10,000 Birds

Esquire, the self-proclaimed “magazine about the interests, the curiosity, the passions, of men,” just served up a provocative feature on The 75 Skills Every Man Should Master. Of course these essential skills includes perennial testosterone-drenched favorites like throwing a punch, cooking meat, and kicking ass. Hey, this is what we men do. But as the […]

I’m just back into the hotel after an excellent morning’s birding in Bangalore’s Nandi Hills with the extremely likeable and very knowledgeable Mike Prince (he of Bubo Listing). I’ll get a post online soon (I’m in rather desperate need of some sleep first), but highlights included the regionally-endemic Yellow-throated Bulbul, Indian Scimitar-babbler, Grey Junglefowl, a […]

I’m thrilled to be hosting this edition of the world’s greatest aggregation of arboreal blog brilliance. It should come as no surprise that I spend plenty of time looking at trees. In fact, over the next few weeks, I plan on scanning the canopy with an intensity that will undoubtedly result in either eye strain […]

For the uninitiated, the word “coot” calls to mind nothing more than doddering old codgers and curmudgeons. Nature lovers, on the other hand, are privy to an entirely new complement of coots, a collection of charming charcoal wading birds found throughout most of the world.

American Coots
Coots are mid-sized waders in the genus Fulica. Technically rails, […]

Emily Dickinson is one of the first poets I can remember admiring. I’m not sure whether it was her near rhymes, her life story, her often understated but amazing imagery, or the fact that she really wasn’t appreciated as a poetic genius until after her death: whatever it is that drew me to her […]

A new field-guide by the birding powerhouse family that is Bill Thomson III and Julie Zickefoose, published by the excellent Houghton Mifflin in the notable “Peterson Field Guide” series? Now there’s a pedigree that should appeal to most birders - after all it’s almost guaranteed that it’ll be well-written, well-illustrated, and beautifully put-together. And […]

I was working back from Los Angeles yesterday - a post on the stunning Carrizo Plain is on its way incidentally - when a colleague (whom I’d told on the flight from London that I was going birding on my time off) asked me politely how I’d got on and if I’d managed to get […]

The second weekend of May 2008 was most auspicious for both mothers and birders. Mother’s Day may be the holiday this time of year is known for, celebrated by more countries on this weekend than any other, but while dutiful children in the United States as well as sundry nations from Anguilla to Zimbabwe showered […]