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HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently Server: nginx/1.18.0 (Ubuntu) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2026 13:12:13 GMT Content-Type: text/html Content-Length: 178 Connection: keep-alive Location: https://www.10000birds.com/feed HTTP/1.1 200 OK Server: nginx/1.18.0 (Ubuntu) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2026 13:12:14 GMT Content-Type: application/rss+xml; charset=utf-8 Transfer-Encoding: chunked Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: no-cache Content-Encoding: gzip WPO-Cache-Status: cached Last-Modified: Sun, 18 Jan 2026 12:01:09 GMT X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN 10,000 Birds https://www.10000birds.com Birds, Birding and Blogging Sat, 17 Jan 2026 21:38:57 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 https://www.10000birds.com/wp-content/uploads/cropped-Logo-Square-32x32.png 10,000 Birds https://www.10000birds.com 32 32 “Return” of the White-tailed Eagle to southern Iberia? https://www.10000birds.com/return-of-the-white-tailed-eagle-to-southern-iberia.htm?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=return-of-the-white-tailed-eagle-to-southern-iberia https://www.10000birds.com/return-of-the-white-tailed-eagle-to-southern-iberia.htm#respond Sun, 18 Jan 2026 12:00:00 +0000 https://www.10000birds.com/?p=193996 Photo courtesy Stewart Finlayson I attended a recent workshop which was being transmitted online. I was particularly interested to hear what was going to be said about a project which aims to release White-tailed Eagles (Haliaeetus albicilla) in southern Spain. Note that I say release and not re-introduce. The online listeners were invited to ask questions, so I did. Frustratingly, they were glossed over and my name, as author of the questions which I was obliged to give, was never mentioned. Instead, the comments about the validity of the claim for re-introduction went along the lines of: “well there are different opinions on the subject” and such like. Well, they are not opinions, they are facts as I will now enumerate. The historical evidence cited was a quote from an article “Notes on the Birds of the Straits of Gibraltar” the journal Ibis of 1879, in which the respected ornithologist Howard Irby stated “Mr. Stark, during the first week in May 1876, found a nest of the White-tailed Eagle on a cliff on the coast. I refrain from mentioning the exact locality for obvious reasons. The nest contained one young bird nearly able to fly.” That was it. No other historical evidence was presented at the workshop. Some of you may think that this is enough evidence to justify a re-introduction but note the following. Irby published the second edition of his book “The Ornithology of the Straits of Gibraltar” in 1895, that is sixteen years after the article. Irby’s book is thorough and detailed, a real reference work for those of us working in the region. Turn to the page on White-tailed Eagle and this reference is not there! In fact, Irby provides no evidence of this bird having bred in the region. Irby also avoids other references which he had cited previously from Mr Stark – in those sixteen years he had lost confidence on the veracity of these claims. Knowing how thorough he was, I am sure that he visited Stark’s cliff on the coast and found the claim not to be true but, being a courteous gentleman, chose to remain silent in the later work, rather than slur Mr Stark’s reputation. The rest of the evidence presented at the workshop was based on fossil and sub-fossil material from caves in the Iberian Peninsula. Now that’s a subject which I know well! I’ve worked on this material for over thirty years and I know the sites. In what was adding insult to injury, I had to endure references being made to recent discoveries of White-tailed Eagle subfossils from Gibraltar’s caves – my own work! It was like hearing the devil quoting out of the bible! I sent further comments but these were not taken up either so I will say them here. Photo courtesy Stewart Finlayson You cannot use subfossil bird material to argue for species re-introductions. These bones reflect the presence of these species thousands, even tens of thousands of years ago. In the case of the Gibraltar White-tailed Eagles, they go in some cases as far back as 100 thousand years ago! The remains are found alongside those of Snowy Owls (Bubo scandiacus), Little Auks (Alle alle) and Steller’s Eiders (Polysticta stelleri) and, yes, they were around alongside the Neanderthals! We don’t even know if these were breeding birds or perhaps just winterers. So, if you are going to use this kind of evidence for “re-introductions”, you might as well “re-introduce” Snowy Owls, or perhaps even Neanderthals to the south of the Iberian Peninsula! Joking aside, there is absolutely no evidence in support of the presence of breeding of White-tailed Eagles in southern Iberia in historical times and the evidence from prehistory is inconclusive. If this project goes forward, people will have to understand that it is not a re-introduction. It establishes a dangerous precedent which might lead us to creating zoos in the wild, of species that don’t belong, with unknown ecological implications which could result.]]>

