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Last Sunday we went for a short drive to the east of Broome to see if we could find some sunshine! The rain has been great for the land and everywhere is turning green. You do need to be careful of cattle wandering across the highway, as the grass always looks greener on the other [...]

While Birding the Choco Region near Esmeraldas we had an amazing day with many raptors at the Botrosa Road. We had some very nice looks at Black Hawk-Eagle, Semiplumbeous Hawk, Double toothed Kite, Laughing Falcon, and two others not yet positively identified. Black Hawk-Eagle Semiplumbeous Hawk Laughing Falcon Double-toothed Kite

The air was thick and clammy, and mosquitoes were biting along Louisiana’s Mermentau River last Thursday morning, the final day of the Audubon Christmas Bird Count. A lone Black-bellied Plover quietly worked the flats amid hundreds of other shorebirds. Black-bellied (Grey) Plover, Pluvialis squatarola, in California CC-BY Alan Vernon Remarkable birds, Black-bellied Plovers, winter refugees [...]

… and sometimes the bird tries to get you.

The family Picathartidae consists of two very unusual birds; White-necked or Yellow-headed Picathartes, endemic to the Upper Guinea forests of West Africa; and Gray-necked or Red-headed, restricted to Lower Guinea forests of Central Africa. Their strange appearance and habit of communally nesting in rock overhangs and caves has given them their alternative name of rockfowl, [...]

The evocatively named Lake Panic is overlooked by a thatched, rustic style hide in one of the most delicious settings that a birder is ever likely to encounter. The bird life of Kruger National Park appears to be distilled into a small area surrounding the hide and they seem oblivious to the observers with their battery [...]

SUPER STARLINGS Tanzania plays host to a wide variety of Starlings, over twenty species in fact. In California we have the feisty intelligent generalist European Starling. Singularly beautiful as individuals but glared at by many a birder for their stubborn survival streak which can play havoc with the delicate nesting strategies of pre-established locals. Above [...]

Western Screech-Owl (Megascops kennicottii) photos by Larry Jordan It’s been an interesting winter in my neck of the woods. Birders in Northern California have been treated to rare sightings of several species, sending avid twitchers from all over the west in our direction. There is a Falcated Duck at Colusa National Wildlife Refuge, Mountain Plovers and Northern Waterthrush near Sutter [...]

Contrary to what many people believe, Sydney is not the capital of Australia, and even calling it the premier city in the country might elicit angry complaints from the inhabitants of Melbourne. But it is the first and oldest city in Australia, and arguably the most scenic, sprawling (and it certainly does sprawl) around a [...]

The end of the year is a great time to look back on the year passed and re-assess where we took our lives, what we did, where we have come from… and then take a few moments in stillness to think about where we would like our paths to take us in the year ahead. [...]

Zimbabwe is last in the alphabetical atlas of countries of the world. And, given the unstable political situation (slightly improved since the unified government of 2009), paucity of fuel, high crime-rate and dire poverty, it is probably last on the list of many traveling birders. But eastern Zimbabwe is an almost mythical place and a [...]

It’s that time of year when a young man’s thoughts turn to tropical seabirds like the Christmas Shearwater… wait, that doesn’t work! In fact, if you were looking for a bird that represented the spirit and traditions of Christmas, this elegant, compact and dark shearwater would hardly be the first thing that comes to mind. [...]

A little while after the whole excitement of choosing and announcing the winners of the Digiscoper of the Year competition is over, I try to take a bit of a step back and have another look through the thousands of entries in the competition, and pick a few images that were not amongst the winning [...]

2011 is about to become 2012 and birders the world over are taking a look at their year lists and reminiscing about the awesome sightings and devastating dips that they have experienced.  We here at 10,000 Birds thought this would be a perfect time to look back and figure out what each of us considered our Best [...]

At last I was lucky to get some good shots of the legendary Long-wattled Umbrellabird at 23 de Junio.  The early morning yielded some distant looks but just when we were walking back to the village we found a male and female pair that was hanging around closer to us near the school. The close [...]

My home country of South Africa can only be described as a birding paradise! Although in raw numbers (843 species recorded to date) it doesn’t compete with tropical countries to the north or on other continents (especially South America), South Africa makes up for this in several ways: • the highest number of endemics on [...]

Rogitama Private Nature Reserve, about 3 hours drive north of Bogota, is a true success story. Founded by Roberto Chavarro and his family in the early eighties, this little reserve has been dropped slap-bang into the birding spotlight by the recent claims of the rediscovery of the Bogota Sunangel Heliangelus zusii, a species that is [...]

The word “tanager” conjures certain images for most of us birder types. Maybe words like “colorful,” “beautiful,” “fruit,” and “tree.” But the tanager brand is changing. We’re learning we’ve got to expand our idea of what it means to be a tanager. Double-collared Seedeater (Sporophila caerulescens) © Dario Sanches These sparrows are tanagers A new [...]

Common Merganser (Mergus merganser) photos by Larry Jordan (click to enlarge) The Common Merganser (Mergus merganser americanus) or Goosander (Mergus merganser merganser) as it’s known in Europe, is a large, cold-hardy, fish-eating duck that nests worldwide near large lakes and rivers in northern forested habitats1. yellow:summer, blue:winter, green:year-round They nest in cavities, beginning in March or April, usually in trees [...]

The image that made me look hardest in this year’s Digiscoper of the Year 2011 competition was that of a Little Owl (Athene noctua) by Mario Cea taken at night! Digiscoping is normally hard enough during the day and action shots with good light are doubly tough, but this was the first time I had [...]