10000birds

PICOP is a collection of sites near Bislig in Mindanao. In the late 50s to the early 60s, it was a logging concession awarded to the Paper Industries Corporation of the Philippines (PICOP). In the late 80s, PICOP began to decline as a company, and the forest is now dominated by informal settlers and loggers unafraid of government enforcement, as the authorities are easily bri...

One volume, 370 pages and 1,100 species: what their names stand for, both common and scientific? Let me try one particular species. Knowing that Eurasian Wren’s scientific name is Troglodytes troglodytes, and that troglodyte is a cave-man, I was always puzzled why that little bird has such a rude name, a downright insult of a name. Observing it exploring the hollows under the...

Spotted Wood Kingfisher Streaked Spiderhunter Oriental Pied Hornbill Black-throated Sunbird Art by J. W.

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My Big Year Rotterdam entitles me to having an opinion on other people’s Big Year efforts. Our guide Mercedes Alpizar has done a Big Year Costa Rica, so I thought (and nearly said) such an endeavour would be easy-peasy-lemonsqueezy when you live in a biodiversity hotspot. Fortunately, I kept my mouth shut (for once) and avoided some serious egg-on-face because birding in Cost...

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. This one of the greatest times ever to be here on the southern Baja. The weather is cooling off, the water is still nice and warm, and the migratory birds are literally flocking into the a...