I attended a recent workshop which was being transmitted online. I was particularly interested to hear what was going to be said about a project which aims to release White-tailed Eagles (Haliaeetus albicilla) in southern Spain. Note that I say release and not re-introduce. The online listeners were invited to ask questions, so I did. Frustratingly, they were glossed over and my name…

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]]> https://www.10000birds.com/return-of-the-white-tailed-eagle-to-southern-iberia.htm/feed 0 Three Photos: Toucans of Paraguay https://www.10000birds.com/three-photos-toucans-of-paraguay.htm?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=three-photos-toucans-of-paraguay https://www.10000birds.com/three-photos-toucans-of-paraguay.htm#respond Sun, 18 Jan 2026 12:00:00 +0000 https://www.10000birds.com/?p=193919 Chestnut-eared Aracari (EN), Arasarí Fajado (PY), Pteroglossus castanotis, in Valenzuela, Cordillera Department, January 2026. Spot-billed Toucanet (EN), Arasarí Chico (PY), Selenidera maculirostris, in Alto Verá, Itapúa Department, November 2024. Red-breasted Toucan (EN), Tucán Pico Verde (PY), Ramphastos dicolorus, in Alto Verá, Itapúa Department, October 2018. Photos taken by Guillermo Menéndez, Ñacurutú Experiencias.]]>

Chestnut-eared Aracari (EN), Arasarí Fajado (PY), Pteroglossus castanotis, in Valenzuela, Cordillera Department, January 2026. Spot-billed Toucanet (EN), Arasarí Chico (PY), Selenidera maculirostris, in Alto Verá, Itapúa Department, November 2024. Red-breasted Toucan (EN), Tucán Pico Verde (PY), Ramphastos dicolorus, in Alto Verá, Itapúa Department, October 2018.

