10,000 Birds

MAY 26, 2014

While I saw some pretty special species this weekend, the most special was the Gray Catbird because my sweet 7-year niece totally got into finding one; I think I’ve found the next generation birder in the family! But watching a Northern Goshawk rip through the sky over Bloomingdale Bog in the Adirondacks was definitely a BBOTW moment.

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2014 Birds Family Experience 242

10,000 Birds

JUNE 6, 2021

There was an island in the middle of the river and the tall trees held Yellow-billed Spoonbill nests and there were several families within the vicinity. One family of Yellow-billed Spoonbills all lined up together on the one branch over the river and made for an impressive group of birds. Yellow-billed Spoonbill family.

Breeding 246

Breeding Australia Cattle Family 246

10,000 Birds

MAY 16, 2022

One of the most interesting aspects of watching birds in Africa is to see different members of bird families that I already know from China. An information for those Indian readers of the blog who only know “Kingfisher” as a brand of beer: It is also a bird family. Different bird families, I know.

South Africa 250

South Africa Africa Saint Lucia Camels 250

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

The family Ardeidae consists on long-legged, long-necked, long-beaked, water birds called waders in North America or maybe just herons, egrets, and bitterns everywhere else. It’s a massive family with worldwide distribution, so I’ll be expecting a tsunami of submissions for this one.

North America 186

North America America Birds Family 186

10,000 Birds

MARCH 5, 2023

Then we threw together a semi-planned family-related trip to the States in early December. This Northern Pintail definitely went for a basic brown eye color. But my wife’s and my lives have been rather chaotic of late. First, we had our five-week trip to Spain, Turkey and Jordan in September and October. Amber, perhaps?

Jordan 246

Jordan Mexico Ohio Spain 246

10,000 Birds

MARCH 21, 2021

The Pheasant Coucal family have moved on from the last place that we observed them. The bird-life has definitely benefitted by the recent outbreak of locusts. There have been literally thousands of Whiskered Terns feeding close to the highway as you can see by all of the tiny dots in the header photos.

Cattle 264

Cattle Breeding Family Rights 264

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 23, 2021

But Swarovski Optik is a family-owned business, so the then CEO, Mr. Swarovski, categorically rejected the advice and decided: factory stays in Austria, and the prices will only go up! You know that classical definition of what separates men from boys? The next day we had an outdoor workshop and a chance to test the toys.

Austria 299

Austria Factory Asia Battery 299

10,000 Birds

APRIL 30, 2017

The figures show the order of bird families in the four field guides mentioned above. For easier reference, I have given the order of families in the oldest field guide (on the left) a spectral colour pattern and used the same colour for the respective families in the other guides. Order of bird families, non-songbirds.

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Brunei 2009 2014 2016 194

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 9, 2015

Red-billed Curassow ( Crax blumenbachii ), a large, ground-dwelling bird belonging to the same family as the more familiar Plain Chachalaca of southern Texas, was never a very widespread species. Having a family of endangered Red-billed Curassow willingly approach me to within such a short distance is definitely one of them!

California Condor 239

California Condor Brazil Parrots Texas 239

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 6, 2021

The best test of that proposition, of course, is to repeat it to any one of the hundreds of thousands of birders who have, say, a family. Birders are almost by definition interesting and interested people, and those interests—even if they don’t push birding completely out of mind—range widely.

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New Jersey Guatemala France Birds 246

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

As we walked up the “beautiful river” (which is what “Río Bello” means) Nacho pointed out trees from the dogwood, holly, and linden/basswood families. You might not guess this Lobelia is from the same family as the popular bedding flower with that name — until you see the individual flowers close-up.

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Birds Mexico Cooking Family 245

10,000 Birds

APRIL 5, 2011

Astounding because she picked up birding before she could speak and surprising because this ability was definitely not inherited from anyone in my family, myself included. Thankfully there are several really excellent family board games that you can play as a whole family. Her natural talent was astounding and surprising.

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Birds Game South Africa Wildlife 279

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 17, 2021

The Groove-billed Ani is an odd-looking member of the Cuckoo family. You will definitely see it, everywhere except in dense woods. In contrast, it is always a nice surprise for me to see Mourning Doves down here. They are residents, but not common ones. Inca Doves , in my garden. Its characteristic “pee-HOOey!”

