10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 18, 2012

A recent proposal ( 555 ) to the AOU’s South American Classification Committee deals with newly published information about relationships within the sandpiper family, Scolopacidae, and what it means for the classification of these wonderful, fascinating birds. But let’s take a look at how things are shaping up for the future.

Family 218

Family North America Netherlands New Zealand 218

10,000 Birds

JUNE 6, 2017

The Peterson Field Guide to Bird Sounds of Eastern North America by Nathan Pieplow is innovative, fascinating, and challenging. The guide covers 520 species of birds regularly found in the eastern United States and southeastern Canada, including, interestingly, a number of exotic species. But, first the basics.

North America 189

North America America Sparrows Birds 189

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 16, 2012

Many of us in North America are facing the imminent departure of “our” hummingbirds for the next few months, though across the Gulf Coastal Plain, a few western hummingbirds are staking out winter homes, and hardy Anna’s Hummingbirds will do just fine along the Pacific Coast and in Arizona all winter long.

Family 242

Family Ecuador Costa Rica United States 242

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

MARCH 25, 2011

Fortunately for you, though, when I got home I found a review copy of National Geographic Backyard Guide to the Birds of North America by Jonathan Alderfer and Paul Hess ready and waiting to be dissected for your delectation. The target audience of this book is not the jet-setting hardcore birder, or even the dedicated local lister.

North America 160

North America America Dissection Birds 160

10,000 Birds

MAY 24, 2020

North America is home to many amazing bird species, including several which require a special effort to see and appreciate. In the summer, they are the highest altitude breeding songbird in North America. So let’s look at this sampler, shall we? Want to see Painted Bunting on a Naturalist Journeys tour?:

America 264

America Arizona North America Texas 264

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 30, 2015

When it comes to individual North American species, the old reliable trick of naming them after physical traits is in full effect. From his name is derived the name of the order Piciformes , the family Picidae , and the genus Picoides (as well as the genii Picus and Piculus , which include no North American members).

North America 159

North America Woodpeckers America Family 159

10,000 Birds

MAY 4, 2021

Marybeth learns as she birds, embraces listing goals as a means of engaging with community, unabashedly enjoys a little competition, struggles to balance her absolute joy in birding with unexpected, life-and-death family obligations. Adventures of a Louisiana Birder: One Year, Two Wings, Three Hundred Species. And there are the birds.

Louisiana 264

Louisiana Species Mississippi Alabama 264

10,000 Birds

MAY 1, 2018

You can blame the nice people at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, who took it upon themselves to send me a review copy of the Peterson Field Guide to Moths of Southeastern North America by Seabrooke Leckie and David Beadle. Moth plates from Peterson Field Guide to Moths of Southeastern North America. Let that sink in.

North America 102

North America America Oklahoma Missouri 102

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 27, 2012

One of the sweetest subsections of the duck family has to be the sawbills, formally known as mergansers. Mergansers are a family of diving waterfowl in Merginae , the seaduck subfamily of Anatidae. Anyway, the hoodie is the only merganser endemic to North America. Notice the sawbill?

North America 247

North America Thailand Russia Ducks 247

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 10, 2014

Across the world’s northern oceans, 24 species of auklets, murres, puffins, guillemots, and related seabirds make a living catching food beneath the waves and breeding, often in large colonies, on coastlines and islands. Alcids form a distinctive family within the shorebird order Charadriiformes. © David J. See Cairns et al.

Penguins 266

Penguins Puffins 2008 Sharks 266

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 1, 2023

The official Ontario bird checklist, produced by Ontario Field Ornithologists , June 2022 listed 506 bird species**, putting it in the top tier of U.S. Small Species Accounts: Each species is allotted one page (with certain exceptions) offering basics–bird names and size, one or two photographs, and a one-paragraph description.

North America 246

North America Birds Owls Canada 246

10,000 Birds

MAY 8, 2013

The smellier the better, particularly as, unusually for birds, many species can boast a robust sense of smell. In any case, our hang-ups with vultures clearly stem from our own issues rather than any inherently bizarre trait of the species themselves. Vultures famously feed on carrion. Dead things. millions years ago.

California Condor 224

California Condor Turkey North America Jordan 224

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 289

Wildlife Rehabilitation Family Birds Collecting 289

10,000 Birds

MARCH 27, 2011

But the new second edition of Watching Sparrows * by Michael Male and Judy Fieth, who have a whole series of bird films already produced or in production , not only kept me staring at the screen but drew in family members to see what I was watching, to say nothing of my cats, who were enthralled by the sparrows singing on screen.

Sparrows 213

Sparrows North America United States America 213

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 17, 2013

This group — dubbed the bombycillids , from the waxwing genus and family name — appears to fall near kinglets and a large group containing thrushes and muscicapids (Old World flycatchers and chats) in the passerine tree. Here’s the only known video footage of that species: Kauai Oo. Spellman et al. Spellman et al.

Saudi Arabia 252

Saudi Arabia 2008 Indonesia Colombia 252

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 240

Elephants New Zealand Sparrows Ostriches 240

10,000 Birds

JULY 21, 2014

These bark-burrowing beetles, which apparently hitched a ride in cargo shipments from their native Asia, have been starving the ash trees of eastern and midwestern North America to death for a dozen years now. … Here at 10,000 Birds 20 July – 26 July is Invasive Species Week. Enter the woodpecker.