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]]> https://www.10000birds.com/three-photos-toucans-of-paraguay.htm/feed 0 The Chemistry of Birds (29): Nectar https://www.10000birds.com/the-chemistry-of-birds-29-nectar.htm?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-chemistry-of-birds-29-nectar https://www.10000birds.com/the-chemistry-of-birds-29-nectar.htm#respond Sun, 18 Jan 2026 12:00:00 +0000 https://www.10000birds.com/?p=191391 If, like me, you grew up in Germany, the word “nectar” (well, Nektar, really, as Germans prefer the more aggressive-sounding k over the soft and suspiciously foreign c) does not have a particularly positive ring to it. That’s because under German law, fruit juice labelled as Nektar is not pure fruit juice. Seeing “Nektar” on a bottle in Germany legally indicates that it’s not 100% fruit juice—there is a regulated lower limit on the fruit content, while water and up to 20% added sugar may be included as well. No wonder Germans grow up associating nectar with something sugary and cheap. Birds might agree with the “sugary” part, but definitely not with the “cheap.” Several bird families specialise in feeding on nectar—a perfectly sensible choice, given that simple sugars can be converted into energy quickly and efficiently. And unlike humans, birds have very little risk of becoming overweight in the process. So: nectar. What is it, how and where is it made, and what does it contain? Most nectar is a mixture of sucrose, glucose, and fructose, produced by flowering plants as an incentive to attract pollinators—bees, butterflies, birds, and other animals that enable the long-distance sex life plants depend on to reproduce. The exact recipe depends on the plant species and the pollinators it hopes to attract. For example, flowers visited by hummingbirds tend to offer sucrose-rich nectar, essentially table sugar dissolved in water. Many insect-pollinated plants lean more toward the monosaccharides glucose and fructose. Sucrose is a disaccharide (“two rings”). A chemist who wants to show off might refer to it as ?-D-fructofuranosyl ?-D-glucopyranoside. Fructose, a monosaccharide Glucose, a monosaccharide Hummingbirds are extremely good at digesting sucrose: they split it using the enzyme sucrase, producing glucose and fructose, and then turn those directly into energy—almost immediately after ingestion. These three sugars form the basis of nectar, but they are not the only ingredients. Nectar may also include: Amino acids (nutritional bonuses or chemical signals) Alkaloids like caffeine or nicotine Minerals such as potassium and calcium Secondary metabolites that deter nectar thieves without harming legitimate pollinators Antimicrobial proteins called nectarins, which protect nectar from microbial spoilage The composition shifts depending on the intended pollinators. Bird-pollinated flowers typically produce larger volumes of relatively dilute, sucrose-rich nectar, whereas many bee-pollinated flowers produce less nectar with different sugar balances. Flowers high in alkaloids may be selectively discouraging nectar robbers—animals that drink nectar without pollinating. Some plant families produce nectar with less common sugars – for example, the nectar of many Protea species contains sugars such as xylose, mannose, arabinose, and rhamnose. These sugars likely add specific functions to the nectar, with xylose-rich nectar hypothesised to be more stable, more easily diluted, and less prone to fermentation. There is also a clear difference between hummingbirds and sunbirds in their nectar preferences. Hummingbirds can handle very concentrated nectar, even above 30% sugars, and often prefer sucrose. Their specialised tongues and rapid licking allow them to ingest even highly viscous solutions. Sunbirds, in contrast, generally prefer more dilute nectar with higher proportions of glucose and fructose. Their sucrase activity is much lower than that of hummingbirds, and many species avoid high-sucrose nectar because they cannot process it