Woodpeckers 362

Woodpeckers Mexico Cattle Turkey 362

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 6, 2020

That was definitely my best sighting. Corey got his Best Bird of the Weekend early this weekend as while he and his family were making their way home from a week-long vacation in Cape Cod on Friday a Black-throated Gray Warbler was found in Queens at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge.

2020 174

2020 Jamaica Birds Family 174

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 30, 2011

One that could take close up shots when we were banding birds, get a wide view for establishing shots of habitat or just something to grab fun photos of friends and family–all while fitting easily in a jacket or pants pocket. There’s definitely better color quality with the SLR but the iPhone photo isn’t bad at all.

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Israel ALA Abandoning Abandon 260

10,000 Birds

JULY 19, 2012

Speaking of July, every year around this time an assemblage of my family and friends gather in a remote part of Pennsylvania for food, fun, and flaming chickens. However, while there will definitely be a chicken this year (probably Jackson Pollock-themed), an inferno might be ill-advised considering the tinder-dry condition of the area.

Chickens 170

Chickens Pennsylvania 2012 2011 170

10,000 Birds

JULY 13, 2023

Lake Kerkini National Park in the north of Greece is the very best birding area in the Balkan Peninsula and definitely among the top ten hotspots of Europe. Last but not least, there were three species of shrikes, Red-backed , Lesser Grey and at least 2 Masked Shrikes , possibly 2 more, an entire family (not all were showing so well).

Greece 246

Greece Pelicans Stray Dog Tortoises 246

10,000 Birds

JUNE 3, 2012

More importantly, I know which groups/families occur in these regions, which ones resemble each other, and where to find them in my books even in cases where similar groups are found in different segments of my field guide because they are not closely related to each other. This means I know my birds quite well.

Indonesia 258

Indonesia Family Asia Groups 258

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 20, 2013

My best bird this weekend was hardly rare, but spotting a Great Blue Heron in a suburban yard far from water definitely caught my attention.

St. Louis 188

St. Louis 2013 United States Arizona 188

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 12, 2021

It is definitely a nest with a view! I observed the whole Pied Oystercatcher family at the water’s edge and the chicks were exposed and vulnerable. The pair closer to Gantheaume Point are still incubating their second clutch of two eggs and have chosen to nest in exactly the same place as the first clutch.

Eggs 259

Eggs Breeding Australia Family 259

10,000 Birds

MARCH 2, 2011

Ornithology By Corey • March 2, 2011 • 4 comments Tweet Share If you like science and comic strips you definitely want to read xkcd. Hes only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasnt working as a union representative or spending time with his family.

2011 171

2011 Deer Cats Owls 171

10,000 Birds

MARCH 30, 2015

Regardless of the temperatures I got out and about both mornings on my own and in the afternoons with the family. Definitely a migrant and the Osprey that was in the area was not happy about this much larger interloper. There were lots of birds around and my camera was in overdrive! They always live up to the second half.

Bald Eagle 217

Bald Eagle New York City Birds Geese 217

10,000 Birds

MARCH 10, 2021

Wood-Wrens, which like to live close to the ground in deep brush, definitely follow this rule; they are not at all colorful, but their song sure does ring. It is not that close of a relative of the Northern Mockingbird , being in the same family, but a different genus. That is because it is, well, a Mockingbird.

Trinidad 203

Trinidad Transported Mexico Emotional 203

10,000 Birds

JUNE 7, 2012

North of the equator, schools will be letting out for the summer and families will be packing up for adventure. Travel is definitely on my mind because Corey and I are both off to explore new parts of the world this weekend. Exotic locales make for exotic birding and even the most mundane territory can astound the first time visitor.

Botswana 165

Botswana 2012 Birds Fish 165

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 4, 2011

The second sound that we heard belonged to another fantastic member of the cotinga family, the White Bellbird. This small member of the toucan family is a stunner. They were definitely mobbing something. The call is so bizarre that it sounds as if it might be two pieces of hollow metal piping being banged together.

