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BirdLife International has created Barbados’ first shorebird refuge at an abandoned shooting swamp at Woodbourne. Important news? Consider that 15,000-30,000 shorebirds – including a number of species of conservation concern – are shot in a handful of managed shooting swamps on Barbados annually, and the answer is ‘yes’.

BirdLife International’s Important Bird Area (IBA) programme is a worldwide initiative aimed at identifying and protecting a network of critical sites for the conservation of the world’s birds. Around 11,000 sites in some 200 countries and territories have already been identified as IBAs, and the list continued to grow last month…

The latest update of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species shows that 17,291 species out of the 47,677 assessed species are threatened with extinction. Of the world’s 9,998 birds, 137 are Extinct or Extinct in the Wild, with 192 Critically Endangered, 362 Endangered and 669 Vulnerable. The results of the full Red List update [...]

It’s long been assumed that the beautiful Eleonora’s Falcon migrated from the Med to Madagascar - where 70% of the global population winters - via the Red Sea and the east coast of Africa. However, new studies using satellite transmitters show that they actually fly across the centre of the African over the massive Sahara [...]

Over the past few days we’ve been running a series of posts on the Critically Endangered Spoon-billed Sandpiper Eurynorhynchus pygmeus, a stint-sized shorebird confined to the East Asian/Australasian Flyway. The global population of the species has plummetted in recent years and there are now thought to be less than 300 pairs left, with numbers apparently [...]

Back in August this year I was fortunate enough to be invited to the British Birdwatching Fair by Jim Lawrence, the Manager of BirdLife’s ‘Preventing Extinctions Programme’. One of the highlights of a truly memorable day was meeting Dr Christoph Zöckler, a conservationist I’d been in occasional contact with over the years but never met. [...]

The Endangered Gurney’s Pitta Pitta gurneyi, once considered one of the world’s rarest birds, may be more numerous than previously thought. Whilst still extremely rare in Thailand, according to BirdLife “the previous population estimate for Myanmar was too low and…is likely to be between 9,300 and an astonishing 35,000 territories, although it probably lies around [...]

Recently 10,000 Birds has been hob-nobbing with some of South Africa’s finest birders (well, two of them anyway - Mark Anderson and Adam Welz), and when we were asked if we’d give a shout-out for a very interesting photo challenge taking place in the Rainbow Nation to promote climate change awareness we could hardly say [...]

SalvaNATURA, the BirdLife Affiliate for El Salvador and the largest and most active non-profit NGO working in the country on bird science and conservation, will hold its 7th annual maratón-de-aves (or bird-a-thon) this year on October 17th and 18th. The two-day event raises funds to support five full-time bird monitoring stations located in western [...]

BirdLife’s Dr Nigel Collar, a true conservation giant AND a genuinely friendly man, has been nominated to receive the Indianapolis Prize - the world’s leading award for animal conservation. “I’m honoured to be listed alongside some of the world’s greatest conservationists”, said Dr Collar. He is one of 29 world renowned conservationists vying for the [...]

The war on birds in southern Europe continues, and so does our support for the organisations (and brave individuals) who put themselves in the way of the morally-bankrupt hunters and trappers who so clearly act OUTSIDE of European law. We’ve highlighted illegal hunting on Malta (eg here and here), then illegal trapping on Cyprus, returned [...]

For the first time a nationwide coordinated count of the Critically Endangered White-shouldered Ibis Pseudibis davisoni has been carried out in Cambodia. 310 ibises were found, making it the largest count of the species ever made, and providing evidence that the world population - thought to be between just 50 and 249 individuals - is [...]

Two Critically Endangered Jerdon’s Coursers have been seen in the heart of Andhra Pradesh’s Sri Lankamalleswara Wildlife Sanctuary, the first confirmed sighting for several years. In a second piece of good news the sanctuary has just been extended by a further 1,200 hectares, in compensation for the construction of a canal, which at one point [...]

I spent a rather excellent morning yesterday (the 25th) at the Great Bustard Group’s (GBG) re-introduction project on Wiltshire’s Salisbury Plain (regular readers with good memories might remember that I volunteer with GBG and co-ordinate their blog), with Al Dawes, GBG’s Project Officer, and Mark Anderson, BirdLife South Africa’s Executive Director, who is over on [...]

I spent a memorable and very constructive day at the British Birdwatching Fair (Happy 21st Birthday BirdFair incidentally) at Rutland Water yesterday. What a place, what a collection of birders, birding greats, birding paraphernalia, birding ’stuff’, and birders celebrating being in a crowd without having to apologise to ANYONE for being a bit geeky or [...]

We’re huge fans of the British Birdwatching Fair, Martin Davies’ and Tim Appleton’s wonderful fund-raising and birding-celeb fest that takes place each August at Rutland Water. I’ve already written about the Birdfair here, but as all of the entrance fees goes to supporting Birdlife International projects worldwide (over 2,000,000GBP donated so far!) another plug for [...]

In just less than a month’s time the British Birdwatching Fair, the ‘Glastonbury’ of bird fairs, will open its gates for the 21st time. An estimated 20,000+ visitors will come to the Birdfair site at Egleton Nature Reserve, Rutland Water, UK between Friday 21st Aug and Sunday the 24th. They’ll be greeted by around 300 [...]

Conservationists from the Birdlife International Cambodia Programme and University of East Anglia (UEA), UK, recently counted the largest number of the Critically Endangered White-shouldered Ibis Pseudibis davisoni ever recorded. At least 161 were counted; confirming that Western Siem Pang, Cambodia, is the single most important site for the species. More details at BirdLife

The Sociable Lapwing Vanellus gregarius is one of 192 bird species designated as Critically Endangered - meaning that it is considered to be facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. Once widespread across much of the steppe grasslands of Central Asia and Russia, Sociable Lapwings suffered catastrophic declines between 1930 and 1960 [...]

When we starting thinking about Puerto Rico as a possible ‘theme’ on 10,000 Birds we asked ourselves a number of questions: is it an area that might benefit from coverage on a bird blog (there’s not much point in spending a month talking about somewhere well-known that is already all over the internet), are [...]