efficiently. Their tongues use capillary action rather than the elastic micro-pump mechanism of hummingbirds, making very viscous nectars more difficult to handle. Returning to the original question: why is nectar beloved by birds but not by Germans buying fruit juice? For birds, sugar is an almost ideal energy source. It is easy to metabolise, requires no chewing, cracking, or processing, and is provided freely by plants—so long as the birds keep up their side of the bargain by transporting pollen to the next flower. Photo: Loten’s Sunbird, Surrey Estate, Sri Lanka, March 2025 For additional information on this topic – from a slightly less chemical perspective – see an earlier post, Living on sugary water: the life of nectar-feeding birds.]]>

If, like me, you grew up in Germany, the word “nectar” (well, Nektar, really, as Germans prefer the more aggressive-sounding k over the soft and suspiciously foreign c) does not have a particularly positive ring to it. That’s because under German law, fruit juice labelled as Nektar is not pure fruit juice. Seeing “Nektar” on a bottle in Germany legally indicates that it’s not 100%

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]]> https://www.10000birds.com/the-chemistry-of-birds-29-nectar.htm/feed 0 Deadlines https://www.10000birds.com/deadlines.htm?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=deadlines https://www.10000birds.com/deadlines.htm#comments Sat, 17 Jan 2026 12:00:44 +0000 https://www.10000birds.com/?p=193779 Much of my life is dedicated to my family. From the point of view of seeing birds that is annoying. Family is not as bad as work, but still quite time-consuming. The end of the year is always chock-a-block with festivities and this year January started with an epic amount of snow, followed by miserable drizzle, fog and rain. Not a lot of birding. Still, there’s a deadline to meet. Fortunately, Mother Nature has provided. Some foul-smelling hippies would say she always does, but I am realistic enough to consider my recent three sightings both lucky and exceptional. Some of you will now be dreaming of exceptional birds. No, I’m talking about exceptional sightings. Starting with a couple of Great Spotted Woodpeckers on a single branch, a mere metre away from me and my dog. The couple were so close and so friendly that we spent several minutes observing them. Only a few days later, I encountered a Goldcrest. I recently discovered I can no longer hear them. While I watched a flock moving through the rhododendrons in my local park, Merlin lit up telling me they were Goldcrests. “I know that, I can see them”, had been my curt reply to the artificial intelligence, before the realisation sank in that I was watching a silent movie. Bummer. However, news has spread to all Dutch Goldcrests to greet me out in the open to compensate for my shortcoming. And so, this latest one sat on top of a bush looking at me like only a Goldcrest can, slightly quizzical and obviously amused. On the first day of the new year, I walked through a hidden garden near my home (Historische Tuin Schoonoord for vowel aficionados). The Netherlands have had a long tradition of people shooting off fireworks to celebrate the New Year. In 2025 the otherwise frugal Dutchmen burnt through 129 million Euros in an hour. A last hurrah since private fireworks will be banned from next year onwards. You will think I am making up the next bit, but I am not. While walking through the garden I wondered: “A Firecrest is like fireworks”. I do think weird things regularly, but these thoughts do not materialise. However, this time a Firecrest popped into view. I violated the Eighth Commandment out of sheer joy (for which I apologise). Still, pretty @#$%@# awesome!! Credits for the photography: Great Spotted Woodpeckers caroline legg, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Goldcrest Alexis Lours, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; and Firecrest Alexis Lours, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.]]>

