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In terms of migration excitement, June feels like the party you arrived at just a little late. Everyone still seems to having a ball, but the merriment isn’t flowing quite as freely as it was before. Live it up, though, because, with a few weeks, the migration party may really be over! I’m prepping for a big birding bonanza in Honduras (!!!!
Author: Tony Hughes You may be struggling thinking, "What on Earth am I doing, I hate this job!". I know, you fell into sales, and perhaps from there, sales management. I think of what powers me to prevent burnout and I think of these five words. So I want to deconstruct each one as an emotional manual for sellers in this quick post in reverse chronological order.
We have something really fun to share with you today. Have you heard of augmented reality? Code to Canvas has brought this fun technology to jewelry that you can enjoy. Not only are there fun designs for pet lovers, but.
White-tailed Eagles normally take flight silently, yet, while checking some Common Starlings and hoping for Rosy Starlings , I heard a few noisy wing-beats, enough to turn and see a young eagle flying with a wing tag. Hidden from my view, it stood on a nearby tree and if it weren’t for those clumsy beats, I wouldn’t have noticed it. To prove more how young and inexperienced it was, the eagle even landed on the ground a mere 15 metres behind my car.
Hummingbirds. Those lovely feathered sprites that visit our gardens, feeders, and even take part in adorable bathing practices on odd, red vases. So easy to love, admire and cherish! And yet…take a closer look and you won’t find any hummingbirds acting like cute little singing birds ready to perch on the finger of some lost, happy princess.
Honduras, a beautifully biodiverse Central American gem, offers everything birders look for in a travel destination, starting with ready access to lots of highly coveted bird species. In particular, the Lake Yojoa region, featuring the country’s largest freshwater lake and the lush mountains that surround it, offer abundant avian-driven excitement. In June 2018, the Honduras Institute of Tourism assembled a feisty team of Honduran and American writers, photographers, guides, and tourism professi
It was a cloudy day as I made my way to Tybee Island on the Georgia coast. As a fledgling birder from far inland, I was drawn to the tidal creeks, hammocks, salt marshes, and maritime forests. This area of unspoiled barrier islands would surely be a treasure trove of new birds for my fresh life list (probably just 50 or so at that time). Georgia coast.
It was a cloudy day as I made my way to Tybee Island on the Georgia coast. As a fledgling birder from far inland, I was drawn to the tidal creeks, hammocks, salt marshes, and maritime forests. This area of unspoiled barrier islands would surely be a treasure trove of new birds for my fresh life list (probably just 50 or so at that time). Georgia coast.
Dry Tortugas approximately 100 years ago. Sooties, noddies, and where to find them. As the Caribbean’s emerald waters fell away below our seaplane, I had no idea what to expect from my visit to the Dry Tortugas, 70 miles west of Key West, Florida. Armed with binocs and my trusty green Audubon’s, the only pre-mobile Internet info I had on my destination was…’tortugas’ is Spanish for turtles; the doctor who set John Wilkes Booth’s broken leg was imprisoned at Fort Jefferson; you
Birders are fairly easy to spot. Many wear awful clothes, variations of beige and khaki with legs that can be zipped off to make uglier shorts. Far too many have those awful binocular harnesses that look like rigging for a parachute (what is up with that?). But these days the easiest way to spot a birder is to look for someone that twenty years ago would have probably have been one of the paparazzi.
Let us begin by establishing the following facts as true: – I am not a monkey’s uncle, yet, in a certain way, I am. – Birds are indeed dinosaurs, yet, are indubitably not. Knowledge is knowing that a bird is a dinosaur. Wisdom is not charging people extra to see your reconstituted Jurassic Park style dinosaur zoo when all you’ve got is a barn full of chickens.
Who is eyeing gulls? I sure didn’t, for many years. Too simple. White and grey? Colouristically mediocre. Not even 60 species worldwide? Too easy. That small one is [now name the commonest small gull in your neighbourhood], while that big bully is [again, name the commonest big gull around] and more than 99 % of the time you will be right. So, where’s a sportsman’s challenge there?
If you like birds and you also like. Oh, wait. I already know that you like birds — that’s why you’re at this blogsite. Let me start again. If you like murder mysteries, you really ought to check out Steve Burrows’ terrific “Birder Murder” series, now at four books. The latest, A Shimmer of Hummingbirds , is the first to be widely distributed in the United States.
Of all the ways people choose to pass their time, few recreational activities are as tightly bound to science as birding. We all hang breathlessly on every ornithological finding and spend far too many hours debating the boundaries of speciation. Much of the deep satisfaction birding delivers over a lifetime of practice comes from this evidence-based affinity with modern zoology, biology, ecology, and geography.
I was well into adulthood when I took up birding (at least in terms of legal age), and a few more years passed beyond that before I discovered what many birders consider one of the most enjoyable, important – and obsessive – aspects of the hobby: list-keeping. Not long after I first learned of the concept of a life list, I – like I suspect other birders-come-lately have done – began racking my brain for all those unrecorded birds I could remember seeing in those now distant days before I became
Every once in a while you stumble on a new natural history book that seems destined to be a classic. Is that a bold enough opening to convey how much I enjoyed The Ascent of Birds by John Reilly, new this spring from Pelagic Publishing? Ambitious in scope, The Ascent of Birds takes on the whole history of avian evolution from before the K-Pg boundary to the present day.
