Word has reached us that Santa Claus, also known as Kris Kringle, has been killed in a horrific mid-air collision between his fast-moving sleigh and a flock of night-flying Canada Geese.  The collision, which occurred over New York City shortly after midnight local time, forced the magical sleigh down in a marshy area of the [...]

Just occasionally, seemingly ordinary conditions or events can combine to create a blissfully perfect moment during which the weight of all our stresses and worries is lifted from us. Warm, moving moments such as these, comfort and inspire us, reminding us of how rich life can be. It would require no great leap of faith to [...]

Hi to all birders, I was invited by Corey to write about the birds of Honduras and I will in due time.  But first I would like to express my appreciation to the ones who have made my lifestyle in Honduras possible: the birders. Many thanks goes to all of the people who have supported [...]

What can make dawn sky and bright moon even better? Egrets in the air.               … If you liked this haiku and would like to browse the entire archive of poetry posts on 10,000 Birds please check out our Bird Poems page.

It is time, once again, to put long-suffering 10,000 Birds readers through the exquisite torture that is one of my posts in doggerel.  This time my maniacal muse has inspired me to versify what is perhaps the most vile substance that birders have come into contact with; the mud on the East Pond of Jamaica [...]

Way back in 1960, on 29 July to be exact, a time before personal computers, rap music, cell phones, fax machines, and a host of other modern distractions, Charlie Moores came into the world.  Back then Harold Macmillan was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Dwight Eisenhower was President of the United States, Dag Hammarskjöld [...]

In New York City the heat hits you in the gut when you leave the comfort of an air conditioned building, forcing you to blow from your lungs the last of your artificially cooled air.  Your next breath feels like a a burst of greasy, gritty fire in your chest and the sweat is already [...]

When I try to write prose about the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico I invariably end up typing lots of four-letter words as the only way to express my deepening rage.  So, rather than inflict “filth flarn flarn filth” upon you, dear reader, I have decided to torment you with doggerel.  Enjoy, if you [...]

Robert Frost, the four-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet, was able to find meaning in the most minor of topics in his poetry.  Whether one prefers “Mending Wall,” “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening,” or “The Road Not Taken” one will recognize that Frost could turn even the most mundane of events into an amazing [...]

This weekend Daisy and I held our baby shower at our home and a good time was had by all.  The food, the games, and friends and family made it what a baby shower should be: a joyful occasion (the competition to see who could empty a baby bottle of beer fastest didn’t hurt either).  [...]

Gerald Manley Hopkins, Englishman, Catholic convert, priest, and poet, was born in 1844 and died of typhoid fever in 1889.  In between he wrote, taught, and suffered: it seems he was an unhappy man who wrote poems with titles like “I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark.”  Most of his poetry was not published [...]

New York City is full of surprises.  For example, did you know that John James Audubon, you know, THE John James Audubon, the nineteenth-century painter of birds and mammals, the one with the birding and conservation organization named after him, has his final resting place in New York?  Well, he does, and a recent visit [...]

Blingee is simply genius.  I really have nothing more to say about this post other than this is apparently the result of too much time in the sun coupled with too much time on the internet.  I hope you have managed to stay cool this summer…though no one is as cool (or as gangsta) as [...]

On the last day on Kazakhstan as we drove from oasis to oasis, birding spot to birding spot, I was amazed at how variable and beautiful the landscape was.  On one ride in the van of a little over an hour we went from semi-desert to some hilly country back out to flat desert steppe.  [...]

Blackbird singing in the dead of night, Take these broken wings and learn to fly. All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise. Blackbird singing in the dead of night, Take these sunken eyes and learn to see. All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to be free. [...]

John Clare (1793 – 1864) of England was known in his day as the Northamptonshire Peasant Poet, both for his provincial turns of phrase and honest love of nature and agrarian life. Clare knew his birds well, celebrating the species of the English countryside in verse after verse. The title of this post was once [...]

The second Sunday in May is the day many countries around the world, including the United States, set aside for the celebration of mothers. Since most of our moms tend to indulge us every other day of the year, it is only right that at least one day is for the moms! So, even if [...]

On the second day of the Mesoamerican Bird Festival we had a treat in the evening, an exhibition of hummingbird art by Honduran artist Rebecca Mendoza.  Each piece of art was of one species of hummingbird and Rebecca strategically used glitter to represent the hummingbirds’ amazing plumage.  Granted, glitter in hummingbird art isn’t for everyone but I [...]

The grackle is the ultimate American bird, adaptable, intrepid, and obstreperous. Ten species of these iridescent ebon irritants, most in the genus Quiscalus, are distributed throughout the New World. The banner blackbird of most of Mesoamerica as well as much of the southwestern United States is the Great-tailed Grackle. In fact, this aggressive avian ambassador [...]

I recently discovered the work of Deborah Goodman, a talented nature artist out of Utah. The images of images of birds and other wildlife Debbie creates out of cut paper are fantastic, while the fact that she donates the proceeds of her art sales to wildlife and humane charities is positively meritorious. Thrilled by the [...]