It’s Friday.  That means it’s time for the answer to Wednesday’s Just For Fun Avian ID Quiz #12: A Tale.
Happy New Year from the Quizmaster!   And that’s just one more clue to this quiz.  Can you get the answer now?
A quick review.  The question was to determine what these three phrases meant:
- Nice Forgery
- Earlier [...]

While home for holidays in I didn’t just go chasing after a Northern Hawk Owl.  I also watched the feeders frequently, often outside my parents’ house hidden in a woodpile.  Seriously.  In a woodpile.  You see, the woodpile is next to the deck which is where the feeders are, and the deck is attached to [...]

It occurred to me recently that I’ve still been missing something rather obvious - as the majority of visitors to 10,000 Birds are based in the US and I’m based (at least part of the year) in the UK, I really ought to be taking more photos of birds that I see regularly that birders [...]

As often seems to be the case a debate is currently raging on various birding fora concerning the subspecific identification of out-of-range Common Gulls Larus canus ssp. Much of the debate centres around trying to identify the large, dark birds occasionally found in North America where the ‘normal’ form is L. canus brachyrhynchus (the ’short-billed’ [...]

(All respectable publications should have their holiday traditions. This evergreen post, first written in 2004, has become a 10,000 Birds staple. Merry Christmas!)
Everybody knows the Christmas carol, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” Easily the most endless song this side of “99 Bottles of Beer,” this old chestnut has simultaneously delighted and horrified holiday celebrants for [...]

As always, the “Just for Fun Avian ID Quiz” is brought to you by Jory Langner, our esteemed Avian Quizmaster.  This quiz will not have an answer post, because, well, it really doesn’t need one. And if you don’t know what bird Jory is describing here, well, go back through the last week of posts [...]

The Laughing Gull Larus (or Leucophaeus if you go by the 49th Supplement to the A.O.U. Check-list of North American Birds) atricilla, is a common, medium-sized gull of North and South America. It breeds on the Atlantic coast of North America, the Caribbean, and northern South America. Northernmost populations migrate further south in winter, and [...]

When I was at Vedanthangal Bird Sanctuary in southern India a few weeks ago one of the species of waterbird I couldn’t have missed if I’d tried was the Indian Pond Heron Ardeola grayii. Known colloquially as the “Paddybird” this rather familiar and lovely little heron is found in almost any ‘wet’ habitat from small [...]

Find the right stretch of rocky coastline in winter - typically one lashed by spray and slippery with seaweed - and there’s a fair chance you might just come across a very special shorebird: the Purple Sandpiper Calidris maritima. Dumpy, dark, and (whenever I see them anyway) cold and wet, Purple Sandpipers got the rough [...]

The answers to the Just For Avian ID Quiz #10 are, as always, provided by 10,000 Birds’ own Avian Quizmaster, Jory Langner.
It’s Saturday.  That means it’s time for the answer to Wednesday’s “Just For Fun Avian ID Quiz #10″.
The quiz name should have been “Coolest Quiz Yet”.  It has the most startling information I’ve encountered [...]

Though I did enjoy my birding with Will across the wilds of Greene and Albany Counties, most of my birding over the Thanksgiving Day weekend was done at my parents’ and and my aunt and uncle’s feeders.  My dad  had only put his feeders up about a week earlier and hadn’t drawn much of a [...]

As always, the “Just for Fun Avian ID Quiz” is brought to you by Jory Langner, our esteemed Avian Quizmaster.  And don’t expect help from the rest of us at 10,000 Birds on this quiz: we are surely as confused as you!
This quiz is quite different and is fully obfuscated.  I’d suggest relaxing, getting a [...]

As always, the “Just for Fun Avian ID Quiz” is brought to you by Jory Langner, our esteemed Avian Quizmaster.
It’s Saturday.  That means it’s time for the answer to Wednesday’s “Just For Fun Avian ID Quiz #9″.
Congratulations to all who attempted and answered this quiz.  It seems that everyone had the correct species in mind.  [...]

As always, the “Just for Fun Avian ID Quiz” is brought to you by Jory Langner, our esteemed Avian Quizmaster.  Jory had a heck of a Thanksgiving and we think the turkey is still having some effect on him…
Rules are the usual, regularly occurring birds in the ABA area (Code 1-3), the question to be [...]

As always, the “Just for Fun Avian ID Quiz” is brought to you by Jory Langner, our esteemed Avian Quizmaster.
Wednesday we started this week’s quiz by publishing a single clue. We said it was possible to guess the identity of the answer with that single clue.  Congratulations to Jason who had the correct answer (and thanks to [...]

Though we don’t get the sheer volume of Snow Geese (Chen caerulescens) that one might find in more westerly regions of North America we here in New York are often blessed with decently-sized flocks of the marvelous white geese with black wing tips.  They are a welcome departure from the wildly honking Canada Geese and [...]

As always, the “Just for Fun Avian ID Quiz” is brought to you by Jory Langner, our esteemed Avian Quizmaster.  This week’s quiz is short and sweet though more clues will be added if it turns out no one can figure it out…we 10,000 Birds bloggers are confident that our readership can “get it in [...]

The Common Pauraque (Nyctidromus albicollis) is a most garrulous goatsucker found in the warmer portions of the Americas. From Texas south to Argentina, pauraques populate fields, scrub, and essentially anywhere they may recline unmolested ere they rise for their twilight supper. My experience assures me that the only bird in the genus Nyctidromus isn’t all [...]

Some days this blogging lark really is tough. I mean, I get to Toronto, it’s cold, and instead of being able to pass the time watching a fascinating TV channel all about the spending of local government in Mississauga I feel compelled to force myself to make the 10 minute walk down to the Toronto [...]

As always, the “Just for Fun Avian ID Quiz” is brought to you by Jory Langner, our esteemed Avian Quizmaster. Jory has come up with an entertaining quiz that lets those who spend waaaay too much time looking at field guides a chance to shine.
The rules are completely different this time.  There is no need [...]