10,000 Birds

JANUARY 10, 2012

The family Picathartidae consists of two very unusual birds; White-necked or Yellow-headed Picathartes , endemic to the Upper Guinea forests of West Africa; and Gray-necked or Red-headed , restricted to Lower Guinea forests of Central Africa. Their strange appearance and habit of communally nesting in rock overhangs and caves has given them their alternative name of rockfowl , and before that the rather charming ‘ Bald-headed Crow ‘ Further illustrating their unusual long-tailed, yet

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Sierra Leone Ghana Equatorial Guinea Cameroon 270

4 The Love Of Animals

JANUARY 26, 2012

Did you know that one out of every two pets are overweight? Alison Sweeney, host of NBC’s “The Biggest Loser,” discovered that her dog Winky was one of them, and pledged to the food Winky was eating and her lifestyle. She has now teamed up with Hill’s Science Diet to launch the Million Pound Pledge – a national call-to-action for pet owners to help their cats and dogs lose weight and get back on track to living a happy, healthy lifestyle.

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Pets Lifestyle Kittens Puppies 143

Critter News

JANUARY 17, 2012

Here's a way to find out how your state ranks. California is #1 again.yay! Washington State, where I currently live, is #6! At the bottom.(drum roll please) South Dakota!!!

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Animal Welfare South Dakota Welfare Humane 126

Sales and Marketing Management

JANUARY 13, 2012

By NEIL MAHONEY. Making the sales process more time-effective is not easy because salespeople have so many unavoidable duties they must perform: call reports, expense reports, travel time, handling complaints, maintaining relationships… The list never ends.

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Speaker: dsfn

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Animal Ethics

JANUARY 30, 2012

The legal rights of nonhuman animals might first be achieved in any of three ways. Most agree that the least likely will be through the re-interpretation or amendment of state or federal constitutions, or through international treaties. For example, the Treaty of Amsterdam that came into force on May 1, 1999, formally acknowledged that nonhuman animals are “sentient beings” and not merely goods or agricultural products.

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Rights For Animals Animal Legislation 62

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 1, 2012

A Birdy New Year! This article is about the parrots we have, not the ones we wish we had. Here in Germany, we don’t wish we had. Because we never have had. But now that we do have, and while we may or rather should wish we had not, we might as well roll with the punches and accept that we have. Yes, Germany has parrots, or parakeets to be more precise.

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Germany Netherlands Zoos Costa Rica 247

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 11, 2012

I was going to continue talking about birding in Sydney today, but an incident on Friday needs to be addressed quickly, before the immediacy of the memory is gone. It concerns the nature of wildlife in Australia, and is perhaps the most remarked about aspect of Australia’s wildlife, at least the impression you’d get if you’ve ever watched ten minutes of Animal Planet.

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Sharks Birds Australia Boars 227

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 25, 2012

If I have learned anything from living in the northern half of the United States is that in order to survive winter with my sanity in tact is that I need to eat a lot of kale, take a daily 20 minute walk (no matter how cold) and plan a trip some place warm even if it’s only for 48 hours. Typically, my work life takes me to such places…although last winter it back fired because there was a freak ice storm that nailed the usually warm area I visited and I endured winter pretty much fr

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Texas North Dakota Birds South America 222

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 5, 2012

Anyone who dares fill bird feeders in the hopes of actually, you know, feeding birds knows well the menace hungry squirrels present. Entire industries are built around preventing squirrels from completely devouring provisions intended for birds. The bird feeder arms race demands incessant innovation because of the utter fearlessness and abandon driving squirrels to plunder feeders.

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Squirrels Abandoning Abandon Abandonment 216

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 9, 2012

Most birders, including the American Ornithologists’ Union, accept Kumlien’s Gull as a subspecies of Iceland Gull. Others say that Kumlien’s Gull is a subspecies of Thayer’s Gull. Still others say that Thayer’s Gull , Iceland Gull , and Kumlien’s Gull are all a single species and we all are kidding ourselves by pretending otherwise.

