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Every few years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) attempts to calculate the economic contribution of National Wildlife Refuge visitation to local communities. The most recent effort was released in June 2019. These reports (called “ Banking on Nature “) are relevant to birders because they are among the few comprehensive analyses that relate to the economic impact of birders on national wildlife refuges, which are among the more popular birding locations.
Author: John Wells Brands have finite resources and budgets but an infinite appetite for growth. Because they need to decide where to spend those precious resources, they often leave a customer relationship management program at the table without understanding its true value. That’s a mistake. While companies have traditionally considered CRM programs as sales tools , the CRM program and the customer experience today is one and the same.
In a warm Catalonian March (I was about to say Spanish, but among quite a few flags, I haven’t seen a single Spanish one), Barcelona was filled with sunlight and full of Rose-ringed and Monk Parakeets , two charming but alien and invasive species. The year was 2013 and despite all that sun, I have spent days in a darkened Museu Blau (blue only on the facade, but black inside, almost gothic) with a rather interesting natural history collection (the most interesting question was – how many of thos
Costa Rica is well known for national parks and other protected areas than offer access to tropical ecosystems dripping with biodiversity. Lots of birds, a lot of really cool birds! The Emerald Tanager is one of those cool ones. However, as with many other places throughout the globe, this small country also has its fair share of urban wildlife. These are the plants and animals that strive to persist in the realm of Homo sapiens.
“Target birds” The term can foster excitement but is easily contentious. It would be uber cool to lay eyes on a rare lifer, on species that only seem to live on the pages of a field guide but isn’t that somewhat discriminatory? Aren’t all birds worth watching? And why spend time only looking for one or two species when those hours could be used to put binos focused on a few dozen?
In January, we moved to a new place at a slightly lower elevation yet still located in the Central Valley rather near the main airport. As with any home inhabited by birders, we have kept track of all species heard or seen, night and day. Although that may sound as if we stand out there at all hours like a bino wearing sentinel watching the trees, most of our birding is typical yard list stuff; just keeping eyes and ears out for whatever avian things come our way.
It’s never too late or too early to buy a children’s book about birds. You never know when you’ll be invited to a small one’s birthday party, a distant relative’s baby shower, or when you’ll get a text telling you that you have a granddaughter while you’re waiting out a three-hour-plus flight delay at JFK Airport.
It’s never too late or too early to buy a children’s book about birds. You never know when you’ll be invited to a small one’s birthday party, a distant relative’s baby shower, or when you’ll get a text telling you that you have a granddaughter while you’re waiting out a three-hour-plus flight delay at JFK Airport.
South East Arizona is known for some truly amazing birding, and another one of the specialties that this area is known for is the Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher – Myiodynasters luteiventris. This bird is rarely seen in the US, other than here, where this boldly patterned bird actually somewhat common, especially up in the Madera Canyon area. Just another great reason to plan at trip to South East Arizona!
Looking at a photo of a dozen birders on a Colombia tour, it stroke me that they were either using binoculars or cameras. Not a single one was using a scope. Okay, this was a shorter distance observation, but even in such situations I love to see birds through the scope. Probably some of them did carry a scope, but the majority clearly ditched scope for a camera (and expected their guides to provide scopes, of course).
I haven’t done much birding during the past few decades in my native United States. But I suspect that it is very difficult there to find a prime site that someone else hasn’t already discovered. In my adoptive country of Mexico, however, site discovery is not only possible, but necessary. In my case, fully half of the eBird hotspots within an hour of my city of Morelia that have more than 100 species registered were my discoveries, and I had a hand in increasing the species list for
It’s often said that the native wild grape varieties of the New World– of the species Vitis riparia , Vitis labrusca , Vitis aestivalis , and Vitis rupestris – are ill-suited to winemaking in the European tradition. In fact, that claim may have even been repeated here on this page just last week. From the earliest days of European colonization in the Americas, attempts to make wine with native grapes proved unsuccessful; compared to the imported Vitis vinifera used for thousands of years of Old
It has been a few years since I could share some good news about the Pied Oystercatchers breeding along the coast near Broome. Hopefully you won’t mind me writing a bit more this year about Pied Oystercatchers during the breeding season! We continue to have egg predation at many of the nest sites and chick loss, but one pair of Pied Oystercatchers is being successful in raising two chicks so far.
As we enter the latter half of August, most of us probably feel like we’re speeding out of a very special season while speeding towards another season perhaps equally as special. Just try to enjoy the journey! Ever since I moved to this neighborhood, a local cat–clearly owned but allowed to roam free–has included my yard as part of its territory.
All my birding life, I had heard about certain birds going to battle with their images reflected by windows and mirrors. But it wasn’t until April of this year that it happened to me. Or rather, to my car… which suffered the fierce attack of a Hooligan Bluebird. I had gone to investigate the area around Atécuaro, a tiny town to the south of the church my wife and I pastor on the edge of the city of Morelia, Mexico.
Birdwatchers tend to like the rare, the exotic – yet many common birds are exciting as well. This is something most easily realized when traveling – what is common for the locals may be the trip`s highlight for a foreign visitor. With that in mind, I would like to introduce what might be the 20 most common birds of Shanghai. The first 10 will be shown in this post, and the remaining 10 in a post two weeks later.
