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It has been awhile since I reviewed Esther Woolfson’s Corvus: A Life with Birds (I liked it), but the American edition has just been published by Counterpoint Press and, fortunately for you, they have agreed to work with 10,000 Birds to give away a copy of Corvus: A Life with Birds to one of you!  [...]

Living in a house with uncaged birds is not for everyone and that goes double for those brave enough to live with corvids.  Usually ranked up there as among the smartest of birds, corvids, which include jays, crows, magpies, and ravens, are fascinating creatures that have been mythologized, persecuted, deified, and hunted throughout human history.  [...]

Daisy recently decided to get a tattoo.  And not just any tattoo, but a tattoo of a magpie, drawn by her, and turned into a tattoo by Daisy’s sister’s boyfriend, Sean, who has done a tattoo featured here before.  So, once again I photographed the tattoo process so all you loyal 10,000 Birds readers can [...]

Of all the birds one can see in southern California there is one that is a bit more special than the rest. The Island Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma insularis) is that bird. Not just because it has a larger bill and brighter, more intense colors than the everyday Western Scrub-Jay, but because it only can be found [...]

One of the most difficult of all things to endure for a crow, a raven, a wolf, or a human is to feel alone and separated from one’s own kind. A sense of belonging is one of the most universal of all feelings. — Lawrence Kilham Two ravens just glided passed my window, really nothing [...]

The ‘alala is a matte-black crow endemic to Hawaii’s Big Island. This noisy, social, and exceedingly clever corvid, classified by Western ornithology as the Hawaiian Crow (Corvus hawaiiensis) was once plentiful throughout Hawaii’s upland `ohi`a or `ohi`a-koa forests, a constant companion to denizens as recently as the mid-20th century. Today the species teeters on the [...]

The family of birds known as corvids is well known for what is kindly referred to as character. Put bluntly, these birds, which include crows, ravens, magpies, and jays, can be real jerks. They harass others with their raucous cries. They loot bird feeders and, even worse, bird’s nests. Bullies and thieves pure and simple, [...]