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Iceland Adoptable Woodpeckers Species 214

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10,000 Birds

JANUARY 28, 2012

Some photographers seem a bit too anxious to get the perfect lighting for all their photos and go to great extents bothering the birds with extra light and flash for one perfect picture. I have always tried to take my pictures without flash to prevent scaring the bird and also to get the most natural look to my pictures. Also I can get multiple pictures (my camera can get some 5 to 10 frames per second) of the same bird in different positions and sometimes this leads to the one out of many sho

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Birds Groups Wildlife Experience 213

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 10, 2012

While people tend to consider penguins in terms of black and white, every once in a while one of these dapper divers drops the tuxedo for something along the lines of a summer seersucker… White Chinstrap Penguin © David Stephens, Lindblad Expeditions Used with permission Guests and expedition staff aboard Lindblad Expeditions’ National Geographic Explorer were treated to a rare sighting of this rare nearly all-white leucistic Chinstrap Penguin waddling its way through the Aitcho Islands in

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Penguins 2012 Fish Breeding 209

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 1, 2012

At 10:45 AM my phone beeped with a text message. The message was only four words long. Within a minute I had let Daisy know that I would be gone for a couple of hours, grabbed my microwaving beef pattie out of the microwave, kissed Desi goodbye, grabbed my gear, and gotten out the door. I was at Point Lookout at 11:15 AM. That is kind of amazing when you consider that Google tells me that the ride is 28.5 miles and should have taken me 36 minutes.

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New York New York City North America America 202

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 3, 2012

Zimbabwe is last in the alphabetical atlas of countries of the world. And, given the unstable political situation (slightly improved since the unified government of 2009), paucity of fuel, high crime-rate and dire poverty, it is probably last on the list of many traveling birders. But eastern Zimbabwe is an almost mythical place and a highly productive birding destination.

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Zimbabwe Buffalo Mozambique South Africa 197

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10,000 Birds

JANUARY 13, 2012

It’s tough being a New Jersey birder. Jersey has always gotten a bad rap in general (the smells of the turnpike, the Jersey shore, the governor), and in the world of birding, the state often seems to be symbolized by two words: Cape May. And yes, Cape May is incredibly wonderful, with its hawk watch and its migrant birds funneling through in fall, but there are other wonderful places in which to bird in the state.

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New Jersey 2009 Bald Eagle New York City 194

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 12, 2012

The air was thick and clammy, and mosquitoes were biting along Louisiana’s Mermentau River last Thursday morning, the final day of the Audubon Christmas Bird Count. A lone Black-bellied Plover quietly worked the flats amid hundreds of other shorebirds. Black-bellied (Grey) Plover , Pluvialis squatarola , in California CC-BY Alan Vernon Remarkable birds, Black-bellied Plovers, winter refugees here from the high Arctic tundra.

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Family 2007 Iceland Louisiana 190

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 7, 2012

The evocatively named Lake Panic is overlooked by a thatched, rustic style hide in one of the most delicious settings that a birder is ever likely to encounter. The bird life of Kruger National Park appears to be distilled into a small area surrounding the hide and they seem oblivious to the observers with their battery of lenses poking out from the wooden building.

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Hunting Battery Raised Adoptable 186

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 23, 2012

Almost every birder who has birded within in the range of Megaceryle alcyon , better known as the Belted Kingfisher , knows the drill. The first moment you are aware of a nearby kingfisher is when you hear its rattling call as it takes off away from you. If you try to get closer looks it just flies again. Eventually, if you persist, it will find a way to get around you and back to its original perch and you find yourself on the banks of a creek or the edge of a lake, having wandered hundreds of

Fish 184

Fish Birds 184

Speaker: Gabriel Wagner Presenter 2

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10,000 Birds

JANUARY 15, 2012

I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for owls. Wander through my front door and glance upwards and you’ll find at least two watching you, a Tawny Owl and a Barn Owl , both sadly gathered as roadkills. Above our fireplace is a large painting of a Barn Owl. The current header image of my own blog is another Barn Owl, this one a ringed individual I found daylight hunting, and unconcerned by the presence of my car as it hunted from posts presumably feeding young in early summer last year

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Barn Owls Finland Owls Portugal 183

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 4, 2012

Western Screech-Owl ( Megascops kennicottii ) photos by Larry Jordan It’s been an interesting winter in my neck of the woods. Birders in Northern California have been treated to rare sightings of several species, sending avid twitchers from all over the west in our direction. There is a Falcated Duck at Colusa National Wildlife Refuge, Mountain Plovers and Northern Waterthrush near Sutter National Wildlife Refuge, a Blue Jay way out if its normal range in Chico, all three Scoter species a

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Owls California Jordan Sparrows 181

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 3, 2012

The end of the year is a great time to look back on the year passed and re-assess where we took our lives, what we did, where we have come from… and then take a few moments in stillness to think about where we would like our paths to take us in the year ahead. Old European customs would have that this is the quiet time of year, filled with gentle music, meditative thought, and reflective appreciation of those who we hold dear.

