10,000 Birds

APRIL 25, 2019

Here are the results: 3 per cent of respondents (in no particular order): Trinidad and Tobago, Chile, Tanzania, Madagascar. Kenya and Tanzania combined offer the longest tour list of Africa, South Africa with its good infrastructure and easiness of finding birds comes close second, while Madagascar is there because of its 100 endemics.

Papua New Guinea 214

Papua New Guinea America Costa Rica Sri Lanka 214

10,000 Birds

MAY 31, 2023

To add even more to the lore of the trembler, an old skin discovered in the World Museum previously attributed to an extinct starling from Madagascar called the Mascarene Starling or Necropsar leugati was more recently revealed to be – you guessed it – a Gray Trembler.

Madagascar 130

Madagascar Litter Species Family 130

10,000 Birds

MARCH 9, 2023

Behrens is a co-author of Birds of Kruger National Park and Wildlife of Madagascar (both Princeton WILDGuides). Iain Campbell is the co-author of Birds of Australia and Wildlife of Australia (both Princeton), and a professional nature guide and tropical landscape geochemist.

Costa Rica 230

Costa Rica Cougars Madagascar Mammals 230

10,000 Birds

APRIL 26, 2024

The first birds return from their wintering grounds in Madagascar in mid April, so the birds we saw had only just arrived. Cyprus holds the most easterly colonies of this handsome raptor, and they are most easily seen on Kensington Cliffs, near Episkopi.

Cyprus 213

Cyprus Breeders Falcons Italy 213

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 10, 2024

Madagascar Fody (Foudia madagascariensis ) – One of the many introduced birds on the islands On July 8th, 1836, the “HMS Beagle” arrived at St Helena only to leave a few days later. Because by the time he arrived the islands were already almost treeless and nearly all of the endemic birds were as far as we know extinct.

Madagascar 205

Madagascar ALA 2000 Birds 205

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 11, 2018

1300kms off the coast of East Africa and over 1000kms NE from Madagascar is a tiny speck in the ocean. Red Fody , Madagascar Dove and Zebra Dove were all abundant. Zoom in and an archipelago of islands appears from the Indian Ocean. This is The Seychelles. How easy was that?

Seychelles 100

Seychelles Madagascar Africa Zebras 100

4 The Love Of Animals

JUNE 3, 2015

The world’s critically endangered lemur population has just expanded by two: twin baby ring-tailed lemurs born at the Duke Lemur Center, both named Princess Julien after Madagascar’s most famous royal lemur, King Julien.

Lemurs 100

Lemurs Madagascar Animal Wildlife 100

10,000 Birds

APRIL 21, 2016

And the missed Alaotra Grebe of Madagascar. Darren Naish, in his great blog at Scientific American (Which, if you’re not ready, why aren’t you reading it?) recently catalogued their woes. The Atitlan Grebe is sadly extinct. So is the Columbian Grebe. And the Junin Grebe of Peru?

Peru 170

Peru Madagascar Campaign Species 170

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 12, 2014

As well as being a great river to cruise for game, you can also see great birds like Water Stone-curlews , Madagascar Bee-eaters , Goliath Herons and Red Spurfowl. These African Skimmers were photographed at the Kazinga Channel, a body of water linking Lake George and Lake Edward in western Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park.

Uganda 191

Uganda Madagascar Buffalo Africa 191

10,000 Birds

APRIL 18, 2022

The Red Fody is an introduced species, though from nearby, sort of (Madagascar). For some reason, the introduced ones seem to be the easiest ones to see – shouldn’t they have a harder time on an island they did not specifically evolve on or for? Or does nature favor the equivalent of swiss army knives, capable of doing everything?

Mauritius 221

Mauritius 2000 Birds Madagascar 221

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 17, 2015

It really puzzles me, why they go all the way across the Sahara and Eastern Africa to overwinter as far as Madagascar, instead of staying somewhere closer, in continental Africa? Madagascar must have separated from Africa long before they evolved. Eleonora’s Falcons are migrants themselves. How old are they as a species?

