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As we did in 2007 and in 2008 we three 10,000 Birds bloggers would like to share our top ten birding moments of this nearly completed calendar year.  When one sets about trying to find merely ten top moments from the hundreds, if not thousands, of birding experiences that three people have had over the [...]

I was recently reading a rather vitriolic comment thread on a blog post related to carbon dioxide and global warming and came across references to the Dunning-Kruger effect, in which people who made what seemed to me like outlandish statements about climatology while admitting that they had no formal training in any related field were [...]

There are way too many birders out there who do not have a significant other or who have a significant other that does not appreciate their birding partner’s birding.  I say we should revel in our birding and take pride in what we bring to the table and to the bedroom and our partners should [...]

WARNING!  GRAPHIC BLOODY WOUND PHOTO IN THIS POST!  IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE IT CLICK HERE FOR SOME CUTESY-TYPE STUFF!
As I was walking through the very dark Forest Park yesterday morning at half past five so I could get to the Q53 Limited bus to take me to Jamaica Bay by the time the [...]

A week or so ago (time is flying by so fast these days it may have been months ago or yesterday I’m no longer sure) we were contacted by Duncan Wright, a Wikipedia editor asking us if we’d post an article on 10,000 Birds on the merits of Wikipedia as a birding resource - too [...]

The jury is still out on whether we have a formal birding community in North America but at least we have a Birding Community E-bulletin. This superb monthly newsletter is the handiwork of Paul J. Baicich and Wayne R. Petersen, two widely known and respected birders. I’ve only been receiving the e-bulletin for a few [...]

Last year we at 10,000 Birds were tagged with a meme by Tai Haku that compelled us to list our Top 10 Nature Moments of 2007.  This year we were not tagged by a meme but we decided to do another top 10 list because, well, they’re fun!  So, without further ado, here are the 10,000 Birds [...]

On the next to last weekend in January, when the cold wind is blowing snow and ice and there is nothing I’d rather be doing than reading a book while curled up on my couch under a blanket and a cat or two , I’ll be birding.  Not only will I be birding, but I’ll [...]

Up until the early 1900s the birding scene was still dominated by the shotgun set.  That is, to identify the birds that one could see, one shot them and collected their still-warm carcasses for identification purposes.  Some had switched over to using the low-powered optics of the day but this new method of identifying birds [...]

Christmas Bird Counts are a wonderful way to spend a cold December day.  Just imagine groups of birders, spread out across a fifteen-mile diameter circle, trying to count every single bird that they see or hear.  At the end of the day the birders gather together to report what they’ve found, brag about their rare [...]

In 1955 Roger Tory Peterson and James Fisher published Wild America, the tale of their travels across North America, from park to park, and bird to bird.  Peterson had convinced Fisher to take the trip with him, partially to show Fisher the America that most tourists did not see, but, as Peterson confessed in the [...]

When I was having dinner with the highly-entertaining YC Wee and KC Tsang (doyens and co-founders of the Bird Ecology Study Group) in Singapore earlier this month, I was asked a casual question that at first sight seemed rather clear-cut: “as a ’serious’ birder do you think that birders who go birding with cameras but [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

I haven’t had any major birding expeditions over the last week and a half but I have had several small ones.  Now that fall migration has picked up a bit I am hitting Forest Park often again, savoring every last warbler, vireo, and flycatcher that I can spot, knowing that each time I see a [...]

On the 21st of January of this year I began keeping track of all of my bird sightings on eBird, the online checklist program that was launched in 2002 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society.  Why did I decide to use eBird?  Well, since you’ve asked, there are several reasons.  [...]

After the fun-filled factory tour and roundtable discussion at Swarovski headquarters the whole bird-blogging bunch of us headed out to Beavertail State Park for some light birding.  Some of us, including me, tried our hand at digiscoping with equipment provided by Swarovski.  While it was rather easy to get images, getting good images is a [...]

After getting my golden ticket I was on cloud nine.  A free trip to Swarovski Optiks American Headquarters with a bunch of other bird bloggers, along with a all-day birding excursion to South Beach on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, is, well, a pretty exciting way to spend a couple of days.  It beats the heck [...]

I bird in Forest Park a lot. You know, in case you haven’t noticed,I figured I would point that out. I’ve seen two life birds there this spring, a Kentucky Warbler, which was a very quick twitch, and a Gray-cheeked Thrush, a bird I have probably seen before but failed to identify. [...]