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2011 Mongoose Thailand 2012 181

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 20, 2012

One of the great compulsions shared by nearly all varieties of nerd is the desire to share the objects of our obsession with people. Unfortunately, for birders as for most others on the geek/dork spectrum, sharing the hobby we love with people can go horribly awry.To be honest, often this is because we go off the deep end: hours in inclement weather at a landfill sorting out obscure plumage differences in gulls may be the pinnacle of art and technique in some respects, but it makes a lousy Valen

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Game Puffins Birds Owls 178

Speaker: Steve Romanco

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 28, 2012

I am having a wonderful time at the 15th Annual Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival. Instead of going into the gory details at this moment, when I have been on the move constantly for three days straight and seeing lots of birds and birders and getting very little sleep, I figured I would just share some of my favorite intimate bird images from the festival so far.

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Cattle Florida Wildlife Birds 179

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 6, 2012

SUPER STARLINGS Tanzania plays host to a wide variety of Starlings, over twenty species in fact. In California we have the feisty intelligent generalist European Starling. Singularly beautiful as individuals but glared at by many a birder for their stubborn survival streak which can play havoc with the delicate nesting strategies of pre-established locals.

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Tanzania Chickens Blackbirds California 179

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 13, 2012

I must say that I never expected us at 10,000 Birds to receive an email asking us if we wanted to review a DVD made from a company dedicated to producing “children’s nature resources (from a Creation perspective).” After all, my views on creationism are pretty darn clear. Nonetheless, I thought it might be interesting and informative to review a DVD put out by Crowe’s Nest Media , a family owned and operated company, which is how I found a copy of Your Backyard: A young b

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Science Owls Pennsylvania United States 176

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 8, 2012

It had to happen eventually! We have all been waiting for the rain to arrive and it seems to be later this Wet Season. The frogs must have been wondering what was going on, but now they are happy. It’s not “rain” here until we get over 10mm in a downpour, which has now officially happened and it looks like we have plenty more rain ahead.

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Species Birds Australia 176

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Testing

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 17, 2012

Since the day that we announced the release of the EL42 Swarovision, people have been asking when a 32mm version of the Swarovision binoculars will be available. These are hard questions, because being really passionate about the binoculars we are developing (our babies), I really want to be able to blab about how cool they are and about how excited I am about getting my grimy hands on the first prototypes; and to see what the first bird is I see through them.

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Austria Thailand Montana Protection 177

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 3, 2012

On my last visit to Bryant Park I not only spent time photographing the wintering birds there but also carefully watching them, trying to figure out how such a small urban park with so little proper habitat could possibly be providing enough food for birds that aren’t used to a diet of bread crumbs and table scraps. And while I am still not sure how they do it, I did learn a bit about where the Lincoln’s Sparrow , Ovenbirds , Gray Catbirds , and Yellow-breasted Chats are getting thei

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Sparrows Birds 173

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 20, 2012

STELLAR SHRIKES Shrikes (like this Grey-backed Fiscal ) are little wannabe raptors. They are quick and intense, with the requisite taste for lizards, snakes, and fledglings, but they’ve been evolutionarily deprived of the proper tools… so they improvise. Sure their bill is a slightly hooked which helps in nipping little chunks off their prey… but their talons need some help.

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Tanzania Butcher Family Groups 172

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 10, 2012

One of the things that has vexed me about my fellow bird watchers is the inability to read signs. Well, that’s not fair. It’s the acute ability by many bird watchers to ignore signs. I’ve heard several excuses from, “It’s a great way for the land owner to get to know me,” to “no one is going to notice,” to “it’s a stupid rule,” or in the case of airports, “I’m doing them a service by being another set of eyes to watch

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Owls Protesting Protest Protesters 175

Speaker: Gabriel Wagner

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