Greece 222

Greece Falcons Madagascar Africa 222

10,000 Birds

JULY 19, 2018

201-400 sp: Madagascar, north African countries; European countries; Asia Minor, Arabian Peninsula, Mongolia. Costa Rica has 900 and not 800 species, but I made no corrections, remaining faithful to the original map data. Shown as a list, it looks like this: Less than 200 bird species: Antarctica; oceanic islands. 801-1000 sp. –

Equatorial Guinea 193

Equatorial Guinea Costa Rica Central African Republic Guyana 193

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 14, 2012

Madagascar Bee-eater Madagascar Bee-eater by Adam Riley Rather similar to Blue-cheeked Bee-eater, this species also has a rather unusual range. Excellent sites include Ampijoroa in Madagascar and Murchison Falls in Uganda. They prefer open areas, especially around wetlands.

Africa 263

Africa Gabon Uganda South Africa 263

Critter News

JUNE 19, 2010

Enforcement agencies discovered 300 tortoises from Madagascar bound and packed in two suitcases that also contained drugs at Kuala Lumpur International Airport last week. I've finally started getting email updates from Traffic, the wildlife trade monitoring network.

Tortoises 100

Tortoises Mauritius Madagascar Wildlife 100

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 21, 2019

At some stage, in the darkness with Claire and Callan, Tim Dee was stalking a nightjar in Madagascar. .” Dumps, “most alive at its face, a slow-breaking wave of fresh-dropped rubbish”, gulls… and girls! Well, no, if I understood him well, he didn’t meet her at the landfill.

Angola 182

Angola United Kingdom Mozambique Botswana 182

Critter News

MAY 28, 2010

This time, it's the Alaotra grebe from Madagascar, according to the 2010 IUCN Red List update for birds, by BirdLife International. The report has bad news for bird species all around, identifying 12.5 percent as being endangered.

Species 100

Species Madagascar Endangered Species 2010 100

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 22, 2014

As with the kingfishers and barbets I’m happy to lump them, even if it means lumping the asities of Madagascar and the rather odd Sapayoa of South America. *Taxonomic note – some people have been rather split-happy with the broadbills, and call for four families. Birds Borneo broadbill Christmas Gallery tropical'

Madagascar 167

Madagascar Malaysia New Zealand South America 167

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 5, 2013

Young Eleonora’s Falcons must develop quickly because they are migrants themselves, moving across the Sahara and down the Swahili Coast to Madagascar. Unlike other falcons, they do not breed in spring, but in late summer, to exploit the abundance of songbirds and pick up those first-time (and last-time) migrants from the sky.

Falcons 175

Falcons Greece Madagascar Game 175

10,000 Birds

MARCH 27, 2014

The Meller’s Duck is highly endangered in its native Madagascar. The Hawaiian Duck is most likely completely hybridized on the island of Oahu, and may be genetically intact only on the island of Kauai. The remaining birds are being hybridized by introduced mallards.

Florida 203

Florida Ducks New Zealand Feral 203

10,000 Birds

JUNE 10, 2020

Jacaranda: The jacaranda, from Madagascar, is a spectacularly beautiful tree when in bloom here in March and April. Grass: What little lawn I have serves exactly one purpose. It keeps my wife happy. But Canyon Towhees and Inca Doves poke around in there, so maybe the lawn has something going for it.

Birds 155

Birds Madagascar Woodpeckers Nashville 155

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

Retz’s Helmetshrike is one of the 8 helmetshrikes within the larger family of Vangidae – apparently, a family that evolved from a single Madagascar-based species. I guess this is the wind, not a highly individualistic hairstyle. Typical for the wonderful world of ornithology, it is not a shrike.

Elephants 147

Elephants Congo Birds Africa 147

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 21, 2011

But it also occurs in the Indian Ocean, from Aldabra near Madagascar to Western Australia. The species ranges widely across the Pacific, as its scientific name suggests, from the Revillagigedo Islands off Mexico to the Japanese Bonin Islands to New South Wales in Australia.

Albatross 169

Albatross Madagascar Breeders Mexico 169

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 14, 2012

A pair of African Pygmy Geese Adrian Binns These fascinating small ducks are found in central and southern Africa south of the Sahara, including the island of Madagascar. Typically they are very shy, preferring to sit motionless and relying on camouflage to avoid detection.

Geese 179

Geese Ducks Botswana Madagascar 179

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 3, 2014

They are Ecuador for the Galapagos, Gabon for the bais, Madagascar, New Guinea and New Caledonia for everything. Destination-wise my absolute top list hasn’t changed much since I dreamed it up since I haven’t made it to any of the places in it. My animal bucket list hasn’t changed much either, for similar reasons.

