10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 3, 2020

This can mean some interesting birding, if you can bear the Shanghai heat … Of course, the egrets and herons described in my last post are still around. Cattle Egret … though some of them seem to want to hide (which is really difficult for a white bird). Some cuckoo species.

Tigers 256

Tigers Cattle Breeding Bears 256

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 15, 2020

Cattle Egret. And of course, there are all kinds of insects, spiders, dragonflies, caterpillars, etc. Little Egret: There is a shrimp farm by the seaside. Very easy work. Similar to the Chinese, birds do not seem to mind eating frogs and toads. Brown Shrike. Rodents seem to be less popular, or less available.

Fish 272

Fish Rodents China Vegetarian 272

10,000 Birds

JULY 7, 2012

Of course we’ve all experienced the excruciating opposite of such an excursion, but when waves of new birds practically clamor for attention in quick succession, the feeling is exhilarating. Have you ever enjoyed one of those brilliant birding expeditions, the outing where every target species takes its cue with machine precision?

Trinidad 237

Trinidad Cattle Fast Food Blackbirds 237

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 28, 2014

A vast congregation of Bald Eagles kept watch over a herd of cattle about to calve, up to seven in a single tree — no doubt awaiting delicious placentas. Plenty of Crows and Ravens , of course. Further up the river a pair of Common Mergansers swam swiftly out of view.

Bald Eagle 232

Bald Eagle Falcons Geese Montana 232

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 1, 2019

There are always stray cattle to watch out for, but we prefer to minimize the risk of hitting animals by leaving on road trips until a couple of hours after sunrise. Cockatoo Creek had stopped flowing many months ago, but the water that remained was a good water source for the cattle in the area and also the birdlife.

Cattle 203

Cattle Stray Australia Animal 203

10,000 Birds

JULY 17, 2012

The population of parrotlets they studied was located on one of the many huge hatos (cattle ranches) in the Venezuelan llanos, a vast swath of flat flooded savannah in the central third of the country that drains into the Rio Orinoco. Over the course of the next several days, these pin feathers emerge and – poof!

Eggs 269

Eggs Venezuela Porcupines 2008 269

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 14, 2022

Bologna La Grassa may revel in the indulgence of its Parma ham, lasagne, and rich, fatty ragùs, and Venice may boast the bounty of the sea, but the rugged, hilly homeland of the ancient Etruscans is undoubtedly cattle country. Of course, a land of beefeaters needs butchers.

2019 264

2019 Butcher Livestock 2006 264

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 26, 2019

Of course, we did, soaking in that slate blue beauty long enough to observe a successful hunt and more of its rangy, awkward flight. We had to search a little longer than Herbert may have wanted, but our first Shoebill sighting obscured any memory of effort or anxiety. The mighty Shoebill.

Uganda 299

Uganda Africa Penguins 2019 299

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 4, 2021

I guess the whole point about this band name is to suggest -ironically, of course – utter blandness. Cattle Egrets have perfected that smudgy look. The Oriental Dollarbird is of course named after the early US explorer Alexander Dollar (1713-1788), incidentally the same person who also gave the name to the US currency.

LACS 264

LACS Birds France Japan 264

10,000 Birds

JULY 5, 2020

Having observed the Cattle Egret in breeding plumage at the Derby Poo Ponds on June 19th we found ourselves at Windjana Gorge first thing the following morning. Sometimes everything appears normal, but of course it is far from normal. As we all well know there is something very different about 2020.

2020 264

2020 Australia Cattle Groups 264

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 13, 2014

Not that long ago, Costa Rica had one of the highest deforestation rates in the world, rainforests were razed to make way for hot and chiggery cattle pasture, and bot flies probably became more numerous than some bird populations. Hopefully, we can help them in time. … Extinction is forever. What a horror! What a disaster!

Costa Rica 270

Costa Rica Species Panama Falcons 270

10,000 Birds

MARCH 11, 2011

And reports of birds nesting – not owls, of course, those weirdo snow fetishists, but other birds nesting – light up my life. We remember starlings not skylarks, House Sparrows not Eurasian Tree Sparrows , Cattle Egrets not… well, whatever we’ve forgotten because it didn’t do as well as the Cattle Egrets.

Montana 191

Montana 2011 Bahamas Deer 191

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 20, 2012

Thus, the cattle we raise for meat and dairy are sometimes called Bos taurus while the extinct wild form is always called Bos primigenius. This is not entirely unknown among domestic animals, but many domesticates have no living wild version. Bringing animals that would require feed and water at that early stage would have been unwise.

