10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 6, 2015

Here are some things I’ve learned from the Peterson Reference Guide to Owls of North America and the Caribbean by Scott Weidensaul: The Burrowing Owl is the only North American owl species where the male is larger than the female, albeit, only slightly larger. The 39 owls include five endemic Caribbean species.

North America 219

North America Owls America Dominican Republic 219

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

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 207

North America Birds Owls Canada 207

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 262

America Arizona North America Texas 262

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 155

North America Woodpeckers America Family 155

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.

Species 267

Species North America Nevada 2007 267

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 175

Family North America Netherlands New Zealand 175

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 253

Wildlife Rehabilitation Family Birds Collecting 253

10,000 Birds

JULY 12, 2024

It sports the intense purple back and head of its close relative, the Purple Martin , which is found in much of North America (summer) and South America (winter). I have now seen the species in eight different years. Of course, Paso Ancho is also a hotspot for many other beautiful species and endemics.

Mexico 209

Mexico South America 2020 America 209

10,000 Birds

JUNE 4, 2024

It’s a decidedly different direction for the author of Kingbird Highway (1997), Kaufman Field Guide to Birds of North America (2005), and A Season on the Wind: Inside the World of Spring Migration (2019), to cite just three of his books, and one that I thoroughly enjoyed, underlined with energy, and am still thinking about.

Philadelphia 243

Philadelphia Birds Investigation North America 243

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

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

An associated issue is that the Belize and Costa Rica guides share many of the same descriptions of species, written by Howell. Dale Dyer put in years working on his paintings for Birds of Central America , both in the field and in the museum. Other species are splits and lumped and have had their names changed. Not every bird.

Costa Rica 210

Costa Rica Belize El Salvador Birds 210

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 250

Sparrows North America South America Blackbirds 250

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 197

Family Ecuador Costa Rica United States 197

10,000 Birds

APRIL 5, 2019

But come spring, an even luckier few may even find a fellow survivor of their own kind with whom to start a family, unwittingly causing contentious debates among birders about the countability of established feral populations in the process. What’s in a name?

North America 113

North America Vermont America Farm Animal 113

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 278

North America Research Birds America 278

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 205

Mexico North America Sparrows 2015 205

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 181

Mexico Indonesia Arizona North America 181

10,000 Birds

APRIL 5, 2022

It also summarizes the vagrancy status of every bird family in the whole wide world, which makes it fun to read as well as superbly educational. per cent of individuals of a species at a given time” and a vagrant bird as a bird that shows up outside of this range (p. The Family Accounts are the fun part of the book.

Compassion 258

Compassion Birds Eagles Science 258

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 18, 2021

Insects and a host of other invertebrate life have evolved with these plant species, and thus depend on them. Tallamy encourages the planting of Oaks across North America as they are the greatest of trees in their ability to support biodiversity, as they provide the biggest caterpillar boost to a local ecology. POST SCRIPT.

North America 263

North America Wildlife Mammals Breeding 263

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 198

Chile Birds South America Albatross 198

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 158

North America 2003 Birds America 158

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 18, 2021

All sorts of exotic and beautiful species may be seen. This would sound attractive even to me, except for one fact: almost all of those exotic and beautiful species are common down here in central Mexico. Southeastern Arizona is unusual, precisely because its species mix is as much Mexican as it is American.

Arizona 261

Arizona Mexico Los Angeles Oakland 261

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 27, 2021

I stopped at the Red Crossbill , realizing that the species indeed “occupies an immense range, including North America, Eurasia, and northern Africa” (HBW) – including Baxi forest, China. It is hard to see any scientific value in defining a bird species as a country endemic. Progress of sorts, I guess.

China 225

China Birds Nevada North America 225

10,000 Birds

JULY 4, 2017

This is the first identification guide that I know of that covers Mexico (technically North America but rarely included in North American raptor guides) and Central America. Like Peterson’s Hawks of North America, 2nd edition (Houghton Mifflin, 2001), which Clark co-authored with Brain K.

Mexico 161

Mexico America North America Falcons 161

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 4, 2018

The hope and claim is that transferring this process to gull identification works more easily and just as accurately (at least for species) as an examination of plumage and molt patterns. Species Accounts. Gulls Simplified covers 25 species. From the Laughing Gull species account. These vary according to species.

North America 198

North America El Salvador America Nicaragua 198

10,000 Birds

JUNE 10, 2015

In many ways the weaver family is for Africa are similar beasts to the pseudowarblers of North America (sometimes called wood-warblers). If anything, some of the weavers take being gaudy to levels unimagined by America’s ‘weavers’, especially when you consider the widowbirds, bishops and malimbes.

South Africa 154

South Africa Ethiopia Senegal Africa 154

10,000 Birds

JULY 7, 2020

They portray the nesting cycles of Mallard, Red-tailed Hawk, and American Robin, illustrating the various ways in which birds create families. Do they have families too and do they take care of them? Some of the chapters focus on a specific bird, most are about bird families like hawks, tanagers, wrens, etc.,

2020 263

2020 Birds North America Sparrows 263

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 221

Penguins Puffins 2008 Sharks 221

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 164

Africa Wolves Goats Sheep 164

10,000 Birds

MARCH 15, 2015

I still know my audience - this is primarily a blog read by birders in North America, who see the term “squirrel” as little more than a synonym for house sparrow, starling, pest and cholera. Germany, like most of Europe and very much unlike North America, is home to only one species of squirrel.

Squirrels 162

Squirrels North America Germany Europe 162

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 227

North America Thailand Russia Ducks 227

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 179

California Condor Turkey North America Jordan 179

10,000 Birds

JULY 30, 2015

They fly from extreme northern North America to the southern tip of South America and are seldom seen perched during migration. Another cool fact was learning that the Barn Swallows has started to breed in South America since the 80s. They are still among the coolest birds on my list. Photo Alfredo Begazo.

South Dakota 167

South Dakota South America North America Wyoming 167

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 165

New Zealand North America Laws Raised 165

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 195

Elephants New Zealand Sparrows Ostriches 195

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