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My wife hates heat. And, alas, heat is one thing Mexico’s Pacific coast has in excess. Which explains why this birder, who lives only four hours from that coast, had only twice searched there for the region’s tropical and coastal species — both times on ministry trips I made without my wife. But this past week, my wife travelled to the U.S. to visit her elderly father.
On Sunday morning, I was just lazily working on another post for 10,000 Birds – the (probably not much anticipated) part two of the most common birds in Shanghai. Then, I heard about the Chinese Crested Tern at Nanhui and headed for my car. The usual bits about the Chinese Crested Tern from Wikipedia, HBW etc.: It is critically endangered, with estimates of the remaining numbers ranging from 30 to 50 in some sources, a bit more in others.
If you’re struggling with horrendous summer heat, a trip to Antarctica might sound good to you. On the other hand, if you’re dealing with the depths of winter’s chill, a trip to Antarctica might sound good. In fact, if you’re anywhere but Antarctica right now and eager to see the surprisingly rich animal life at the southern pole, you might appreciate Chimu’s contest for a free 11-day Antarctica cruise.
The question is rarely whether someone enjoys an August weekend but rather how much. Share the details! Ivy and I tracked down her first Wilson’s Snipe this weekend. Imagine that… a successful snipe hunt. Corey spent the first half of the weekend finishing up his family trip in southern California and the rest of it getting back to New York and recovering from a red eye.
The end of August keeps most of us in the Northern Hemisphere busy, what with the impending end of summer and all that. Enjoy what today has to offer while looking forward to what is to come. My extended family from The Bronx visited us this weekend for some upstate festivities. What could be better than the New York State Fair, especially after a Bald Eagle deigned to circle overhead in honor of everything that makes the Empire State great?
The summer of 2019 will forever be defined by my move to Tallahassee. Though only three hours from my previous hometown, this relocation was still characterized by the endless sifting through things (do I take this? do I leave that?), bickering with my husband, and starting a new job before finding a permanent place to settle down. Needless to say, there was little time left over for birding.
Today`s post is a continuation of last week`s – an introduction to Shanghai`s 20 most commonly seen birds. After getting to the letter C last week in a roughly alphabetical order, I will show the second 10 species today. Start with Eurasian Tree Sparrow , an unlikely high-ranked target for anybody watching birds in Shanghai. Still, a bird that has its moments – and I am always surprised how this sparrow really seems to enjoy human presence, however destructive it may be.
We have observed the first Pied Oystercatcher chicks of 2019 over the past two weeks grow steadily. It is quite unusual to still have two chicks at this stage, because we usually lose one within the first ten days of hatching. In fact we often don’t have any chicks within two weeks of the eggs hatching and other pairs along the coast have not been successful yet this season.
Last week, I had only just returned from a day on the Michoacán coast when my posting schedule required I write my report of the trip. I was still processing my photos, and the photos that had impressed me most featured shorebirds standing in front of the large waves produced by a tropical storm that was forming. I still like those photos. It wasn’t until after I posted that first article that I started to appreciate a set of photos with a more subtle setting.
Perhaps just once in a decade, the UK experiences an invasion of Painted Ladies , Vanessa ( Cynthia) cardui. Painted Ladies are part of the Aristocrat group of butterflies. The group contains the largest and most beautifully patterned lepidoptera and their classy appearance is recognised with classy names such as Red Admiral , Purple Emperor and Camberwell Beauty.
The last ten day days have been one of the most intense, yet invigorating days of birding that can ever remember embarking on. It has almost been a “Perfect Storm” scenario, with several contributing factors all coming together to start me on this birding blitz. I had just wrapped up lending a hand with the Tucson Arizona South-east Birding Festival, my wife Jeanne was going out of town for those same ten days, local Tucson birding legend Brian Nicholas had offered to show me a few of his favori
Recently I have been walking a neighbour’s small male black Pug and we visit a local park daily. There are a lot of birds in the park at the moment with the various native trees flowering including Little Friarbirds , Red-winged Parrots and Red-collared Lorikeets. The park is called Cygnet Park and it is surrounded by streets with bird names including Bowerbird Loop.
An empty Pied Oystercatcher nest should mean that there are now chicks and that the parents have been sitting on a clutch of two eggs for twenty eight days. Sadly this is rarely the case along our coastline here in Broome. Last week I introduced you to the first Pied Oystercatcher chicks of 2019 and so far they are surviving. Their parents are moving them through the dunes to the north and they will soon be closer to the reef during the upcoming bigger tides.
Those of us in the Northern Hemisphere can congratulate ourselves on experiencing another August weekend. While experiences vary all the way along the spectrum from abysmal to divine, we all get a head start on superior when the weather is amazing. I hope most of you got the boost we did. Ivy and I have been lucking out on a small pond–really a flooded field–that seems to attract the widest array of shorebirds in Monroe County, NY.
August’s arrival signals a subtle shift from a somewhat static state of bird movement to a more fluid one. We’re not quite on the cusp of full-blown migration yet, but this weekend might offer better birding than you’d expect. I’ve been striking out on the more interesting shorebirds along the lake, but that won’t stop me from making another run.
The recent taxonomy of India Pale Ale – more popularly known these days by its initialism IPA – is as confusing and unstable as any avian phylogeny. Just imagine, for instance, that a new species of white-headed gull was added to your field guide every few years and you’ll have an idea of the current head-scratching state of proliferating IPA variations.
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