A Date with a Big Bill

Thumbnail image for A Date with a Big Bill by Alex Vargas 16 September 2012

The Stork-billed Kingfisher is one of the largest and most difficult -to photograph- Halcyonidaes of SE Asia… We got lucky as one mom was feeding two chicks in a park in Bangkok (yes! right into the city!) Kingfishers are very special and colorful in Asia. Everyone wants to photograph kingfishers and they are not easy. [...]

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Duck gauntlet | video |

Thumbnail image for Duck gauntlet | video | by Grrlscientist 15 September 2012

SUMMARY: Why did the mother duck lead her ducklings across the road? To give watching humans a collective heart attack! It’s an age-old riddle: why did the chicken cross the road? Even school children ask this, intending it as a joke. But when a mother duck decides to shepherd her brood of day-old ducklings across [...]

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Restoring Beauty | video |

Thumbnail image for Restoring Beauty | video | by Grrlscientist 8 September 2012

Prosthetic upper mandible. SUMMARY: A seriously injured bald eagle now has a bionic beak, thanks to modern technology One morning in 2005, an adult female bald eagle was spotted whilst scrounging for food at a landfill in Alaska. Emaciated, she was starving to death in the midst of a bounty of food. A poacher had [...]

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Facebook Interest lists for birders

Thumbnail image for Facebook Interest lists for birders by Gunnar 5 September 2012

Facebook Interest Lists are a great addition to Facebook which makes it possible to organize Facebook pages and profiles in lists. Gunnar Engblom gives some suggestions of some interest lists that birders may find to be useful resources.

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I’ve just met a goose named Maria, and suddenly nothing will ever be the same | video |

Thumbnail image for I’ve just met a goose named Maria, and suddenly nothing will ever be the same | video | by Grrlscientist 2 September 2012

SUMMARY: A retired salesman is befriended by a lonely goose whilst walking around a manmade lake in a small park in a very big city Maria in quarantine at the Los Angeles Zoo (screenshot/CBS News). .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. This interesting video shows how strong the pair bond [...]

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Best birding blog on the web!

Thumbnail image for Best birding blog on the web! by Gunnar 31 August 2012

BOU/Ibis mention.  We are proud to hear that BOU/Ibis  blog nominated Birdingblogs as the best multi author birding blog on the Web. Look at the tweet above. BOU is using Twitter very wisely and it is very refreshing to see an institution like BOU step up and master Social Media like they do.  Their new knowledge is [...]

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Journal club: Two new owl species may provide insight into how early birds colonised the Philippines

Thumbnail image for Journal club: Two new owl species may provide insight into how early birds colonised the Philippines by Grrlscientist 24 August 2012

SUMMARY: Two new owl species were discovered in the Philippine Islands and five more Philippine owls were given full species status The Philippine Archipelago is filled with a tremendous variety of living things, and hundreds of new species have been discovered recently on the islands. The most recent addition to this roll call of biodiversity [...]

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Journal Club: New species of barbet discovered in Peru

Thumbnail image for Journal Club: New species of barbet discovered in Peru by Grrlscientist 20 August 2012

Sira barbet, Capito fitzpatricki, Seeholzer, Winger, Harvey, Cáceres & Weckstein, 2012, photographed at the Río Shinipo locality in Cerros del Sira in the Ucayali Region, Peru (South America). Image: Michael G. Harvey/Cornell University, 4 November 2008 [velociraptorise]. Canon EOS 20D, 1/250 sec, f/8.0, 400 mm, iso:400 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. [...]

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Turkish Delight

Thumbnail image for Turkish Delight by YoavPerlman 28 July 2012

Join Yoav Perlman’s birding experiences in Turkey Last month I went on a short weekend trip with three of my mates to Turkey. Our main target bird was Brown Fish Owl. I am not a keen WP lister but this is an almost mythical bird for Israeli birders. I was born just a few months [...]

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How to see the Sira Barbet

Thumbnail image for How to see the Sira Barbet by Gunnar 19 July 2012

A new Barbet have been described from Sira Mountains, Sira Barbet Capito fitzpatricki, in the Auk. Here is explained how to see it.

