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Last month, our Australian correspondent Shane Martin contributed a striking gallery of Galahs goofing around in Brisbane. Now, Shane shines a spotlight on the species Aussie locals call thick-knees but proper bird watchers identify as Bush Stone Curlews…

According to Shane, these stone curlews blend into the background rather well. They also stay still when people [...]

My recent trip to Ohio was nothing less than revelatory for me. Not only did I have an incredible time at the 2009 Midwest Birding Symposium but I also gained a new appreciation for the natural beauty of the Buckeye State. The biggest surprise in terms of the latter was definitely Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge; [...]

The Critically Endangered Spoon-billed Sandpiper Eurynorhynchus pygmeus is one of East Asia’s most enigmatic and threatened shorebirds. Breeding only on the Chutotsk Peninsula of eastern Russia southwards to the isthmus of the Kamchatka peninsula, staging on the tidal flats of the Yellow Sea, and wintering in south-east Asia the species was probably never abundant because [...]

Saturday was one of those all-day birding days that I think are going to pretty rare occurrences before too long.  Will of The Nightjar, with whom I haven’t birded in, well, way too long, finally made the much anticipated trip down to Queens for some Jamaica Bay shorebirding, and we had a grand old time [...]

Shorebird season is upon us once again and with the waves of undifferentiated brown and gray birds arrives yet another resource by which to tell them apart. Shorebirds of North America, Europe, and Asia: A Photographic Guide by Richard Chandler is an excellent addition to any shorebirder’s library.
With only 217 species worldwide, shorebirds are not [...]

Some of you who regularly read this blog will recall my recent outing with Patrick after which I surmised that New Jersey birders coming to bird in New York were cursed.  You may also recall that in that same post I mentioned that we would have a chance to break the dreaded Jersey Curse in [...]

I’ve already shared some pictures from this past Saturday’s trip out along the south shore of Suffolk County looking for shorebirds.  The guy I traveled and birded with, Andrew, has already posted his account of the day on Birding Dude.  So why am I writing another post about the time we spent searching for birds?  [...]

Say the title of this blog post five times fast and I guarantee a life bird within two weeks!  Rather than do a full trip report from a twenty-shorebird-day with Birding Dude I’m just going to put up a few of my favorite pictures from the day and wait to do the full post until [...]

It seems like a very long time since I last went actually birding - my excuses include moving house, a series of trips to the Middle East where the temperature was hotter than Satan’s underpants and I stayed in the hotel rather than fry, general apathy etc etc - but just two days ago I [...]

Birding guru Kenn Kaufman left a very interesting comment on our post about Richard Crossley’s upcoming new book (which I very deliberately titled ‘Could this be North America’s best ID Guide‘ as perhaps it could be if the text - which I’ve not seen - matches the excellence of the plates) in which he [...]

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 [...]

Though Queens, especially Jamaica Bay, is known for the fabulous numbers and variety of shorebirds that come through in fall migration there are often quite a few shorebirds to be seen in the spring as well.  Sure, Siberian vagrants are pretty unlikely in spring but the lack of rarity is made up for by the [...]

After the Scarlet Tanager and host of other birds at Jamaica Bay on Sunday I thought I would wander across Cross Bay Boulevard and see what was happening on the East Pond and at Big John’s Pond.  Upon my arrival at Big John’s Pond there was one other person in the blind and he kindly [...]

Pardon this post’s provocative title but now that I’ve got your attention, let’s talk about woodcocks. That strangest of shorebirds, Scolopax minor has long been a nemesis of mine. Every spring, I’ve endeavored to enjoy its daffy dusk ritual or hear its plaintive peent but every spring I’ve failed. 2008 seemed like the year that [...]

“Invisible Connections”: no, not the 1985 album by ‘Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient and neo classical music Vangelis’ (though I’m sure some old muso will end up here through Google at some point), but a beautifully photographed and lucid account in three languages (Korean, Chinese, English) of the journey made by migrating shorebirds [...]

Find the right stretch of rocky coastline in winter - typically one lashed by spray and slippery with seaweed - and there’s a fair chance you might just come across a very special shorebird: the Purple Sandpiper Calidris maritima. Dumpy, dark, and (whenever I see them anyway) cold and wet, Purple Sandpipers got the rough [...]

The most eco-ignorant quotation of the week (and in the death-throes of the Bush Administration we should expect more than a few to come our way) comes courtesy of the agency in charge of over-seeing the immoral and short-sighted destruction of what was perhaps the most-important wetland in the whole of the Yellow Sea - [...]

If you see shorebirds on a coastal beach in North America they are most likely Sanderlings (Calidris alba).  If they are running back and forth as the waves ebb and flow they are almost assuredly Sanderlings.  They are the “clockwork toy” birds according to Sibley, “The Bird That Plays Tag with the Waves” according to [...]

Remember our Evil Avian ID Quiz from last Wednesday? Here is the promised follow-up post and answer.
To review … here were the clues:

Locally common in spring in the Great Plains.
No subspecies.
Worldwide population less than 200,000.
All birds show a distinct whitish eyebrow that, in combination with the darker crown, give them a capped appearance.
Posture is [...]

Yesterday’s Southern Masked Weaver gallery depicted a common bird that is not very likely to turn up in Europe, North America, or Asia anytime soon so how about a bird that is widespread across a large portion of the planet, but is still something of a rarity in Canada and the US - the startlingly [...]