Turkey 260

Turkey Columbus Spain Fowl 260

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 11, 2011

Nowhere else in Africa do the preconceived ideas of the continent really exist in such living detail; tall, red-robed Maasai herding their skinny cattle, endless grasslands studded with flat-topped Acacia trees and grazed by herds of zebras and wildebeest, and dramatic volcanic calderas brimming with big game and fierce predators!

Tanzania 250

Tanzania Africa Stud Leopards 250

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 13, 2012

That Cattle Egret I found in Somerset County, August 2009? It is also, of course, more up-to-date. Of course, these are stories of over 460 species, condensed and informed by research gleaned from ornithological literature dating back to 1869. A scarce and very local summer resident in Salem County.

New Jersey 250

New Jersey 2009 Bald Eagle Birds 250

10,000 Birds

MAY 10, 2012

Little Blue and Tricolored Herons , Snowy , Great , and Cattle Egrets , a Laughing Falcon , Black Vultures, Blue-winged Teal , a Wood Stork , a nesting tree of Montezuma Oropendulas , and Ruddy Ground-Doves were just some of the species we saw on our short train ride into the refuge.

Honduras 213

Honduras Wildlife Monkeys Bats 213

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 24, 2012

It seems that they especially enjoy being around cattle, which helps lead to the number one cause of nest failure, trampling (the number two reason is predation). Well, that is almost too much to ask for! Often, nests are near villages, though sometimes they are found on the shores of salt lakes or on hills.

Kazakhstan 170

Kazakhstan Cows 2009 Endangered Species 170

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 25, 2018

Of course there are plenty of Red-tailed Hawks ( Buteo jamaicensis ) around. Check out this image of a Great Egret ( Ardea alba ), Snowy Egret ( Egretta thula ) and Cattle Egret ( Bubulcus ibis ) together. This juvenile was photographed on the auto tour route at Colusa NWR.

Wildlife 124

Wildlife Sacramento Bald Eagle Falcons 124

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 20, 2015

The Great Miami Winter Bird Count, an event that transpired over the course of four days from February 13-16, set out to record this diversity for the first time in an organized manner as part of the overall Miami Birding Wave project. Cattle Egret: 133. A La Sagra’s Flycatcher, a Caribbean stray, continued at Charles Deering Estate.

Miami 217

Miami 2015 United States Florida 217

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 19, 2014

The point is, of course, that whales are not cows. Whales emerge from within the larger group of mammals that includes cattle, deer, pigs, camels, with camels being the most deeply rooted. (So So pigs are camels, as you probably already suspected.)

Camels 258

Camels Whales Whaling Apes 258

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 2, 2018

Upland Sandpipers were seen almost daily, on posts, in tall grass, in trees, and, of course, flying away from us. . In addition, of course, to birds like Baird’s Sparrow, Chestnut-collared Longspur, and Sharp-tailed Grouse (all of which were life birds for me, and all of which I failed to get decent photos).

North Dakota 197

North Dakota Sparrows Birds Blackbirds 197

10,000 Birds

JULY 26, 2014

Of course, there’s no such thing as a truly free market and even the natural world is subject to regulation. – Acclimatisation Societies of New Zealand – The Cattle Egret Expansion – Feral Cats Are An Invasive Species in North America (and elsewhere) – It’s a Myth – Isn’t It?

Species 160

Species Feral Cats Feral Miami 160

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 11, 2019

And of course, there are Cattle Egrets ( Bubulcus ibis ) and several species of cowbirds that rarely stray too far from livestock. Of course, at Birds and Booze we advise limiting one’s ingestion of “Bobolinks” to this excellent saison. For most of history, beer has thrived in agrarian settings, too.

Belgium 168

Belgium Vermont Farming Europe 168

10,000 Birds

MAY 2, 2016

Of course, I contacted Carlos Sanchez , alleged south Florida birder extraordinaire, to maximize the returns on what time I could spend. Of course not! There was even beer on the menu which I had to order, of course. On my recent short family vacation to Miami, I was granted a single day to get out and really bird like a madman.

Florida 178

Florida Miami Birds Owls 178

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 29, 2016

They used to be but a burgeoning population in need of more living room and land for cattle and crops destroyed a fair portion of those rainforests during the 20th century. Over there on the Caribbean (that’s what we call the Atlantic Ocean in Costa Rica), the lowlands are supposed to be blanketed in lush, over-vegetated rainforests.

