Charlie has birded all over the world for twenty years. He has finally grown-up after years of having way too much fun and is now trying hard to be the writer/conservationist he's always said he wants to be. Blogging with 10,000 Birds is like chatting to hundreds of friends every day and suits him perfectly. Really - do birders get much more fortunate than this?

Hopeful news for the future of the Critically Endangered Siberian Crane Grus leucogeranus. Supported by the Global Environment Facility and implemented by the International Crane Foundation through the UN Environment Programme, a joint project by China, Iran, Kazakhstan and Russia will use a ‘flyway’ approach to protect the remaining 3000 - 3500 birds.

Like to win a brand new hardback copy of Europe’s best field guide (see the review right here)? I thought so. If you’re a member of the 10,000 Birds Conservation Club you’ll have the chance next week. If you’re not, er - you won’t. So join already, or miss out on this and piles of [...]

About three years ago the announcement came that the Collins Bird Guide - universally recognised as the finest bird field-guide in Europe (and, apologies to David Sibley, in my opinion the best field-guide in the world full stop) - was to be updated and published as a second edition. No dates were given but it [...]

Incredibly a new study based on research by Professor Barbara Block, who tracked more than 150 Great Whites using satellite and acoustic tracking devices, shows that numbers had dropped below the 3,500
tigers that exist in the wild. Numbers have dropped by 90% in 20 years mainly from illegal fishing, but also from being hit by [...]

To quote from a report in the Observer newspaper, “More than 35 million animals were legally exported from the region over the past decade…and hundreds of millions more could have been taken illegally. Almost half of those traded were seahorses and more than 17 million were reptiles. About 1 million birds and 400,000 mammals [...]

Charleen Turner, a very regular 10,000 Birds reader, has mailed me a really striking photo she took in Heckscher Park in Huntington, Long Island NY USA on February 3, 2010.

Clearly it’s a goose, and I think I’m on fairly safe ground if I say that it’s a hybrid between a Canada Goose and a domestic/feral [...]

Tests show three California Condors found dead in Arizona last month died because they ingested lead pellets while feeding on carrion. Az has a voluntary lead-free hunting program in condor areas - which patently isn’t working. It’ll be made mandatory soon, right? Wrong. The NRA are planning to defend hunter’s rights to use lead “against [...]

As regular visitors to 10,000 Birds will know we champion BirdLife Malta whenever we possibly can. Some of those regular visitors may wonder why: after all Malta is a fairly small speck of land in the Mediterranean Sea and surely not much of a problem compared with, say, deforestation or the pet trade.

Malta is indeed [...]

It’s about time we had another give-away - it’s been, what, at least a fortnight since we launched the competition to win one of three sets of ALL FIVE of Kenn Kaufman’s ‘Field Guides’ (there’s still two days to get your answers in by the way). So how about I relinquish my personal review copy [...]

The weather here in Wiltshire has been really grotty this week: wet, cold, barely enough light to see the colours on a Blue Tit at twenty yards, and not at all what the onset of spring is supposed to look like at all. However, this morning was entirely different. High clouds, blue sky, and a [...]

How would you like to join me on a trip to the beautiful Bavarian Alps in June? Because that’s where I’m hoping to be going with Philip Precey of Wildlife Travel (WT), a travel company with a difference - profits the company makes are used to support conservation both here in the UK (via the [...]

I’ve plugged this page before but talking of photos (see the recent post about photo-galleries) take a look at the Birds Korea Latest News page: there are stunning photos of Relict Gull, Chinese Penduline Tit, Ochre-rumped Bunting, Mandarin Duck, Long-tailed Rosefinch and a host of others…enjoy, and then join the organisation before birds like this [...]

Over the last twelve months we’ve picked up many new visitors to 10,000 Birds. I wonder how many realise that we have a Photo-Galleries page that links to over 300 galleries of species? The easy way to get there is to use the ‘galleries‘ link right at the top of each page. Worth visiting? If [...]

A few days ago we posted a press-release from the International Bird Rescue Research Center (IBRRC) which highlighted the crisis facing seabirds after the pounding the Californian coast took in last month’s severe storms (Help it’s raining Brown Pelicans).

The IBBRC is an organisation that a good number of our 10,000 Birds Conservation Club Members - [...]

In its third and final year as Global Sponsor of the BirdLife Preventing Extinctions Programme, the British Birdwatching Fair (BF) has delivered yet another huge boost to species conservation with the presentation of a cheque for £263,000 (US$411,500), the proceeds from the 2009 fair. This takes the total raised by the Fair in its three [...]

One of the birds I’ve been seeing much more regularly since I moved out to Great Chalfield is the utterly beautiful Bullfinch Pyrrhula pyrrhula (well, the utterly beautiful male Bullfinch anyway as the female is rather a pallid washed-out version of its mate). Heavy-billed and stout, the stunningly soft pink underparts, inky black cap, ash-grey [...]

I’ve just posted a short report by Al Dawes on the Great Bustard Group blog about a survey that took place in the Ukraine at the end of January. There are some lovely photos and some very interesting questions posed about what happens to northern populations of Great Bustards in the winter. A longer report [...]

Last summer my Californian buddy Jack Cole and I went to the wonderful International Bird Rescue Research Center (IBRRC) in Fairfield, California. It was an emotional and extremely inspiring visit, and I ended up writing two (quite long) posts: The IBRRC: special place, special people (Part One) and More from the IBRRC - releasing cormorants. [...]

Wow. If I could take just ONE photo this good I’d be a happy bunny (as we say here in the UK). Truly amazing what people who know how to use their equipment can produce when the opportunity arises…Congratulations to Richard Bedford, a thoroughly deserving winner. The full series is at http://www.birdguides.com/.

‘Otis’ - the magazine I edit for the Great Bustard Group - is back from the printers and it looks flipping great. They normally retail for 3GBP (free for GBG members of course), but I’m in a generous mood and I’ve copies to give-away to the first ten people who mail me at charlie10000birds [...]