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Colombia is not only home to nearly 20% of all avian life on the planet but this birding mecca also accommodates an incredibly high percentage of highly sought after species. Nearly 80 species are endemic and found nowhere else in the world. Moreover, Colombia remains the best destination to see many species that are very [...]

Sometimes a species just stops you in your tracks.  So it was with a superlative, breeding-plumaged, male Scarlet Tanager today at Jamaica Bay.  Now Scarlet Tanagers are always a gorgeous bird, and if you walk by a breeding-plumaged male without looking not only are your credentials as a birder at stake but so are your [...]

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 [...]

The first time I saw a Western Tanager, it was in New York. In Central Park, to be exact. It was exciting — to a degree. A lifer is always exciting, and a vagrant is always exciting too. Moreover, at the time I had no inkling that I’d be moving to Montana in two and [...]

No one pays attention to female Scarlet Tanagers.  Decked out in muted shades of green and yellow the best that can be said about their plumage is that it enables them to blend into the forest canopy, an aid in avoiding predation.  This is in sharp contrast to male Scarlet Tanagers in red and black [...]

Most birdwatchers that visit Ecuador for the first time concentrate in the north-east and west slopes near the capital Quito.   The diversity in these slopes plus the high altitude land give a unique taste of the Tropical Andes hotspot which is considered the highest biodiversity place on earth. On a recent scouting trip to [...]

Something has always puzzled me in my years working in the bird feeding industry: why don’t we offer more fresh fruit to birds in our yards? Oh sure, you can find mixes with dried fruit like banana chips and raisins. Heck you can even find mixes with heavy fruit flavoring…but why don’t we offer fresh [...]

Though the unpacking from my marvelous trip to Ecuador isn’t even close too done and I have about five million things that need doing I thought it would be remiss if I didn’t share at least the tiniest of tastes of the trip with you wonderful 10,000 Birds readers who, I am sure, have been [...]

When it’s a Piranga species tanager, obviously. Have you heard the news? The Fiftieth Supplement to the American Ornithologists’ Union Check-list of North American Birds, published in the July 2009 issue of The Auk, is bursting with taxonomic and nomenclatural changes that will wreak havoc on your life lists and possibly knock your birding world [...]

When it’s a Spindalis species tanager, obviously! Traveling these days is hardly the carefree, spontaneous, all-I-need-is-a-toothbrush-and-ten-bucks experience it used to be before I took up birding.  Now, every excursion is preceded by serious research into potential and target species, checklists, rare bird alerts, and trip reports.  But this intensive ornithological preparation is doubly beneficial: first, [...]