In an established tradition reaching as far back as 2023, I regard the first day I see a colorful male flycatcher in Shanghai as my personal start of the migration season. This year, the date was April 11, a few days earlier than last year (April 16). And the birds in question (yes, two of them on the same day) were Blue-and-white Flycatcher … … (eBird gushingly describes the adult male as “strikingly beautiful”, which is true) … … (while the eBird reviewer must have written the section on the species in a bout of depression, as the song of the bird is described as “a short, sad-sounding se ..read more

I finally managed to explore a new area near Bonn, namely the Wahner Heide (heath) bordering the Cologne-Bonn airport. It’s a quite unique spot in the area due to its sandy soils and typical heathland vegetation (I hear you say “duh, it’s heath…”). I use the phrase “quite unique” just because I’m not sure whether there’s any other heathland in the area, maybe it does not warrant the relativizing “quite” – in which case I apologize in advance to any potential proud Wahner Heide locals. The area is a military training ground and as a result, some areas are inaccessible. However, some paths give ..read more

On Tuesday, my wife and I travelled 1750 miles (2,800 km) from our home of thirty years in Morelia, to the region in which I grew up, the San Mateo Peninsula of the San Francisco Bay Area in California. This is not a birding trip; we are trying to deal with many logistical life issues that have accumulated over the past several years. But will I bird? Of course I will! In fact, I already have. Every time I have made this trip in recent years, I have hoped to be able to participate in a field trip of the local Sequoia Audubon Society. And each time, my schedule and theirs did not mesh. But thi ..read more

One thing that I have learned from repeated spring visits to Cyprus is that no two years are ever the same. This April conditions were excellent for migrant waders, so there were plenty to see. The island’s largest salt lake, Akrotiri, is not a great draw for waders, but the range of large, shallow saline pools on its east side, along Lady’s Mile, were in perfect condition to attract a wide variety of species. Ruffs were by far the most numerous, with as many as 500 birds in view at once. Few birds sport such magnificent breeding plumage as the male ruff, but not a single bird showed more tha ..read more

Somehow, Steller’s Sea Eagle manages to look both fierce and slightly cartoonish. Maybe the latter is because the bird is so plump, or maybe it is because (at least to me) the head looks like it has been created by a somewhat amateurish wood carver. The species is listed as Vulnerable – the estimated number of individuals is 4600-5100 (HBW), of which about 2000 winter on Hokkaido.   Georg Wilhelm Steller (1709 – 1746) was a German-born naturalist, though it seems he spent most of his (shortish) adult life in Russia, participating in the exploration of the North Pacific regio ..read more

There are a few spectacles in the birding community that are high energy, happen quickly, and is worth any effort to experience it.  One such experience is a bird grounding event, sometimes called a fallout.  A fallout is usually reserved for more significant events, but there is no true gauge as to one versus the other.  Warblers, thrushes, buntings, and other migrants move across the Gulf of Mexico in an extremely stressful, marathon flight from the Yucatan Peninsula to the Gulf Coast of Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida before spreading throughout the flyways and headin ..read more

This is a made-up quote, much like we would like you to make up a blog post for 10,000 Birds as a guest. No long-term commitment, just the quick pleasure of writing a birding-related post and seeing it published almost instantly. Call it casual blogging. What’s not to like? Contact us if you want your life to improve … The post “Ever since I wrote a guest post for 10,000 Birds, my life has improved so much” first appeared on 10,000 Birds ..read more

I’ve been a regular visitor to the island of Cyprus for over 25 years, making around a dozen trips during this period, every one in search of birds. Tucked away at the extreme eastern end of the Mediterranean, Cyprus is regarded politically as part of Europe, but when it comes to birds it’s very much Middle Eastern in flavour, with a number of species that are hard or even impossible to find in Europe, plus a trio of endemics.  I made my most recent visit earlier this month, arriving with my three birding companions, Martin, Mike and Chris, on a warm spring evening. It was dark when we r ..read more

This week, I once again found myself car-challenged. So I went to another nearby site, Las Mesas, which did not offer any unusual narrative. Instead, in this post I will wax philosophical, while sharing a few nice photos from that outing. Clay-colored Sparrows In about a month, I will have my 66th birthday. In between now and then, I will spend a week and a half in California, in the land where birding may mean walking on paved paths, or even on a wooden boardwalk built through the middle of a salt marsh. But once I get back home to Mexico, I will be climbing hills on livestock trails once a ..read more

Dip (verb): [in birding] to miss seeing a bird you were looking for Many times when we speak about the trips we’ve been on we concentrate on the things we experienced, the ruing of missed opportunities tends to be saved for nighttime conversations after a few drinks perhaps. Visiting Guyana brought with it the unavoidable expectation of seeing some mind boggling species – some endangered, some emblematic, others downright bizarre. Before we boarded the flight to Guyana we already knew that probabilities of seeing one of the target species was slashed to near zero. I had long yearned of seeing ..read more