Much of my life is dedicated to my family. From the point of view of seeing birds that is annoying. Family is not as bad as work, but still quite time-consuming. The end of the year is always chock-a-block with festivities and this year January started with an epic amount of snow, followed by miserable drizzle, fog and rain. Not a lot of birding. Still, there’s a deadline to meet. Fortunately…

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]]> https://www.10000birds.com/deadlines.htm/feed 3 Lesser Goldfinch https://www.10000birds.com/lesser-goldfinch.htm?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=lesser-goldfinch https://www.10000birds.com/lesser-goldfinch.htm#respond Sat, 17 Jan 2026 12:00:00 +0000 https://www.10000birds.com/?p=193816 By Kendall Britt Kendall is a resident of Central Texas. She fell in love with birds in her adulthood, but has been making up for lost time. As a physician, she sees the amazing healing power that birds can bring to our lives and firmly believes that if we make the world a better place for birds, it will be a better place for human beings. Like the great Roger Tory Peterson, Kendall believes Texas is the “No. 1 Bird State”. She spends her time chasing birds from the Rio Grande to the Panhandle. When she isn’t outside with her binoculars, she can be found at home in Georgetown, TX, writing about these adventures. I was introduced to birding through Merlin, which is, as most people know, an app developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. It helps identify birds based on their song. I was with a friend kayaking up Willis Creek near Granger Lake in Central Texas. My friend was calling out each bird as Merlin identified it, and my mind exploded with the potential. For the first two years of birding, I didn’t own a pair of binoculars. I just followed the song, and Merlin identified the bird. During these “binocularless” early days, I was desperate to see a Lesser Goldfinch, not a difficult thing in Texas. These small, yellow birds can be seen in backyards, forest edges, fields, and open areas with scattered trees. Their name, a nod to the larger and more patriotic American Goldfinch, is misleading. Lesser Goldfinches can be just as colorful and vibrant as their cousin. And I’m partial because, unlike the American Goldfinch, which only visits Texas in the winter, the Lesser is a year-round resident. That makes them family. Their favorite food is sunflower seeds, but they’ll eat other kinds of seeds, berries, and even insects. They build cup-shaped nests so tightly woven of grass, bark, and moss that they’ll hold water, which doesn’t seem ideal to me. The male has a bright yellow chest and belly with a black cap and a drab olive back. The more striking Black-backed Lesser Goldfinch is peculiar to Texas, though I’m told they’re extending their range further north with climate change. All this I learned without ever seeing a single finch. But I was determined. In an attempt to attract these birds to my backyard, I bought a finch feeder and the recommended bird seed. I waited impatiently for 4days without any activity. I now know that four days isn’t long to wait for birds to discover a new feeder. I would have had more success if I’d placed it near a water source or natural shelter. But I didn’t, and I was disappointed. Almost disappointed enough to consider buying a pair of binoculars. Instead, I sought out my own water source and went swimming. It was a very hot Texas summer, and I found myself floating in a friend’s backyard pool, staring mindlessly at her stand of sunflowers. The flowers were bouncing and dipping with movement, and I realized they were covered in a cloud of small, yellow and black birds, a cloud of Lesser Goldfinches! And all less than 10feet away, easy to see without binoculars. I watched them feed, frolic, and serenade to my heart’s content. I see Lesser Goldfinches everywhere now, with and without binoculars. In the spring and summer, you almost can’t step outside without hearing their sad, high-pitched song. They fly to the top of trees to voice their sorrows. And each time I see or hear them, I remember: If you build it, they don’t always come, but if you pay attention, you’ll see they were always there. Photos by Rachel Williams of Generally Right-Brained Photography]]>