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Spring – summer

Thumbnail image for Spring – summer by YoavPerlman 1 July 2012

Yoav Perlman enjoys massive late spring migration and cool breeding birds in Israel In my previous post I went mental about what happened here in March and April, and May was just as good. The massive flood of migrants continued to pour over southern Israel. Huge numbers of migrants were on the ground and overhead. [...]

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Kinglet Calyptura is a Tyrant Flycatcher

Thumbnail image for Kinglet Calyptura is a Tyrant Flycatcher by Rich Hoyer 30 June 2012

The world’s largest bird family just got one bigger, now about 415 species. The enigmatic Kinglet Calyptura, best known from specimens over a hundred years old, seems to be close to extinction in the wet forests of southeastern Brazil. It’s been long touted as an example of the bizarre diversity within the neotropical suboscine family [...]

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Jamaica’s Endemic Subspecies #3

Thumbnail image for Jamaica’s Endemic Subspecies #3 by Rich Hoyer 29 June 2012

In this final blog on Jamaican birds, I’ll write about the last five endemic subspecies and give honorable mention to one more near-endemic. The Bananaquit is a familiar bird throughout the Caribbean as well as the mainland throughout the Neotropics. Yet everywhere you go they look and sound different. Presumably, the ancestor of the Bananaquit [...]

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Jamaica’s Endemic Subspecies #2

Thumbnail image for Jamaica’s Endemic Subspecies #2 by Rich Hoyer 21 June 2012

Here’s yet another set of six species found as endemic subspecies on Jamaica. Which ones should be considered separate species? Let’s have a look. Greater Antillean Elaenia occurs here in the higher elevations, but is a scarce bird, at least in March to early April, which is when I’ve led most of my 12 tours [...]

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Jamaica’s Endemic Subspecies #1

Thumbnail image for Jamaica’s Endemic Subspecies #1 by Rich Hoyer 6 June 2012

So, now after having delineated 28 species of birds endemic to Jamaica (including the two forms of the Streamertail, currently lumped but he AOU), it’s time I start introducing the endemic subspecies. Some are so distinctive as to clearly warrant species-level recognition, while others aren’t so different from mainland or other island forms, and you [...]

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Spreading The Magic of Birding.

Thumbnail image for Spreading The Magic of Birding. by Gunnar 4 June 2012

Spreading the birding gospel is necessary. A crowd of birders such on the photo is not a bad thing. Gunnar Engblom argues that there is a birder in all of us, and that festivals such as the Biggest Week of American Birding can convert the Muggles to find the magic of birding.

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How many Longeared Owls fit in a tree?

Thumbnail image for How many Longeared Owls fit in a tree? by DaleForbes 3 June 2012

At least 200. With space for a Short-eared Owl. Well, at least if you are in the little Hungarian town of Hortobagy in Winter. We were in the steppes of Hortobagy earlier this year and our guide – Balazs Szigeti – couldn’t wait to get us in to the quaint village of Hortobagy to show [...]

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Digiscoping Flying Buzzards

Thumbnail image for Digiscoping Flying Buzzards by DaleForbes 27 May 2012

Digiscoping flying birds is not exactly the easiest of things, but it has an appeal for a good deal of digiscopers. Having spent time trying to take digiscoped photos of birds in the heat of the day at massive distances, most people slowly come to the realisation that one has to get really close to [...]

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Jamaica’s Endemic Birds Part 5

Thumbnail image for Jamaica’s Endemic Birds Part 5 by Rich Hoyer 23 May 2012

These final six endemic species of Jamaica fall at the end of the taxonomic order of birds (as listed by the American Ornithologists’ Union) and all but the last are part of the group known as the “nine-primaried oscines.” At one time they were even placed in the single giant family Emberizidae, but current practice [...]

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Friendly Feathers

Thumbnail image for Friendly Feathers by Alex Vargas 21 May 2012

Every winter season (November – April) we get the colorful visit of many nice birds in Thailand, but none as friendly and showy as the Mugimaki Flycatcher and the White-throated Rock-Thrush in Khao Yai. I was very exited the first time I saw and got some lousy images of a White-throated Rock-Thrush in 2007. Then, [...]

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