Big Days are intense: Last year, our Team Sapsucker spent all 24 hours of April 27 scouring central and eastern Texas for birds. They had three dozen species on their list before dawn broke, and hit triple digits shortly before 8 a.m. They kept going, adding an average of one species every 11 minutes throughout [...]
By Hugh
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Also posted in Big Day, Birds, conservation, video
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Tagged Big Day, birding, Birds, birdwatching, photos, slideshow, Team Sapsucker, Texas
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October 19, 2012 – 2:11 pm
Thirty-nine of the most gorgeous, outlandish animals in the world—the birds-of-paradise—live only in New Guinea, associated islands, and adjacent tropical Australia. Though they’ve been known for centuries from paintings and specimens, it’s only now that all 39 can be admired in glorious photographic detail, thanks to ground-breaking work by Cornell Lab biologist Ed Scholes and [...]
By Hugh
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Also posted in Birds, conservation, ecology, education, science, Uncategorized, video
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Tagged birding, Birds, birds-of-paradise, birdwatching, Ed Scholes, New Guinea, photos, sightings, Tim Laman, tropical fieldwork, video
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Science editor Gus Axelson is just back from a tour of eastern Hungary sponsored by Swarovski Optik. (Look for his story about bird conservation in Hungary to appear in a future issue of Living Bird.) As Gus returned to the world of American Redstarts and other brilliant warblers, he turned his attention to a more [...]
By Hugh
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Also posted in Birds, Discussion, science, Uncategorized
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Tagged birding, Birds, birdwatching, evolution, Gus Axelson, Irby Lovette, science, warblers
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Studying puffins in Iceland, where the birds are numerous but also vulnerable to changes in climate and oceans, is important work—but it doesn’t always look like it. Researchers like Erpur Hansen who want to know how the breeding season is going have to figure out how to look inside puffin nests dug into the ground. [...]
By Hugh
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Also posted in Birds, ecology, field reports, science, slideshow, sounds, video
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Tagged Atlantic Puffin, birding, Birds, birdwatching, fieldwork, Iceland, photos, sound recording, sounds, travel, video
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I’m spending 10 days in Iceland to learn about research on Atlantic Puffins. My host is Erpur Hansen, an Icelandic biologist who has been studying puffins here since 2007. He visits most of the country´s large puffin colonies twice each year to assess their breeding success. And that’s no small task, as nearly half of [...]
By Hugh
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Also posted in Birds, ecology, field reports, slideshow
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Tagged birding, Birds, birdwatching, Erpur Hansen, fieldwork, Iceland, puffins, sightings, travel
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This is Part Two of a post about searching for the 12 endemic birds of northeast Queensland’s Wet Tropics World Heritage Reserve, with the help of many of the region’s wonderful guides and lodges. Part One of the story is here. Part Two introduces six endemic species not mentioned in Part One: Grey-headed Robin, Bridled Honeyeater, Bower’s [...]
By Hugh
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Also posted in Birds, field reports, slideshow, sounds
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Tagged Australia, birding, Birds, birdwatching, Del Richards, endemics, Kingfisher Park, photos, sightings, sound, travel, tropical fieldwork
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Here in New Jersey, the Anti-Petrels spent the morning refining our route for the dawn hours of the World Series of Birding on Saturday. The students of Team Redhead scouted saltmarshes, then headed inland to Belleplain State Forest’s warblers, tanagers, and woodpeckers before hitting Cape May to look for shorebirds and a rare Mississippi Kite. [...]
By Hugh
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Also posted in Big Day, Birds, conservation, field reports
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Tagged Anti-Petrels, Big Day, birding, Birds, birdwatching, Redheads, sightings, World Series of Birding
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This is Part 1 of an account—for any of you who love tales of unusual birds in unusual places—of a recent trip to Australia’s Wet Tropics region near Cairns, Queensland. In this Part we will discuss: Macleay’s Honeyeater, Victoria’s Riflebird, Pied Monarch, Golden Bowerbird, Tooth-billed Bowerbird, and the abominable Fernwren. Read Part Two here. Birders love [...]
By Hugh
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Also posted in Birds, field reports, slideshow, sounds, Uncategorized
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Tagged Australia, birding, Birds, birdwatching, Far Northern Queensland, Fernwren, Golden Bowerbird, Macleay's Honeyeater, photos, Pied Monarch, sound, Tooth-billed Bowerbird, travel, tropics, Victoria's Riflebird, Wet Tropics
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The concept of a Big Day is a bold one—a midnight-to-midnight sleepless birding blitz to see or hear as many species as humanly possible. Team Sapsucker—Chris Wood, Jessie Barry, Andrew Farnsworth, Marshall Iliff, and Tim Lenz—took on that challenge in Texas last year, setting the North American record at 264, and then they doubled-down for [...]
By Hugh
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Also posted in Big Day, Birds, conservation, field reports, News, slideshow, video
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Tagged Andrew Farnsworth, Big Day, birding, Birds, birdwatching, Chris Wood, conservation, endangered species, Jessie Barry, Marshall Iliff, photos, sightings, Texas, Tim Lenz
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New science editor Gustave Axelson is staying in contact with the Sapsuckers in Texas and providing daily Facebook updates on the team’s scouting preparations leading up to Big Day. Here’s his report: Coming in to Scout Week for Big Day 2012, the Sapsuckers were hoping a new strategy for birding a Texas Triangle—San Antonio to the Hill [...]
