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Some days this blogging lark really is tough. I mean, I get to Toronto, it’s cold, and instead of being able to pass the time watching a fascinating TV channel all about the spending of local government in Mississauga I feel compelled to force myself to make the 10 minute walk down to the Toronto [...]

Did you know that Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park is considered the crown jewel of Rio Grande Valley parks?  That’s what the press flaks at the World Birding Center say, and frankly, after visiting Bentsen, I’m not inclined to argue.  760 acres of Rio Grande floodplain forest and resaca woodland serve up some serious Valley [...]

It’s that time of year (at least in the northern hemisphere) when birders fortunate enough to visit the coast once again get a chance to see one of the most funky ducks in the world - the marvellous Surf Scoter Melanitta perspicillata. Surf Scoters breed in Alaska and northern Canada (they’re the only species of [...]

My first day of birding at the 2008 Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival was pretty stupendous. Would the second day hold up? Considering that we were headed to the celebrated King Ranch, the Lone Star State’s largest ranch in Texas and a haven for birds for over a century, all signs pointed to yes. After [...]

On this blustery day I spent my morning walking across Queens.  Well, not all the way across Queens, but across a goodly portion of it, and it was definitely worth the slightly sore back, cold body, and soaking feet.  I was out of the house at about twenty after seven and caught the Q46 bus [...]

Now that I’ve set the table by offering a glimpse into both the kinds of birds and kinds of birders one might see at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival, let’s talk about trips.
One of the main reasons the southernmost stretch of Texas is so essential to U.S. birders is that this is the only [...]

A few months ago (actually it was Nov 4th, so only a week or so ago, it just feels much longer) I went to Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve (SBWR) in north-west Singapore - a protected area of mangroves just across the Johor(e) Strait from the Malayan mainland - and posted some ‘mood’ photos and a [...]

Now that I’ve shared a glimpse into just how special the birds of the Rio Grande Valley are, I feel compelled to mention the people. This is probably because I fell in with such spectacular individuals. After all, a birding festival is as much about birders as it is about birds, and the Rio Grande [...]

I just flew in from the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival in Harlingen, TX and boy, are my arms tired. Actually, every bit of me is bone weary but it was worth it. The birding at this festival was epic, which is a term I don’t use lightly. This was due in no small part [...]

When the sun is shining and it is in the fifties on the Fahrenheit scale on a Sunday  in November I’ll be birding.  Of course.  Jamaica Bay was where I wanted to be, mostly because I wanted to get some shots of the waterfowl flying from the West Pond to the bay with the sun [...]

Coming from the UK where our reptiles are rarely thicker than a USB cable and only fearsome if you happen to be the size of a fruit fly, one common denizen of Singapore’s wonderful Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve (which I was fortunate to visit last week) that never fails to fascinate me is the Asian [...]

When I was at Singapore’s wonderful (and, as more mangroves are cut down, increasingly important) Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve a few days ago, I came across a Milky Stork Mycteria cinerea feeding quietly in a low-tide channel in the middle of the reserve. Like (I suspect) many readers of 10,000 Birds I knew very little [...]

This Sunday I spent a delightful morning in the company of seven other birders, all members of the Queens County Bird Club, on a field trip exploring the ponds and parks along the south shore of Nassau County (the county immediately to the east of Queens).  Of course, Nassau County is heavily developed, with housing, [...]

I spent the morning in glorious sunshine (and the afternoon in a tropical storm!) at the wonderful Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve in northern Singapore (which being a small island isn’t far from southern Singapore in fact which makes access nice and easy…). Sungei Buloh protects one of the last patches of mangroves and tidal mudflat [...]

Just like so many of you, we love an avian identification challenge. Thanks to the 10,000 Birds Clinic, we certainly get our share. The beauty of this arrangement is that even when the three of us are stumped, we have a veritable birding brain trust to turn to. That’s where you come in!
Wendy from Massachusetts [...]

Sara, Mason, Ivy, and I spent the weekend visiting family in Potter County, PA, an extremely rural part of the state colorfully referred to as “God’s Country.” Having seen so many sides of Potter County over the last 20 years, I can attest to its tremendous beauty. Right about now, in early November, the foliage [...]

Back on my travels again after a short break at home, and I’m off East: to Singapore and then (for a whole day!) to Sydney, Australia. And the timing couldn’t be much better, as I arrived in Singapore just a week after the 25th Singapore Bird Race. The winning team, ‘Strix’, managed to find a [...]

The sun was shining at Jamaica Bay Saturday morning, there was almost no wind, and plenty of birds to see.  Waterbirds, whether they be dabbling or diving ducks, grebes or geese, coots or cormorants were the main attraction, but some passerines were still thick in the trees and bushes.  Kinglets with both ruby and golden [...]

I love plants. You do too, whether you’re in touch with your vegephilia or not. Everything you eat or smoke and practically everything you drape on your body or put in your car to make it go derives directoy or indirectly from the vegetable kingdom. Plants are part and parcel of our environment. In fact, [...]

The Common Buzzard Buteo buteo and the Red-tailed Hawk Buteo jamaicensis are both their respective regions’ commonest ‘buteos’ and are obviously closely-related, but - in theory - they should never meet: B. buteo breeds (in various forms) right across Eurasia while B. jamaicensis is equally widespread but is found across the other side of the [...]