The month of March gets great press for ending more placidly than it begins. Why isn’t October acknowledged, at least in the temperate zones above the equator, for coming in like a lamb but going out like a lion? Perhaps we’re too distracted by all that Halloween candy. What does this rather random point have [...]

Did you know that this past Saturday was National Hunting and Fishing Day in the United States?
From our rugged peaks and mountains to our shining seas, our Nation is blessed with remarkable natural treasures. These magnificent landscapes are places where families and friends can create lasting memories and enjoy the outdoors. On National Hunting and [...]

I thought that 10,000 Birds readers may be interested to know that the first part of the donations raised for the Small African Fellowship for Conservation has been deposited in Kenya, and funds will start to be distributed on a monthly basis to Dominic Kimani from the start of October as planned.

I’m sure anyone who [...]

Autumn is now upon us, isn’t it? Crossing the 42nd latitude yesterday, I saw quite a bit of color in rolling, wooded hills. The first weekend of fall (or spring, depending on your perspective) can be a feast for the eyes. So what are you looking at this weekend and are birds on this itinerary? [...]

When Corey blogged about our joint visit to New York’s Central Park at the weekend he titled his post A Great Bird (Well-deserved) in Central Park. What bird was he referring to? A Black-throated Grey Warbler, a very rare visitor to the State let alone to Manhattan Island and Central Park and a ‘great [...]

One of the most spectacular, important, and envy-inducing birding festivals in North America happens to be the one situated along the Mexican border in South Texas. The Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival in Harlingen, TX is the real deal, a birding festival by birders for birders with truly breath-taking birds.
If you’ve ever dreamed of attending [...]

Is it summer yet? Oh, technically it’s still summer you say (or winter, depending on your hemisphere!) That’s right, this is the last official weekend of the summer of 2008. It’s also a time when migratory birds are pouring from the poles to the equatorial regions (or vice versa, depending on your heimsphere!) So where [...]

Our appeal to raise funds for the inspirational young Kenyan Dominic Kimani (photo left) is drawing to a close, and as the ‘Chip In’ widget in the sidebar shows thanks to a small number of our conservation-minded readers we’ve collected more than the 2000 USDollars we were aiming for (when I wrote this you’d [...]

Thanks to the good, generous folks at Houghton Mifflin, we had two copies of the exciting new Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America to give away. There was an easy way and a hard way to win. We already announced the winner for the former. Now let’s talk those canny, courageous souls who [...]

Though Mike has already put up a post about our Montezuma Muckrace experience so much happened during the loooong day of birding that there is plenty more to post.  It was a great day and Will, Jory and Mike were tenacious teammates: it’s unusual for four people, much less birders, to be in a somewhat [...]

I don’t know how the weather is treating you in your neck of the proverbial woods but it’s getting chilly around here. Warm nights turning cool is a signal that birds are on the move, so you might want to be too. Not only will the activity warm you up but you might find yourself [...]

Finding a rare bird is fun.  Chasing a rare bird is fun.  Twitching a rare bird is fun.  Reporting a rare bird?  Not so fun, which is why I have been so very negligent in filling out the form to report the Yellow-headed Blackbird that I saw last summer at Jones Beach to the to [...]

Less than a month ago 10,000 Birds launched a fund-raising project aimed at providing funding - in the form of the “Small African Fellowship for Conservation” (SAFC) - to a young Kenyan called Dominic Kamau Kimani who comes from the Kinangop Plateau near Nairobi. The Kinangop Plateau is the core area of the Endangered and [...]

September has arrived and with it, a flood of fall migrants. OK, maybe those are spring migrants on your side of the world. What matters is that creatures are on the move, which gives us all plenty to look at this weekend. Not that you have to restrict yourself to aerial organisms. After all, this [...]

That’s right, for the first time ever 10,000 Birds will field a team in a birding competition!  The annual Montezuma Muckrace, scheduled for the end of next week, will be our inaugural event.  We can’t wait!  Our squad, composed of four guys hoping not to make fools of ourselves of the finest birders in New York [...]

On this lovely Labor Day, we might do well to examine our exertions, motivations, and the fruits thereof. In my daily inquiries into how to further maximize my happiness (like the bluesmen of old, I can’t be satisfied) I’ve stumbled upon a fascinating concept that explains a great deal about the insatiable nature of most [...]

A friend of mine, Jo Sievers, has just sent me two photos of an unusual Cattle Egret which he took near Lagos, Nigeria the day after I’d been there birding with him (more about which soon). Taken along a coastal road east of Lagos, the photos show what looks very like a Cattle Egret Bubulcus [...]

And just like that, summer is coming to an end. Sure, the autumnal equinox is still weeks away but hordes of students and teachers returning to school will argue that mere phenological semantics. Fortunately, those of us in the U.S. get a longer weekend to chase our fancies. So where are you going this weekend [...]

When I was in Toronto a few days ago (I’ll get a report online at some point I hope!) I came across a small sparrow foraging in some grass that I found difficult to identify at first. It became apparent what it was when it was joined by a (very worn) adult, but to begin [...]

The American people own in common a lot of very cool places. Among our vast wildspace wealth is the National Forest system, public lands in national forests and grasslands with magical names like Monongahela, Chattahoochee, Tongass, and Wallowa-Whitman. You know that old aphorism about atrophy, right? Use it or lose it. Have you been indulging [...]