Sharks 171

Sharks Leopards Snow Leopard Whaling 171

10,000 Birds

JULY 14, 2011

This clade, Mayr says, is “most likely the sister taxon&# of Madagascar’s terrestrial mesites (!). Mayr takes the position that doves and sandgrouse are sister taxa because morphological evidence is good even though genetic evidence is murky.

Madagascar 164

Madagascar Louisiana Penguins Germany 164

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 13, 2014

The prehistoric extinctions most famously include the megafaunal assemblages of Europe, the Americas, Australia and Madagascar. The distinction is somewhat arbitrary, but generally speaking if something went extinct before records were made of it, it is considered prehistoric, if it was recorded alive then it is treated as modern.

Marsupials 167

Marsupials Costa Rica Elephants Cuba 167

10,000 Birds

MAY 8, 2012

Its range also extends to nearby Madagascar. The African Openbill also has a similar Africa-wide distribution (barring most of South and North Africa) as the previous four species and partakes long distance movements (usually triggered by rainfall) through the continent and to Madagascar.

Africa 237

Africa Tanzania South Africa Uganda 237

10,000 Birds

MAY 1, 2014

A few weeks from now (it was early April), Eleonora’s Falcons will become a possibility, too, once they return from Madagascar. We are looking for shags and shearwaters, as well as some rarer gulls that didn’t bother to show up. A movement at the cliff, two birds, one drab brown, the other blue – a pair of Blue Rock Thrushes.

Greece 231

Greece Malta Croatia Italy 231

10,000 Birds

MAY 12, 2013

Africa has two resident pelican species, the huge and widely distributed Great or Eastern White Pelican and the smaller Pink-backed which is restricted to Africa, the southern Arabian peninsula and Madagascar (where it may now be extinct.) Its a pelican that is restricted to freshwaters whereas Great White also enjoys the marine zones.

Africa 206

Africa Somalia Mozambique Pelicans 206

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 6, 2012

Origins and classification describes the evolution of frogs from lobe-finned fishes; there are some gaps in the stages from fish to frog, but scientists have identified the earliest frog-like fossil as Triadobatrachus massinoti, a creature which lived in the area we know as Madagascar about 230 million years ago.

Reptiles 183

Reptiles Madagascar Family New York City 183

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 30, 2011

At this point if I want to make any dent on the remaining families I haven’t seen I’d really need to go to either Madagascar or South America. They year before that were kiwis (Apterygidae) and diving-petrels (Pelecanoididae).

Family 162

Family Wombats Uganda Fiji 162

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 22, 2013

Many species of grebes, particularly those found on islands, like the Madagascar Grebe and the New Zealand Grebe , and those several species limited to various high elevation lakes in South America, rarely fly, with some species even having lost the ability to do so.

Jordan 190

Jordan Guatemala South America Birds 190

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 7, 2014

The Dodo lived on Mauritius, an island east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. As the Polynesians and the Europeans started discovering and settling islands, birds that had spent eons adapting to their surroundings started blinking out of existence. These are the lost raphines: Dodo ( Raphus cucullatus ). It gave up flight long, long ago.

Solomon Islands 274

Solomon Islands Guinea Mauritius 2006 274

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 1, 2017

Both men lead trips for tour company Tropical Birding (Barnes is a founder), and they have also co-authored Wildlife of Madagascar (another WildGuide volume, 2016), Birding Ethiopia (with Christian Boix, 2010) and Wild Rwanda (with Christian Boix, 2015).

Ecuador 169

Ecuador Wildlife Reptiles Mammals 169

10,000 Birds

MARCH 15, 2011

James has led professional wildlife and birding tours for 15 years and his passion for birding and remote cultures has taken him to far corners of the earth from the Amazon and Australia to Africa and Madagascar.

Portugal 171

Portugal 2011 Deer Africa 171

10,000 Birds

MARCH 22, 2011

James has led professional wildlife and birding tours for 15 years and his passion for birding and remote cultures has taken him to far corners of the earth from the Amazon and Australia to Africa and Madagascar.

Dominican Republic 183

Dominican Republic 2011 Deer Kuwait 183

10,000 Birds

MARCH 8, 2011

James has led professional wildlife and birding tours for 15 years and his passion for birding and remote cultures has taken him to far corners of the earth from the Amazon and Australia to Africa and Madagascar.

Florida 187

Florida South Africa 2011 Africa 187