Costa Rica 178

Costa Rica San Jose Panama Nicaragua 178

10,000 Birds

JUNE 9, 2022

This is also why you very rarely find a photo of a giraffe on top of one of these posts – the other reason of course being that a giraffe photo would be relatively pointless in a birding blog. When Cattle Egrets go to the local discotheque, they tend to overdo their makeup a bit. It is sometimes necessary to find food though.

Mountain Goats 147

Mountain Goats Singapore Giraffes Birds 147

Animal Person

MAY 30, 2009

Elizabeth Parker , the "chair man " (my emphasis) of the Animal Agriculture Alliance at CattleNetwork, which apparently is "The Source for Cattle News." Of course, Lobo is missing the point entirely. And of course what we do is about the issues. Are we pinning people down and force-feeding them vegan burritos?

Veal Crate 100

Veal Crate HSUS Gestation Crates Vegan 100

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 7, 2014

A nice feature is that entries for accidental species include date and place of sightings, though of course in the case of Whiskered Tern that doesn’t include the third sighting in Cape May this past month. The sidebars and large migration maps are not indexed (nor listed in the Table of Contents, which is purely by family).

North America 215

North America America Family Falcons 215

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 30, 2017

We got particularly great looks at Guira Cuckoo at Pousada Piuval, a resort that is also a cattle ranch; they were active all day, even after many of the birds that gathered in the early morning dispersed, often whistling loudly from the fence posts. And, of course, Pat sees Jabiru every year in Costa Rica.

Brazil 189

Brazil Los Angeles Birds Tigers 189

10,000 Birds

JULY 18, 2022

Of course, on Chongming, the Chinese Pond Heron is very common. but on the one hand, this is not a sci-fi blog and I am not interested in science fiction (excluding of course Douglas Adams), and on the other hand, the answer from my side would be “no” anyway. Chinese Pond Herons also grow on trees.

Birds 162

Birds South Korea Japan Abandonment 162

10,000 Birds

JULY 20, 2018

Beset by poaching by cattle ranchers, habitat loss, DDT, and lead poisoning (from consuming shotgun pellets embedded in the condor’s carrion fare), populations of this enormous New World vulture fell into a serious decline in the twentieth century. With enough room for another, of course.

California Condor 150

California Condor Oregon California Zoos 150

10,000 Birds

JUNE 6, 2020

7 beats contributed their sightings from 7 countries (Hong Kong, UK, China, USA, Serbia, Australia and, of course, Costa Rica). Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis). I know that we are all looking forward to a time when we might return to the old normal, but until then, please stay safe and keep your distance. Gray Heron (Ardea cinerea).

2020 207

2020 Sparrows Niger Woodpeckers 207

10,000 Birds

MARCH 19, 2011

Of course not! Or These Blasts From The Past For Medicinal Use Only Wake up and smell the frangipani Cattle Egret at Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn There’s Oil in Them Thar Birds! Diabolical A to Z Quiz in Queens Quiz Pic 1 Diabolical A to Z Quiz in Queens Quiz Pic 2 Diabolical A to Z Quiz in Queens Quiz Pic 3 Impossible?

Bald Eagle 113

Bald Eagle Zoos 2011 Deer 113

Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 28, 2010

This last implies of course an improvement in ethics, as opposed to morality, as I have defined it, unless we already understand 'Do as you would be done by' as applicable to whales, cattle, chickens, and so on, as it is to human beings. I am myself not so heroic. I eat eggs though they may come from battery hens.

Morals 40

Morals Whales Whaling Chickens 40

Animal Ethics

SEPTEMBER 23, 2009

One might of course defend the consumption of animal products, while opposing the eating of meat, on the ground that killing a steer, say, produces more suffering than separating a cow from her calf. Of course one could be a vegetarian on both grounds, and object to anything either kind of vegetarian objects to. Philip E.

Vegetarian 40

Vegetarian Meat Morals Cows 40

Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 16, 2008

Besides depleting the ocean’s supply of fish for those animals normally feeding on them, the factory farming of cattle, pigs and chickens uses excessive water and pollutes our land. The number of chickens, turkeys, pigs, cattle and other animals raised and slaughtered in the United States has been growing steadily for decades.

New York Times 40

New York Times Factory Farm Factory Farming New York 40

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 4, 2020

Of course the water will have been evaporating daily, but it was more than appreciated by the local bird-life. Cattle have been in the area and so there will be small remaining pools from their hoof prints if rain does not come to the area soon just like last time. Spinifex Pigeons cautiously working their way down to the water.

2020 312

2020 Zebras Cattle Birds 312