Suriname 249

Suriname Guyana Birds South America 249

10,000 Birds

JULY 14, 2021

This elegant bird is part of a small family, unrelated to other birds called “flycatchers”, but including the Phainopepla of the American southwest. Gray Silky-Flycatchers are common throughout the central Mexican highlands. My son and I still remember seeing our first Silky-Flycatchers , right here in the Cañada.

Mexico 262

Mexico Sparrows United States Virginia 262

10,000 Birds

APRIL 1, 2020

As soon as I got a good look of one of these, I checked my Merlin recordings, and discovered that the particular species in question does have a call very unlike the usual clicks and buzzes I associate with the family. But the Hummingbirds definitely won the day! just north of the Mexican border.

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Mexico Species Breeding Family 262

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 14, 2011

Feeding birds is generally regarded as a harmless past-time, a wholesome way for people to share nature and enjoy wildlife with the family. Birds definitely need our help when it comes to habitat preservation, but attracting hoards of birds is not the way. She started feeding the ducks and geese that used the open water in the 1980s.

Bald Eagle 262

Bald Eagle Deer Minnesota 2000 262

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 18, 2011

This has happened before, Archaeopteryx and the bird family tree have had an often tenuous relationship. But they were definitely not birds. If you lay out all the mandibles and maxilla of all the mammals, you could construct a phylogeny that would be a pretty good first stab at a reasonable mammal family tree.

Mammals 266

Mammals Europe Groups Family 266

10,000 Birds

MARCH 4, 2020

Hey, in 1959 Walt Disney set up a studio on the island and filmed Swiss Family Robinson there! It was this post right here on 10,000 Birds I ended up bookmarking as the definitive source for ID’ing these two species. The island of Tobago in the southern Caribbean is much wilder than one could imagine.

Fish 259

Fish Rights Breeding Species 259

10,000 Birds

JULY 24, 2024

There was definitely only one youngster there. Addendum: My time with the Red-tailed Hawk family didn’t end with fledging. On June 5, I thought one of the youngsters had fledged, because I only saw one youngster in the nest.I saw two hawks perched on the catwalk railing, which was what the parents often did.

Squirrels 244

Squirrels Game Hunting Family 244

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 2, 2021

The answers involve phylogenies, evolutionary family trees, derived from DNA studies combined with fossil records, and geological concepts of how the continents and oceans were formed from super land masses. These words and others are listed in the Index, with page numbers given for their definitions.

Science 245

Science Albatross Owls Research 245

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 1, 2023

And, in return, they share their expertise with me — definitely a win-win situation. But he regularly visits family in Morelia. Talk about a collateral benefits — we now both have new birding buddies, they have a church (which made sure they had everything they could need upon arrival), and our church has a new family!

Mexico 259

Mexico Cuba Species Turkey 259

10,000 Birds

MARCH 15, 2021

And Giant Otters are still common in the rivers around Karanambu Ranch, home of the late “otter lady”, Diane McTurck, who used to rehabilitate orphaned otters and whose family still runs the lodge. These are the purple-colored skittles, not quite as tasty as the red ones, but definitely firm fan favorites.

Guyana 279

Guyana Otters South America Colombia 279

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 26, 2021

As Watson has put it in the Chapter 1, “while the focus of this book is on families of African birds, there are a few individual species that have somehow come to epitomise Africa, even though they have relatives elsewhere, and commentaries on these appear too. Most definitely so.

Congo 264

Congo Africa Madagascar Kenya 264

10,000 Birds

MARCH 10, 2017

The Home Place is definitely solid, and it also sparkles. In some ways his story is familiar to a lot of birders: the outdoors was both recreation and refuge for him, his family imbued him with a love of learning and an appreciation for the earth. And sure, some stinkers make it out there between the covers. Drew Lanham is a black man.

South Carolina 164

South Carolina Stray Cows Blackbirds 164

10,000 Birds

JULY 12, 2024

Motmots definitely make up one of the bird world’s glamour families. The Orange-breasted Bunting is one of Mexico’s most beautiful endemics. But the Black-chested Sparrow is also rather handsome, for a sparrow, and has an even smaller range. Western Mexico offers only one, the endemic Russet-crowned Motmot.

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Mexico South America 2020 America 245