10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 20, 2014

It confirms many of the once-radical notions put forward or refined by Shannon Hackett and her colleagues in 2008, and several since, and it proposes solutions to some of the most deeply unresolved questions about how major bird groups are related to each other. ( ’s bird family tree in a new tab and follow along as you read.

Family 279

Family Parrots Birds 2014 279

10,000 Birds

APRIL 12, 2012

The family has representatives throughout the forests North America, Eurasia (including North Africa), and Indomalaya. In North America, we have, traditionally at least, four species, the most familiar of which is the White-breasted Nuthatch ( Sitta carolinensis ). In 2007, Garth M. What should we call them?

Species 269

Species North America Nevada 2007 269

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 12, 2012

Their rather nondescript winter nature conceals some fascinating secrets, not the least of which is that they and their closest relatives, the three golden-plover species, are among the planet’s greatest flyers. I am not aware of any major taxonomic authority that has recognized this family-level split yet, however.

Family 245

Family 2007 Iceland Louisiana 245

10,000 Birds

MARCH 20, 2015

It’s simple, with a deck of sixty cards divided into five habitat groupings, and each card depicting birds that are either common, uncommon, rare, raptor, or ace. Each player plays a card and can count any species from the same habitat group as the card played. It’s fun, fast, and easy to learn.

Game 256

Game Family Groups Birds 256

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 25, 2015

A new paper out this month attempts to paint the most comprehensive picture yet of the origins and diversification of the American sparrows, wood-warblers, blackbirds, cardinals, tanagers, and their kin, an enormous group of birds more than 800 species strong. We now know a lot more about who is a tanager vs. a sparrow vs. a cardinal.

Sparrows 279

Sparrows North America South America Blackbirds 279

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 17, 2013

Waxwings and their relatives are a small, interesting group of songbirds that have seen some interesting taxonomic changes in the last few years. 2008), but how the bombycillid lineages are related to each other, and whether the various subgroups deserve family, subfamily, or tribe status, all still remains to be seen. Spellman et al.

Saudi Arabia 254

Saudi Arabia 2008 Indonesia Colombia 254

10,000 Birds

JUNE 12, 2012

Over 700 bird species occur in Namibia, many of them range-restricted and highly desirable southern arid zone species. It is usually an extremely secretive bird and only readily found at very first light when family parties emerge onto the tops of boulders and utter their strange, shrieking choruses.

Namibia 272

Namibia Angola Lovebirds South Africa 272

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 11, 2020

We saw several species of this challenging family, after some time I managed to graduate with the ability to classify them as “streaked” or “unstreaked” When it came down to the actual species, however, I left it to the expert! I learned that Stout Cisticolas often stick together in small groups.

Kenya 279

Kenya Washington Groups Game 279

10,000 Birds

MAY 21, 2014

I love babblers, and whether you treat them as a single family or several (and I understand the jury keeps getting called back on that one), its a hard family not to like. It can reach quite ludicrous levels in some places, like in Danum Valley where you can see ten different species of a morning.

Malaysia 248

Malaysia Squirrels Asia Europe 248

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 27, 2021

The islands and surrounding islets of Trinidad and Tobago boast an astounding list of almost 500 species of birds. For such a small place, birders are often spoiled for choice, there seems to be a representative of almost every neotropical family making their presence felt in some corner of habitat. Green Honeycreepers.

Trinidad 264

Trinidad Groups Family Species 264

10,000 Birds

APRIL 13, 2022

As is my self-declared tradition of speaking of groups of birds within the species gamut of Trinidad & Tobago, allow me to introduce you to yet another group of three. While the entire Tyrannidae family of Tyrant Flycatchers is massive, the Myiarchus group of those recorded on these two islands comprises just three species.

Trinidad 264

Trinidad ALA Groups Family 264

10,000 Birds

JUNE 9, 2021

Many species seemed to come in threes, and today I shall continue my examination of these. Three species of antshrikes are resident in T&T. These endearing birds are almost always found in pairs or small family groups, and I often have difficulty deciding which bird to photograph as both males and females are equally beautiful.

Trinidad 264

Trinidad Bears Family Groups 264

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 3, 2020

I’ve been fortunate to see two Penguin species in the wild (African and Galapagos) and have dreamed of seeing more–maybe even all!–especially The goal of Around the World For Penguins is simple: Describe the 18 species of penguin and their breeding grounds “from the perspective of a traveller.”

