Welcome Wednesday is that special day of the week where we invite you to share your insight, excitement, and angst about issues pertaining to wild birds and birding. If you’ve got something to share about conservation, birds, or birding, feel free to contact us about writing a Welcome Wednesday post.

Debra Ross is the publisher of KidsOutAndAbout.com, a web site for parents based in western New York State. She’s also the proud winner of one of our exciting book (and iPod) giveaways! She recently wrote about the acquisition of a new field guide has affected her and her two daughters, aged 7 and 8, for […]

Stacy Mote of Phenix City, Alabama is an environmental consultant that gets to bird for a living (lucky!) but she spends time off-duty as a weekend warrior scouting out local birding hotspots. As a birder, she tells us, you can never stop learning! Here, she shares photos of her first dramatic sighting of […]

Jean M. Loscalzo is a resident of Queens and has been kind enough to not only show Corey around Forest Park a bit (and give Corey and Charlie a ride not so long ago) but she has also agreed to share this article with the 10,000 Birds readership. The article first appeared in the […]

“Visions of cloud forests with limited visibility, rain forests with dripping trees, snakes, slippery trails, mosquitoes, and spectacular birds. Take all the birds in North America and place them in a country the size of West Virginia, and you have some idea of the density of the birdlife in Costa Rica.” Guest author Jack Cole […]

Steve West is an English birder who has lived in Catalonia, Spain for the last 20 years, dedicating much of that time to finding the birds of this biodiverse region and showing them to others. Steve is the author of the website, BirdingInSpain.com which offers free itineraries, checklists, and other resources and has written two […]

By now, Christine Guarino, a regular Welcome Wednesday contributor, needs no introduction. If you don’t know who she is, you can get an idea by reading her previous contribution about banding owls and her tale of chasing an elusive gull. And we 10,000 Birds bloggers think her phrase “unambiguous amphibious” is pretty […]

Curt McDermott is a birder in Orange County, New York. He has an amazing array of feeders up in his small suburban yard that attracted an amazing bird and flocks of birders this winter. As of this posting the bird is still being seen daily. Curt has been a gracious host to […]

Alison Kent, also known as Pica, works as a designer, writer, and editor at the UC Davis Wildlife Health Center. She has been posting a sketch of a bird (almost) every day since August 2007 on Bird by Bird. She also has another blog which she shares with her partner Allan, also known as Numenius, […]

Chrissy Guarino is a birder’s birder. In using that term I mean that not only does she have the requisite skills in terms of identifying avians but that she also brings a certain joy to birding that sometimes is in short supply on those long hard slogs that may or may not have a […]

Jory Langner is an Albany-area birder whose musings during his New York State Big Year last year were presented here. His birding adventures across the state garnered him an impressive list of 310 species, including Audubon’s Shearwater and Grey-cheeked Thrush, which the other three Albany-area big year birders failed to find. Not only […]

Christine Guarino is a serious birder in a funny hat. When she is not writing about chickadees, identifying out-of-place sparrows, or tracking down winter finches she stays busy educating future generations of birders in her job as a high school biology teacher. If you ever have a chance to go birding with Christine, […]

Have you ever really stopped and really watched a group of House Sparrows? So many birders (too many perhaps) ignore these small, but really remarkable birds. It’s hard to believe that many birders and even people in general think of these birds as “pests”, which is very unfair.
At this point many know the […]

Handsome, yet seemingly modest, the Wood Duck is a bird each and every one of us should admire.  It represents the beauty and wonder of the natural world.  The male wood duck’s crested green head and iridescent plumage catch the eye quickly and make it difficult for any observer to turn away.  His red eyes […]

There are almost too many reasons to love Black-capped Chickadees, but I will try to elucidate just a few of the more important ones for you here. Sometimes people overlook a bird like the Chickadee, because they are one of those birds that you probably see every day. But if you really take […]

The last Great Auk in Britain was executed as a witch, or so the story goes. Perhaps executed is not quite fair - there was no trial. Merely a group of sailors who decided that the auk was responsible for the storms they’d encountered, and took it upon themselves to beat it to death […]

On August 5, 1985 three of the last nine wild condors soared close overhead as I stood, awestruck, in the foothills above San Bernardino, California.  While they were certainly majestic, these birds were somewhat different from the California Condors first described by George Shaw in 1797, and that Lewis and Clark had observed feeding on […]

One of the most difficult of all things to endure for a crow, a raven, a wolf, or a human is to feel alone and separated from one’s own kind. A sense of belonging is one of the most universal of all feelings. — Lawrence Kilham

Two ravens just glided passed my window, really nothing more […]

Joan Collins, based out of northern New York, is an active member of many Empire State birding organizations. An ardent naturalist, licensed guide, and Adirondack Forty-Sixer, Joan also enjoys writing and has published many journal, magazine, and newspaper articles on wildlife topics including several species accounts in the upcoming edition of The Atlas of Breeding […]

Today is the second Welcome Wednesday, our new feature written by you, our readers. Today’s is written by Jory Langner, an Albany-area birder that I first met at an ungodly hour before driving north for two hours in a failed attempt at seeing a Tufted Duck. He likes birds, long walks on the beach in […]

Today, we’re excited to introduce a new feature called Welcome Wednesday. Wednesday is the one day of the week where we invite you to share your insight, excitement, and angst about issues pertaining to wild birds and birding. If you’ve got something important to say, 10,000 Birds can be your soapbox. Contact us for […]