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10,000 Birds Month in Review: March 2008

March 31, 2008 by Corey 5 Comments

It is said that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.  This March 10,000 Birds both came in and went out like a lion: we broke our records for most visits and page views in a month!  Big news this month included Charlie getting well over the halfway point of his goal of seeing 1,000 species for the year, Mike taking a great trip to Guatemala, and yours truly making the move to the Big Apple.  It’s going to be tough to top March but I’m sure we’ll do our best in April…

In addition to making every birder in the world jealous with his global birding Charlie took the time to help us all become better bird photographers and helped us understand that sometimes it’s okay to not be so good.  His trips this month took him to Guindy National Park, India, the Seattle to Bremerton Ferry in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, close to home for a twitchable Franklin’s Gull, the Panti Forest in Malaysia, and Australia.  Charlie also learned about and educated others about Horned Larks.

Mike’s aforementioned Guatemala trip was pure gold when it came to blog posts.  He birded Cerro Alux, Finca El Pilar, Hotel Villa Maya, Ixpanpajul, Cerro Cahuí, and Lake Petén Itzá.  Try saying that five times fast!  Mike was also inspired by his Guatemala trip to poll our readers on how to pronounce jacana.  After Guatemala he traveled to California just to see a jinx bird.  When he returned the two of us met up for a birding excursion.  Mike also reviewed and kicked off our giveaway of The Life of the Skies and discussed the advent of paperless magazines.

While Mike and Charlie were traveling around the world seeing marvelous and multicolored birds I was sticking close to home, birding by mass transit to pad my Anti-Global Warming Big Year List.  I did make it to all five boroughs of New York City: Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens (of course) and Staten Island, though the Staten Island post will go up in April.  I also discussed a poem and the things birders carry.

Some birds got special posts all their own this month, mostly by dint of their having stayed still long enough for one of us to photograph them. A White-throated Sparrow, Western Meadowlarks, Ferruginous Hawks, a Carolina Wren, and a Blue-tailed Bee-eater all were made famous on 10,000 Birds.  A lizard got the same treatment.

As we do every month we at 10,000 Birds took great joy in joining our fellow bloggers at a bunch o’ carnivals.  I and the Bird numbers 70 and 71 were, as usual, ably introduced by Mike.  Carnival of the Cities was a wondrous world-wide tour and we helped untangle the natural world at the Tangled Bank.  We also hosted a single Welcome Wednesday dedicated to the most marvelous of seasons, spring.

The undoubted highlight of the month?  Charlie seeing a bird that hasn’t even been described for science yet!  Holy freaking cow!  Somebody stop this man!

What was your birding or blogging highlight for the month of March?

Written by Corey
Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy and Desmond Shearwater. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.