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Birding Iceland on the Fly

10,000 Birds

We boarded the 8:40 pm red-eye from JFK to Reykjavik on May 28; the intention was to sleep on the plane but with the excitement of travel and possibilities swirling around my head I didn’t sleep a wink (*tip – Iceland Air offers free stopovers for up to seven days as you travel from the US to Europe!

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Whooper Swans at Lake Kussharo, Hokkaido

10,000 Birds

They are ridiculously unafraid of people there – so the cynic in me suspects that swan meat is not regarded as tasty by the Japanese (another explanation, that the Japanese just like animals too much, can presumably be discarded given the country’s very principled approach in insisting on the right to kill whales).

China 210
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Whaling Compromises Of Little Use

Critter News

What about Norway and Iceland? And they flagrantly continue killing. Iceland recently announced a quota of 100 fin whales - an endangered species - which is a dramatic increase its original self-assigned quota of nine. Tags: norway iceland whale Japan whaling. They also almost doubled their quota of Minke whales. ".

Whales 100
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Godwits are bad ambassadors of conservation

10,000 Birds

It breeds in a broad and not quite coherent band from Iceland in the west through central Europe and southern Scandinavia all the way to eastern Russia, wintering in Africa, parts of India, and Southeast Asia to Australia. Somehow – given our current weather – I can relate. .

Germany 174
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Grifalco: Aglianico del Vulture “Gricos” (2016)

10,000 Birds

But they are also highly-prized for their ruthless and powerful efficiency in killing – medieval illustrations depict them downing cranes and a twentieth-century painting by Louis Agassiz Fuertes shows a falconer’s Gyrfalcon inflicting a lethal strike on a Gray Heron ( Ardea cinerea ). 1540 – 1560).

2016 100
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The Kirtland’s Warbler: The Story of a Bird’s Fight Against Extinction and the People Who Saved It: A Book Review

10,000 Birds

history; they killed a young boy just to prove they could commit the perfect crime and were the models for the murderers in Hitchcock’s film Rope. One of the strange things about the Kirtland’s Warbler story is the participation of Nathan Leopold, Jr. Leopold and his friend Richard Loeb are two of the most infamous murderers in U.S.

Michigan 226
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What to Do at High Island When the Winds are South

10,000 Birds

Eagle-eyed Pat spotted a Lesser Black-backed Gull in nonbreeding plumage and other birders that week noted a Thayer’s Gull (which we may have seen too–I mean, who expects Iceland Gull in April?). This was a mature bird and if I lightened this photo you’d be able to see the red gular sac deflated against its chest.

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