By Kendall Britt Kendall is a resident of Central Texas. She fell in love with birds in her adulthood, but has been making up for lost time. As a physician, she sees the amazing healing power that birds can bring to our lives and firmly believes that if we make the world a better place for birds, it will be a better place for human beings. Like the great Roger Tory Peterson…

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]]> https://www.10000birds.com/lesser-goldfinch.htm/feed 0 South East Arizona’s Madera Canyon https://www.10000birds.com/south-east-arizonas-madera-canyon-2.htm?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=south-east-arizonas-madera-canyon-2 https://www.10000birds.com/south-east-arizonas-madera-canyon-2.htm#respond Sat, 17 Jan 2026 12:00:00 +0000 https://www.10000birds.com/?p=187232 This post is republished in our “From the Archives” series, featuring highlights of our vast back catalogue of more than 10,000 birding-related posts published over the last 15 years or so. *** A note of thanks to Corey and Mike, for their patience, while I took a break after a very busy 2018!! Now that Jeanne and I have finally settled on Tucson, Arizona at least for a while, I will pick up where I left off at the end of 2018. Arizona, specifically the South East portion of the state, will be my “beat” for the rest of this year. I have lived most of my life in a desert of some form, be it the high desert areas of Oregon, to the more arid Southern Baja of Mexico, so I am truly amazed at the birding opportunities this area provides! Every day it seems, I get to learn about a new, and equally amazing location. So far, for me the crown jewel of the area is what I refer to as the “Madera Canyon Complex”. This incredible area is probably the best known area to birders, especially from outside this area and maybe worldwide. Now don’t get me wrong, I have only been here two months now, but have posted 114 eBird submissions, from nearly 40 different locations. My Pima County list for those same 60 days is at 186 different species, and over 40 of those came from the Madera Canyon area. I personally refer to the Madera Canyon area as a complex, due to both the varied habitats it provides, The difficulty in learning the area, as well as the nearby Florida Canyon that in many ways gets lumped in with the Madera Canyon. This area has no less than 17 eBird hotspots recorded, many of which boast nearly 200 species. The Proctor Road loop stands at 219, and the Lower Florida (Pronounced Flor-ee-da) Canyon is at 224. For today, I am going to try to cover just the Madera Canyon area proper, and save Florida Canyon for next week. Located approximately 40 miles south of Tucson, Arizona, you travel on Highway 19 to Green Valley, and exit at Continental Road. From there you go one mile and make a right at Whitehouse Road. The beginning of the Madera Canyon area is then 11 miles away, slowing gaining in altitude to 4500 feet at the first stop, the Proctor Road parking area. This is the beginning of the canyon, but makes a nice transition from grassland/sage brush mix to a more riparian, oak, juniper and sycamore habitat. This area also starts to have the first of the Hackberry Bushes, an important winter time food source for many species. Lesser Goldfinches, Black-tailed Gnatcatchers, as well as the rarer Black-capped Gnatcatchers can be found here. Western Bluebirds, House Wrens, Bewick’s Wrens, mixed flocks of sparrows including Brewers, Chipping, Lincoln’s, White-crowned, and an occasional Rufous-winged are all pretty common. From here there are several places to stop along the way or you can choose to walk the trail the follows the canyon floor the 2 miles to the Santa Rita Lodge. The next driving stop along the way would be the Whitehouse picnic area, followed by the Madera Canyon Picnic area. The eBird counts for these two areas are 167, and 186 respectively. Next in line is the Santa Rita Lodge is a pretty amazing area, known not only for it’s beautiful location and rooms, but large array of carefully maintained feeders that are open to the public to visit any time. In the Madera Canyon Picnic area, the most famous resident, until these last few weeks has been the magnificent Elegant Trogon. Famous for its tolerance of the large number of people that venture thru the canyon, this bird’s photograph is highly sought after by many birders from all over the world. The fame of this resident trogon was diminished a bit, when right after the first of the year, a “first ever” for Arizona, White-throated Thrush showed up. This bird’s arrival sent ripples thru the bird world all across the country. Some days there were literally 100’s of people, wandering up and down the path, hoping for a chance to see this rarity. The financial gain from this bird is to my knowledge undetermined, but the trampled brush, broken tree limbs, and newly formed “trails’ in this pristine area will take years to recover from. The thrush fed on the few remaining Hackberries, along with the American Robins, and the always plentiful Hermit Thrushes for several weeks. About a week ago, the thrush, along with any sign of a lingering Hackberry, has disappeared. This is the famous White-throated Thrush. This picture was taken the second day it was spotted, on a cold miserable, snowy/rainy day. There are plenty of great birds to be seen in the canyon this time of year, even before the arriving migrants show up. White-throated Sparrows, three different species of Dark-eyed Juncos, Yellow-eyed Juncos, Painted Redstarts, Bridled Titmouse, Arizona Woodpeckers, Acorn Woodpeckers, Mexican Jays, Hepatic Tanager, Brown Creepers and Wild Turkeys just to name a few, are all quite common. This is the wonderful White-throated Sparrow. The feeders at the lodge also attract some great hummingbirds, with Blue-throated, Broad-billed, Rufous, Anna’s, and Rivoli’s all being available thru out much of the year, just so long as the area’s Coatis have not emptied the bird feeders. Here is a picture of that offending Coati, chugging the hummingbird food! This is a resident, but rare none the less, Blue-throated Hummingbird. I nearly forgot to mention owls, as the canyon has Elf, Whiskered Screech, Western Screech, and Ferruginous Pygmy-owls all in residence, although a few bail out and head to Mexico in the winter. This Whiskered Screech Owl has its roost pretty close to the Proctor Loop Trail, so it gets lots of attention. One of the most common birds in the canyon, the Hermit Thrush is such a...]]>