Woodpeckers 273

Woodpeckers Illinois Chicago Kentucky 273

10,000 Birds

APRIL 25, 2011

Anyone who has gone bird watching in North America, however, knows another kind of phoebe, a bold little genus that turns up with remarkable frequency from the arctic circle to the equator. Phoebes are proud members (at least they seem so) of the Family Tyrannidae , the tyrant flycatchers. with its eastern cousin.

Argentina 240

Argentina United States North America America 240

10,000 Birds

MAY 3, 2016

I purchased my first Sibley— The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America —in 2003. And, that falcons are about as far away from hawks as a bird family could get. My Eastern Sibley served me well, replacing the Peterson’s with which I learned my ducks and waders. This means that loons are no longer first!

North America 189

North America 2003 Birds America 189

10,000 Birds

JULY 5, 2013

It’s among a handful of species — American Robin, Black-capped Chickadee , the unholy trinity of House Sparrow – Rock Pigeon – European Starling , a few others — that have been everywhere I’ve ever lived. In North America, that is. As you travel south, everything gets all higgledy-piggledy.

Connecticut 218

Connecticut Baltimore North America New York City 218

10,000 Birds

MARCH 20, 2012

Colombia is not only home to nearly 20% of all avian life on the planet but this birding mecca also accommodates an incredibly high percentage of highly sought after species. Nearly 80 species are endemic and found nowhere else in the world. But we just could not ignore the plentiful antpitta species too.

Colombia 262

Colombia Ecuador South America North America 262

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 204

Africa Wolves Goats Sheep 204

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 3, 2021

There was a time when I thought each bird species had its own individual song. Then I found out that there was this vocalization called a ‘call,’ so I thought each bird species had its own individual song (but just the males) and individual call. Bird communication is a complex and evolving science.

North America 279

North America Birds Research America 279

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 259

California Gophers Rattlesnake Eggs 259

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 26, 2012

In all of North America, only one avian species serves as both the beloved mascot of seven states as well as the totem to two professional sports teams (and an infinity of amateur ones!) The family Cardinalidae encompasses a plethora of New World passerines. However, Cardinalis phoeniceus is a South American species.

St. Louis 215

St. Louis United States Belize Guatemala 215

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 6, 2015

Gordon, president of the ABA, an Introduction, Species Accounts, Acknowledgements, Image Credits, a Checklist of the Birds of the state, and a Species Index. Species Accounts in both titles are arranged loosely in ABA Checklist order, with some flipping around of order within each family.

Colorado 266

Colorado Florida New Jersey North America 266

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 8, 2020

Guiding aside, Howell is a research associate at the California Academy of Sciences and the author of many books, including Petrels, Albatrosses, and Storm-Petrels of North America (Princeton). We have tended to a liberal (= realistic) direction when recognising species.” Well, this is one interesting claim.

Chile 257

Chile Birds South America Albatross 257

10,000 Birds

JUNE 2, 2015

I’m happy to say that Laura Erickson and Marie Read have written a book, Into the Nest: Intimate Views of the Courting, Parenting, and Family Lives of Familiar Birds , that is not too cute and that does not anthropomorphize. Some chapters focus on one species (Yellow Warbler), some on several related species (Chickadees and Nuthatches).

Eggs 263

Eggs Family 2006 New York 263

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. I would never have believed it, but if the science says so who am I to argue otherwise?

Jordan 234

Jordan Guatemala South America Birds 234

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 18, 2012

It is worth pointing out that titmice belong to the family Paridae , an expansive international clan made up primarily of what we call “chickadees” in the states but are known as “t**s” in the Old World. Why is this adorable, doll-eyed songbird so often ignored? Birders, because they look, notice them everywhere.

Arizona 267

Arizona Oklahoma Iowa Texas 267

10,000 Birds

MAY 25, 2022

Towhees are large, ground-hugging sparrows that occur only in North America. Earlier this month, I came across a family of Spotted Towhees (Olive-backed) with a couple of other strange aspects. The first was strange only on a personal level, as I had never before seen a juvenile of the species.

Mexico 259

Mexico North America Sparrows 2015 259

10,000 Birds

JUNE 16, 2021

The Trogon family (and order, since the order only includes one family) is quite widespread, being found in all the tropical (and some subtropical) regions of the world. Honesty requires that I confess to having seen none of these species. These species are visually very similar, with subtle differences in their tail patterns.

Mexico 238

Mexico Indonesia Arizona North America 238

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 27, 2013

This particular species is not native to New Zealand (similar to its status in North America). A European Starling in New Zealand made the news this week. The woman in the video found it as a chick at a few days old and hand reared it. In areas where starlings are introduced, the laws for keeping them as pets are relaxed.

New Zealand 180

New Zealand North America Laws Raised 180

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 26, 2014

The Yellow-rumped Warbler ( Setophaga coronata ) complex is one of the most abundant and widespread representatives of the New World warbler family in North America, present in many parts of the United States even through the winter months, when the birds feed on small fruits and other foods, including sap.

United States 266

United States 2011 Guatemala North America 266

10,000 Birds

MARCH 17, 2015

I recently returned from my family’s annual spring trip to Florida, and unlike years previous I didn’t get any special time set aside to bird this time round. I guess our early March time-frame is a tad on the early side for them to return from South America, so you can imagine I was pretty stoked to see this one.

Florida 216

Florida North America Neglecting South America 216

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 14, 2014

Many Neotropical families and genera have some of their northernmost members here, such as the spinetails ( Rufous-breasted Spinetail ), Tangara tanagers ( Azure-rumped Tanager ), and guans ( Horned Guan ). the species suffering most from deforestation). This is a fascinating area of transition. We were off to a great start.

Honduras 252

Honduras El Salvador Costa Rica Arizona 252