Navigated 360° tours, like YourVRTours, advance pipelines by engaging clients further along the sales funnel. These immersive experiences provide comprehensive property insights, increasing buyer intent and readiness. By embracing navigated tours, agents can optimize property exposure, better qualify leads, and streamline the sales process. Stay ahead in the ever-evolving real estate landscape with innovative technology that elevates buyer journeys and progresses pipelines more effectively.
In a little less than two weeks my family and I will be enjoying a long weekend on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. While June is not the best time of year to get huge numbers of neotropical migrants it did work out perfectly for us in terms of when we could go and find a really good deal to take advantage of. A three-day weekend is not nearly long enough to really delve into all of the Yucatan Peninsula’s amazing endemics but I do hope to pick up a few and part of the criteria for the res
Most of us know all too well the bittersweet mood returning from a birding trip evokes. On the one hand, a successful adventure results in rich memories, accumulated wisdom, and—if you did it right—plenty of lifers. On the other hand, you have all those photos to process and lists to sort. Actually, even those parts of a birding trip can be sweet. Time to plan the next one!
‘Tis the season when young birds fledge and take to the wing, or more commonly plunge to the ground where they are easy prey for predators. There are no shocking photographs in this post, so please read on. In the UK, so figures indicate , 10 million domestic cats account for 275 million prey items, of which 55 million are birds. in the USA, a 2013 article states , the number reaches 3.7 billion bird deaths.
I remember my first Bald Eagle so vividly. I dragged the guy I had just started seeing (reader, I married him) on a frosty February morning to an eagle walk at Croton Point Park (Croton-on-Hudson, NY). We pulled into the parking lot, got out of the car, and before I’d even had a chance to pull my binoculars out of my backpack, an adult eagle soared right over our heads.
Controversy and conflict are nothing new to the internet. Controversy and conflict are also nothing new to birders. Both the online world and the birding world are full of disputes, arguments, disagreements, squabbles, and quarrels. Rather than hide from conflict, ignore controversy, and pretend everyone gets along about everything we here at 10,000 Birds decided we would have a week where we writers welcome wrangling.
The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are home to some of the largest assemblages of breeding seabirds in the United States. These remote islands, some more than 1,000 miles from Honolulu, are home to huge globally-significant colonies of Laysan and Black-footed Albatross, among many others. Many of these islands are part of the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge and one of the most important areas is Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge.
I know we all hate European Starlings ; I know that as environmentalists, this is part of our job. But come on. Like Darth Vader, the European Starling is objectively terrible AND objectively cool – the murmurations, the complex cacophony of their vocalizations, the inquisitiveness and toughness that make them such successful invaders in the first place – these birds deserve the same place in the American heart as the movie mobster, the grifter, and the pizza rat.
Another birdy weekend (YMMV) has come and gone. Did you make the most of it? As promised, I ventured out into the lush and lovely managed wilds of Mendon Ponds Park and brought home–in a visual sense only–the Black-billed Cuckoo I promised you. Actually, I got pretty lucky that the bird called in my vicinity, as better birders than I had worse cuckoo luck that morning.
Everyone likes to see a rare bird. Whether it’s new for your life list, country list, state list, or county list, a new bird is a joy, a blessing. But listing, especially in a limited geographical area, is a game of diminishing returns. After all, once you have checked a bird off of your checklist there is no checking it again (unless you are into year listing).
This year wasn’t so bad, especially compared to what had to be endured in the early to mid 2010’s. Just look at your favourite bird blog, 10,000 Birds : throughout this spring migration period, there were only around 4 posts on warblers – the North American ones. And there would have been essentially none if a Kirtland’s Warbler hadn’t shown up in New York City.
Ready for some contrarian birding commentary? The end of June may be superior in many ways to other times of year, or at least that’s what millions of schoolkids are thinking right about now. But no week is so good that we at 10,000 Birds can’t improve it. Consider the festivities of the next seven or so days our gift to you. Enjoy Come@Me Week !
Remember how much fun migration was? Say goodbye to that kind of excitement now that summer (or winter for the antipodeans) has set in. This new season presents its own staid charms, so don’t sleep on it. You’ll still find plenty of birding to enjoy if you take the time. I’m still trying to get on an inconveniently placed Henslow Sparrow , so look for me next to a nondescript grassy meadow trying to suss out that whispery call.
And so we are out of Africa, or South Africa at least. It seems like every time I have to leave a new country, and each of these has been a first time for me, I keep telling myself that I have to come back soon. From the onset, we were very aware that the time we have allowed was never going to be sufficient. And now it seems that for each new country visited, that sentiment has been increasingly stronger.
Taking advantage of my son, Desmond, having this past Friday off from school our small family decided to do a three-day trip somewhere. Our initial plan was to road trip somewhere within a half-day’s drive of our home in Queens but we quickly came to the realization that we didn’t really feel like driving anywhere that close to us. I started browsing on line and quickly discovered some great deals on Jet Blue vacations.
Another Father’s Day, another opportunity for millions of birding dads to invite, entice, or drag their progeny out into the field. Here’s a question for the fathers out there: did you even try to take your kids birding this weekend? If so, how did that go? I succeeded in getting exactly half of my children out into the field to explore the only old growth forest patch in Monroe County, NY.
Brewery Ommegang of Cooperstown, New York has long been one of my favorite breweries. Over the past two decades – the brewery celebrated its twentieth anniversary just last year – Ommegang has established and upheld a reputation for its exceptional interpretation of the venerable institutions of Belgian brewing – while throwing enough curveballs in the brewhouse (this is a baseball town, after all) to avoid being taken for granted as mere traditionalists.
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