This post is republished in our “From the Archives” series, featuring highlights of our vast back catalogue of more than 10,000 birding-related posts published over the last 15 years or so. *** A note of thanks to Corey and Mike, for their patience, while I took a break after a very busy 2018!! Now that Jeanne and I have finally settled on Tucson, Arizona at least for a while…

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]]> https://www.10000birds.com/south-east-arizonas-madera-canyon-2.htm/feed 0 The beauty of birding https://www.10000birds.com/the-beauty-of-birding.htm?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-beauty-of-birding https://www.10000birds.com/the-beauty-of-birding.htm#comments Fri, 16 Jan 2026 16:59:00 +0000 https://www.10000birds.com/?p=193846 I had a somewhat wistful email from my birding pal Martin this morning. A female Red-flanked Bluetail has been found just a few miles from where he lives in Kent. It’s been present for a few days, and has been much twitched. Martin hasn’t, however, felt any real urge to go and see it. “My memory of this fine little bird” he wrote, “is of watching a male in full breeding plumage singing its heart out on the top of a ridge along the Finnish/Russian border. Just one of those very special birding moments.” Red-flanked Bluetail: a very rare vagrant to Britain. This bird was photographed in China by Kai Pflug: I’ve seen a few but never managed to point a camera at one Arctic Finland: a great landscape to look for birds in Historically, Red-flanked Bluetails have always been extremely rare in the British Isles, though they have become more frequent in recent years, reflecting the increase in the number of breeding pairs in arctic Finland. These chats are widespread breeding birds from Finland, across Siberia, all the way to Japan. Despite their rarity in Britain, they are labelled as birds of least concern. Like Martin, I saw my first Bluetail in the spruce woods of Finland, not far from the arctic town of Kuusamo. My local guide knew of a breeding site, but he insisted that by far the best time to look for these elusive birds was in the very early hours of the morning. We went to bed before 9pm and rose again at 1am for our departure for the forest. At 2.30am we were on site, straining our ears to hear our quarry singing. We were surrounded by untouched old-growth spruce forest, the trees dripping with mosses and lichens, the ground underfoot soft and spongy from the accumulation of centuries of spruce needles. It was a forest where the roar of the chainsaw has never shattered the silence. It doesn’t get dark in the arctic in late May, while the early morning light has an almost ethereal quality to it, for the sun is so low in the sky. The silence wasn’t quite total, for it was broken by the weak lisping song of a Goldcrest and the more distant notes of a Redwing. A pair of Siberian Jays (header photograph) came to inspect us, the hum of their wings surprisingly noisy in the still air. Unlike so many members of their tribe, these inquisitive jays are remarkably quiet birds. Then, suddenly, we heard our distant quarry: clear, distinctive, repetitive, a song that I’d never heard before. We moved closer, and eventually spotted the singer, perched on top of a young spruce. Red-flanked Bluetails are exquisite birds, so our eventual sighting was a real thrill, greatly enhanced by the extraordinary beauty of our surroundings. It was a reminder that birding is about far more than just seeing birds. It may be the quest for a certain bird that lures us to these places – why else would you be out in an arctic wood at 2.30 in the morning? – but simply ticking a bird off from a list isn’t, for me, what it’s all about. Finding birds in the Namib desert is challenging, but can be immensely rewarding when you find birds like Namaqua Sandgrouse (below), a south-west African endemic It’s for this reason why I’ve never been a proper twitcher. I’ve always preferred to travel to see birds where they should occur rather than chasing a lost migrant hundreds or perhaps thousands of miles off course. Back in the mid-80s a Sociable Plover (now generally called a Sociable Lapwing) turned up on coastal marshes not far from where I then lived in Kent. Sociable Plovers are rare vagrants from their breeding grounds in Central Asia, so this was a chance to observe a bird I might not otherwise see. Somewhat reluctantly, I went to try and see it. I was writing about cars at the time, so took the Ferrari 308 I had on test to the twitch. I recall as I parked the car on the edge of the marsh that none of the assembled group of twitchers as much as spared it a glance. No serious twitchers drive Italian super cars. Birding on the expansive steppes of southern Georgia: it’s a great place to look for birds like the Black Francolin (below) It took me two attempts to see that plover. The Ferrari expedition was a failure, but I saw it a week later when I went in a VW Golf GTI. Don’t ask me why, 40 years later, I can remember the cars I travelled in, but for some reason I do. I did get a good look at the plover, which was in company with a big flock of Lapwings, but I gained far more pleasure from seeing the same species a few years later on its breeding grounds in the remote steppes of Kazakhstan. The author at 10,000ft in the Pyrenees. Looking for Bearded Vultures in a landscape like this is bound to be a memorable experience, even if you fail to see the bird (below) If I had to list my top 10, or even top 50, sightings (not, you may note, birds), it’s certain that the place where I saw the bird will play a part. Watching Taita Falcons in the gorges below Victoria Falls, Gentoo Penguins surfing off a Falkland beach, Bearded Vultures soaring over Mount Perdido in the Pyrenees, Magallenic Woodpeckers in a Chilean Northofagus forest, Snowcocks in the snow-capped Tian Shan mountains … the birds were fantastic, but so too was the environment I saw them in. If it wasn’t for the birds, I would never have travelled to these places in the first place. The Western Ghats, south-west India, home to many exciting endemic birds, such as the Malabar Grey Hornbill (below) I’ve travelled widely in search of birds, so have been extremely fortunate in having seen so many species in...]]>

I had a somewhat wistful email from my birding pal Martin this morning. A female Red-flanked Bluetail has been found just a few miles from where he lives in Kent. It’s been present for a few days, and has been much twitched. Martin hasn’t, however, felt any real urge to go and see it. “My memory of this fine little bird” he wrote, “is of watching a male in full breeding plumage singing its heart…