Penguins 279

Penguins Georgia Albatross New Zealand 279

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 22, 2013

And now we enter into a family of birds more or less unknown to non-birders. And truth told, over the years they’ve been something of a square peg for ornithologists too, not fitting precisely into any of the known families of birds. But that’s a group for a different time. Horned Grebe , photo by Julie Gidwitz.

Jordan 250

Jordan Guatemala South America Birds 250

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 31, 2011

They are part of a family of New World Quail which includes Gambel’s, Mountain, Scaled and Montezuma Quail, as well as the Northern Bobwhite. The family stays very close to cover for several weeks, getting bolder as the young develop. The family group pictured below has been visiting my yard recently.

California 263

California Gophers Rattlesnake Eggs 263

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 6, 2011

Approximately 2,300 bird species inhabit Africa, however as impressive as that sounds, much smaller South America boasts nearly 1,000 species more. Vangas, asities, mesites, Malagasy warblers, ground-rollers and cuckoo-roller are all mouth-watering groups with very special members.

Papua New Guinea 255

Papua New Guinea Equatorial Guinea Madagascar Tanzania 255

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 3, 2023

It covers 403 species: 172 nonpasserine species and 231 passerine species in the Species Accounts, 198 species beautifully illustrated by the author in the Plates section. The scarcity of information on the young of some avian species is astounding. Woodpeckers are a family of focus for Tuttle-Adams.

Wildlife Rehabilitation 290

Wildlife Rehabilitation Birds Family Collecting 290

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 13, 2011

Originally considered monotypic, two species are now recognized. Drakensberg (or Orange-breasted) Rockjumper is a Drakensberg Mountain species whose range is shared with the tiny landlocked kingdom of Lesotho. Males of this species are more brightly colored in their non-breeding winter plumage. the Rockjumpers.

South Africa 258

South Africa Lesotho Swaziland Africa 258

10,000 Birds

JUNE 3, 2012

I also know the field guides I use very well, and I know where to find which bird species in the book. You see, the species in my field guides, as in the vast majority of field guides everywhere, are in taxonomic order. I knew nothing about the vast majority of bird families occurring in the region.

Indonesia 259

Indonesia Family Asia Groups 259

10,000 Birds

JULY 13, 2014

It’s mid-July, which among other things means that those of us in North America are starting to check local mudflats for returning shorebird migrants and waiting impatiently for the AOU to hurry up and create five species from the Clapper-King rail complex (the reasons for which we covered last year ). Gowen et al.

Elephants 254

Elephants New Zealand Sparrows Ostriches 254

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 14, 2012

True geese belong to the tribe or sub-family Anserini within the larger family Anatidae that encompasses ducks, geese and swans. And the Magpie Geese of the same country are believed to be neither ducks nor geese nor swans and are now placed within their own family Anseranatidae.

Geese 240

Geese Ducks Botswana Madagascar 240

10,000 Birds

JUNE 5, 2013

That would reflect the number of new species discovered in the Amazon rainforest over the past five years or so, according to scientists. The ornithologists considered plumage, voice, and genetics in making their determinations; birds had to differ from known species in in at least two of those qualities to be considered new.

Bolivia 242

Bolivia Brazil Peru Bears 242

10,000 Birds

MAY 27, 2015

This time it is the Old World that has misnamed a group of birds, or in fact several groups. It all comes back to a split in one of the great bird families, the Turdidae, or thrushes. Once upon a time, when I started birding, this great family included a wide range of species collectively known as the robins and chats.

Mozambique 223

Mozambique Zambia Zimbabwe Namibia 223

10,000 Birds

APRIL 29, 2015

I’m a big fan of the antelopes, a group that is most commonly associated with Africa but which also occurs in Asia and, if you stretch the term to be cladistically meaningful, Europe and North America. By this I mean applying the term antelope to cover all of the family Bovidae, which would include the sheep, goats and ox.

Africa 225

Africa Wolves Goats Sheep 225

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 8, 2020

The authors wrote: [Species] “are the currency of field guides and of birding, but deciding what to treat as ‘species’ is inevitably a subjective endeavour. … We have tended to a liberal (= realistic) direction when recognising species.” There are no species distribution maps, only textual descriptions.

