Birds

MARCH 24, 2024

The festival headquarters is located on the southwest side of Mission Bay, overlooking a marina with nearby Black-crowned Night Herons and frequently plays host to several falcon species, and a short walk to the San Diego River. Granted, it is a large county spanning many different habitats, but San Diego County garners 515 species.

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San Diego Sea Lions Lions Birds 237

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 25, 2013

First, you get to tour one of their California centers , you get a special opportunity to see a Pelican getting its final medical exam and numbered leg band, plus you get the honor of releasing one, or in my case, two of their rehabilitated pelicans! There are advantages to being a “Pelican Partner” for International Bird Rescue

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Bird Rescue Pelicans Rescue California 225

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 19, 2017

A few weeks ago I led a field trip to Butte Valley Wildlife Area. It was a destination I had never experienced so I made a few phone calls and got some information from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife agent who actually runs both the Butte Valley and the Shasta Valley Wildlife Areas, which are about 25 miles apart.

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Wildlife Chipmunks Sparrows Blackbirds 101

10,000 Birds

APRIL 7, 2015

California is big. 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. The road was lined with scrub and short trees, and I spotted not one but two new sparrow species.

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Seals Elephants Whales Whaling 213

10,000 Birds

MARCH 24, 2014

“People say there are too many crows and they eat all the crops,” says Missy Runyan, director of the Friends of the Feathered and Furry Wildlife Center in nearby Hunter, NY. Runyan has no problem with hunting; she gives wildlife and gun safety presentations to Rod and Gun clubs across the state. This is baloney.

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Killing Animal Abuse Slaughter Slaughtered 272

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 12, 2011

The male of the species has the upper portion of the head, back of neck, back and wings all glossy black. I found these beauties at Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge, one of the many locations the Black-necked Stilt breeds in the California Central Valley (map courtesy of Terry Sohl at South Dakota Birds ).

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South Dakota Sacramento Jordan North America 213

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 9, 2015

Their habitats vary widely in both rural and urban landscapes; open habitats are preferred and the species generally shuns only extensively forested areas and wetlands 1. To show how adaptive this species is, the following photograph was sent to me by one of my readers and I use it with her permission.

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Hunters Hunting North America Game 192

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 25, 2018

I think most of you know how important our National Wildlife Refuge system is to me. After all, I have written several posts on wildlife conservation and the Wildlife Conservation Pass that my co-founder Ingrid Taylar and I have been encouraging for years. I hope you enjoy it. Click on photos for full sized images.

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Wildlife Sacramento Bald Eagle Falcons 103

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MARCH 26, 2014

million years old, over one and a half times older than the earliest remains of most living species of birds. The Cuban Sandhill Crane , Grus canadensis nesiotes and the Mississippi Sandhill Crane , Grus canadensis pulla are listed as endangered species. That festival is supported by the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge.

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Mississippi Endangered Species Florida Washington 174

10,000 Birds

JUNE 20, 2012

The term “take” is defined as killing a listed species but also includes “harm,” which is defined in regulation as including “significant habitat modification or degradation where it actually kills or injures wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patterns, including breeding, feeding, or sheltering 2.

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San Diego illegal California South America 165

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 30, 2013

Now you know why the most numerous and widespread of the two swan species in North America used to be known as the Whistling Swan. That is where I found this group of nearly 100 Tundra Swans northeast of the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge as they flew in to the flooded agricultural fields.

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South Dakota California Sacramento North America 117

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 29, 2014

The video above showing the pair bonding and precopulatory behavior of the Northern Shoveler ( Anas clypeata ) was shot from the photography bind at Colusa National Wildlife Refuge , one of the refuges of the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex in Northern California. Do you enjoy National Wildlife Refuges?

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Sacramento Defenders Of Wildlife Wildlife Rehabilitation Ducks 176

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 9, 2011

who can be found regularly at the bird and wildlife blog Birdland West. He claims that he modeled Woody on the Acorn Woodpeckers who entertained him and his wife on their honeymoon in California. I didn’t know much about Flickers until I started volunteering at a wildlife rehabilitation center a couple of years ago.

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Woodpeckers Wildlife Rehabilitation Seattle Wildlife 247

10,000 Birds

MARCH 21, 2024

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. This was only my fourth encounter with the species (all on the east side). Although, truth be told, this species does seem to be a rarity in Tabasco.)

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Mexico Birds Raccoons Baltimore 233

10,000 Birds

APRIL 13, 2021

Nationally, most birdwatching occurred in California (9%), followed by New York (6%), Texas (5%), Pennsylvania (5%), Florida (5%), and Ohio (4%). The results: “The most important attributes in the choice of birdwatching trips were: (1) travel distance; (2) chance to see rare or unusual bird species; and (3) the naturalness of the area.

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Minnesota Pennsylvania Ohio United States 264

10,000 Birds

APRIL 2, 2024

Osborn, a passionate field biologist who participates to the core of her being three re-introduction projects aimed at saving three very different, endangered species: Peregrine Falcon, Hawaiian Crow (‘Alala)*, and California Condor. This is the most intense, tragic section.

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California Condor Falcons California Coyotes 166

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 27, 2013

The male of the species will rattle off up to 200 songs, his repertoire size varying geographically, with the western males having considerably larger repertoires than eastern males 1. It is obvious to me that the male Marsh Wrens at Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge are getting ready for the females to visit their breeding territories.

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Sacramento North America Wildlife Defenders Of Wildlife 163