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]]> https://www.10000birds.com/the-beauty-of-birding.htm/feed 2 Pines to Oaks: Tracking Arizona’s Two Beloved Songbirds https://www.10000birds.com/pines-to-oaks-tracking-arizonas-two-beloved-songbirds.htm?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pines-to-oaks-tracking-arizonas-two-beloved-songbirds https://www.10000birds.com/pines-to-oaks-tracking-arizonas-two-beloved-songbirds.htm#respond Fri, 16 Jan 2026 12:05:00 +0000 https://www.10000birds.com/?p=193922 Northern Arizona’s forests offer birders a memorable mix of small, energetic, and intelligent songbirds. Among the most engaging are the Mountain Chickadee (Poecile gambeli) and the Bridled Titmouse (Baeolophus wollweberi). These beauties belong to the tit family (Paridae) and share curious, lively behaviors, yet they differ noticeably in appearance, habitat, and population. Learning to tell them apart—and knowing how to find them during winter —adds wonder to birding in the north. Intelligence and What to Look for The Mountain Chickadee is a well-known resident of higher altitudes. Compact, it has a classic black cap, gray back, pale underside, and the bib of chickadees. Its most distinctive feature is the bold white eyebrow stripe above the eye— that immediately separates it from other chickadee species. Birders often spot this stripe first as the bird flits and flutters through the trees. In The Genius of Birds, Biologist John Marzluff reminds us that Chickadees are among the most intelligent birds for their size. Studies show they are highly cognitively flexible, quickly assessing danger and food availability while sharing social announcements as needed. That familiar “chick-a-dee” call includes critical information. As an example, the number of “dee” notes rise with the potential threat level. Making their songs a form of detailed communication rather than a simple, beautiful alarm. The Bridled Titmouse is similar in size and intelligence but more elongated in shape. It sports a short gray crest and a striking black-and-white facial pattern resembling a bridle or little mask. Although they are missing the chickadee’s eyebrow stripe, its contrasting face and crest make it one of Arizona’s most visually distinctive small songbirds. Both species are on the move, flitting through the trees in search of food. To some birders, their songs may sound similar initially, but over time, they reveal that the Bridled Titmice produce quicker, higher-pitched whistles. While the Mountain Chickadees give a deeper chick-a-dee-dee. Range and Habitat Mountain Chickadees favor ponderosa pine and mixed conifer forests, usually above 6,000 feet, though harsh winters can drive them to visit habitats as low as 4,500 feet. They forage along trunks and branches, gleaning seeds, berries, and insects. During the winter months, Chickadees often join mixed-species flocks with kinglets, nuthatches, and woodpeckers. This is a strategy that helps to improve predator avoidance and foraging success. Bridled Titmice prefer oak-pine, oak woodlands, or pine-juniper habitats. The larger populations are in southeastern and central Arizona. However, suitable habitat extends into northern Arizona, including Sedona and Cottonwood. They are especially prevalent where oaks mix with pinyon, juniper, or ponderosa pine. It is worth noting that Mountain Chickadees occur widely across the West, whereas Bridled Titmice are limited to the southwestern United States, chiefly southwestern New Mexico and Arizona. Behaviors Both species share key traits. These two beloved songbirds are intelligent sentinels (lookouts) and active foragers, often probing bark for insects or hanging upside down. Both join mixed-species flocks in winter and are cavity nesters, using natural tree holes, nest boxes, or former woodpecker cavities. Remember to take a closer look at crest presence, facial markings, and habitat to correctly identify these songbirds. Where to Find Them Fall and winter are great times to observe Mountain Chickadees, which are common around the San Francisco Peaks, the Mogollon Rim, Flagstaff, the White Mountains, Cottonwood, and Sedona. Consider taking binoculars to look at the upper branches of pines and firs along trails; they can be found foraging along trunks in milder weather, and around campgrounds. Bridled Titmice are less predictable in northern areas but can be seen in oak-pine transition zones, canyon woodlands, and riparian corridors near Sedona, Cottonwood, and Prescott, especially where mixed flocks are active. In the springtime, both species become more territorial and vocal. Mountain Chickadees pair up and inspect nesting cavities in conifers, while Bridled Titmice establish breeding territories in mid-elevation oak woodlands. If you are an early riser, you are in luck, as Spring mornings are often the best time to enjoy their songs and see them. Bringing It All Together From oak-lined canyons to the fantastic pine-covered slopes, northern Arizona provides ideal habitat for both the Mountain Chickadee and the Bridled Titmouse. Whether they are calling from a springtime nest site or you see them in a mixed winter flock, both species reward curiosity, careful observation, and patience.]]>

Northern Arizona’s forests offer birders a memorable mix of small, energetic, and intelligent songbirds. Among the most engaging are the Mountain Chickadee (Poecile gambeli) and the Bridled Titmouse (Baeolophus wollweberi). These beauties belong to the tit family (Paridae) and share curious, lively behaviors, yet they differ noticeably in appearance, habitat, and population. Learning to tell them…

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