Chile 273

Chile Birds South America Albatross 273

10,000 Birds

MARCH 26, 2023

The Crested Pigeon family remained in the tree away from danger for quite some time with both parents present. Although Crested Pigeons are quite a common bird Australia-wide you don’t always find a nest, so that you are able to observe the family grow.

Breeding 262

Breeding Australia Eggs Family 262

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 28, 2012

But a vast number of species DO exhibit dazzling displays of color. This might explain why many predominantly-white bird species have entirely black or black-tipped feathers in their wings. This pigment group is the rarest of the three pigment groups and is found in only a handful of bird families.

Birds 279

Birds Cooking Groups Parrots 279

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 6, 2022

Torresian Crows Corvus orru are the most common of the Crow family in the northern part of Australia and are the most likely of the Crow species that you will encounter. In Broome it is the only Crow species and we do not have Ravens , so it makes identification easy.

Australia 276

Australia Eggs Family Species 276

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 8, 2011

Most of these birds are small, finch-like species with thick, conical bills for cracking seeds or eating insects. He goes on to describe how early classifications of the nine-primaried oscines relied on bill shape to determine family boundaries. A new perspective on tanagers Much of the core of the tanager family remains intact.

2003 260

2003 Sparrows South America Family 260

10,000 Birds

MARCH 18, 2018

The Sooty Oystercatcher Haematopus fulginosus fulginosus is present in an area along the coast of Western Australia roughly south of Carnarvon and to the north the Sooty Oystercatcher is the sub species Haemotopus fulginosus ophthalmicus. Family of Sooty Oystercatchers. Sooty Oystercatchers- adult at the rear and juvenile at the front.

Family 100

Family Australia Groups Rights 100

10,000 Birds

JUNE 11, 2011

The Hyacinth Macaw is more than just another pretty face; these birds are social with strong family values. They like to fly in pairs or groups and in the evening they come together in big groups to roost in a favorite ‘dormitory’ tree. The Hyacinth Macaw doesn’t start a family until it is seven years old.

Protection 247

Protection Brazil Parrots Paraguay 247

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 4, 2013

I know that families in the United States are already fretting/anticipating September’s arrival. What elevated the kings of kings above other species this time around was their gregarious behavior. Now that we’re later in the season, they are grouping either in family clusters or anticipation of migration.

2013 232

2013 United States Birds Family 232

10,000 Birds

JUNE 6, 2021

One bird species that we occasionally observe around Broome is the Yellow-billed Spoonbill, but we had not seen one for a few years until recently. We soon observed several bird species and then a Yellow-billed Spoonbill flew overhead. Not only is it a bird species we rarely encounter, but we had never found a breeding colony before.

Breeding 246

Breeding Australia Cattle Family 246

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 15, 2013

Together, they are placed in the family Threskiornithidae, and they’re related to herons and egrets, pelicans, and the strange Hamerkop and Shoebill. The other two living species, the Andean Puna Ibis and the White-faced Ibis occur in the Americas. A cryptic species? White-faced and Glossy ibises ( Plegadis chihi and P.

Louisiana 254

Louisiana Mississippi America Pelicans 254

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 22, 2020

Despite depicting 540 species/56 families, it is a lightweight book of 173 pages, easy to pack and carry. Mammals of South Asia follows the latest taxonomy, describes all the species recorded within the region and provides a range map for each species. Larger species, that is, excluding dolphins and whales.

Mammals 251

Mammals Asia Sri Lanka Bhutan 251

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 20, 2012

The brilliant orange coloration and rich, haunting song of the Spot-breasted Oriole ( Icterus pectoralis ) makes this species one of my favorite permanent residents in southeastern Florida, even though it is an introduced exotic. How can an introduced species be a favorite among birders? Don’t they compete with native birds?

Miami 230

Miami Costa Rica Florida 2005 230

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 14, 2012

The wonderful family Meropidae contains 27 dazzling species, of which Africa is endowed with no less than 20 species, the balance occurring across Asia and with one as far afield as Australia. We have both resident and migratory species, and this post will briefly discuss each of the 20 species of African bee-eaters.

Africa 266

Africa Gabon South Africa Uganda 266