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Basic Instructions is awesome and this comic, How to Face Your Fear, is no exception.

Give a big thanks to Nicole for doing her part to keep a beach in Kuwait clean (and click through to be shocked by the accumulation of garbage – an unbelievable amount of trash for a pretty wealthy country).

Who would’ve thunk it?

It’s a mixed bag for our most charismatic of North American waders this week.  While the ultralight aircraft leading a flock of young Whooping Cranes to Florida may again take to the skies, that good news is tempered by the effects of the drought in Texas, which has already led to the death of at [...]

Researchers at Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama conducting a two-year study focusing on the diets of Tiger Sharks in the Gulf of Mexico have made an alarming discovery: not only are these sharks eating the expected fish and other assorted marine organisms, but they’re also eating land-based songbirds! ABC reports that the sharks are [...]

Here’s hoping they get off the ground again soon!

The more ecotourism dollars earned through the festival the more likely that the Sandhill Crane hunt there will go from tabled for two years to permanently cancelled. The festival is next weekend, 14-15 January, and will be held at Hiwassee Refuge so, who knows, maybe you will get to see the vagrant Hooded Crane as [...]

Just shoot ‘em all, right responsible hunters? First person to mention duck stamps in the comments wins a prize.

Because, if you do, there is this really nice present you could buy me.  Pretty please with sugar on top?

This morning on Google+, I shared a charming video of an octopus stealing a diver’s camera with the comment, “This never happens to birdwatchers!” Apparently I spoke too soon. Lars Fosdal replied with a June 2011 video of a gull in Cannes stealing a camera and flying away with it.  Think either video is staged?

Josh Vandermuelen is doing a big year in Ontario this year and it seems to be the only big year to have a blog attached to it in 2012.  Wish him luck in his quest to break the record of 338! Anyone out there know of any other blogging big year birders?  Let me know in [...]

Yet again a Whooping Crane has been shot and killed in Indiana. Let’s hope that this time the perpetrator gets more than a $1 fine.

John Vanderpoel finished up his amazing ABA Big Year with 744 species, just short of the record.

What was your first bird of 2012?  Let us know in the comments…and, if you wrote a blog post or have a picture of your first bird of the year online somewhere, well, leave a link in the comments too. Happy New Year from all of us at 10,000 Birds!  And here’s hoping you see [...]

2011 was a good year for rarities in New York State and Richard Fried saw almost all of them.  His 352 species in the state for the year broke the New York State big year record of 350, which was set by Scott Whittle in 2008.  Watch for an interview with Richard in the coming [...]

The Chief, the newspaper of Squamish, British Columbia, has published a letter to the editor with twelve birds of (a Squamish) Christmas, riffing off of the famous song that Mike writes about here.  What would the twelve birds of Christmas be where you live?

Pigeons are, perhaps, the most loathed of birds. And now Clark County commissioner Chris Giunchigliani has proposed making it illegal to feed pigeons in unincorporated areas of the county, which includes Las Vegas. The law seems virtually unenforceable but could cause problems for those who have bird feeders that pigeons take advantage of.

Back in August we linked to an article about cuckoos that had GPS transmitters attached to them in England and how they had taken widely divergent paths to get to Africa.  Funny story about that – though they did take widely divergent paths they have come back together: Three of the birds, Chris, Martin and [...]

Instead, they use killing birds as a photo-op. Though, honestly, having Rick Santorum as a birder would probably be a net negative anyway…

If you are a fan of North Korean state media you might be forgiven for thinking so.