I'm shocked that there are only about 10k species of birds. I had expected there to be more, for some reason.
It is actually quite a lot. For example, there are 6400 mammal species.
A birder's quest to see 10k species
21–30 of 35 posts
Re: A birder's quest to see 10k species
#22I'm shocked that there are only about 10k species of birds. I had expected there to be more, for some reason.
The diversity is pretty fascinating. About half of the 10k are songbirds, the largest group by far even though they’re believed to be the most recent to diverge. Many groups have ~200-300 species each, like owls or woodpeckers or parrots. Some that you wouldn’t expect have a bunch of species (150 cuckoos?! 114 kingfishers!) and then others barely have any (6 flamingos; 2 ostriches - tho they’re both very old)
Re: A birder's quest to see 10k species
#23I've been a casual birder for a couple years now. I've been hearing about the Merlin app for a while, but never installed it until this past week. It has profoundly changed my experience of looking for birds. If you're unfamiliar with the app, you can start recording on your phone and it will tell you in real time which birds are singing nearby. I haven't used it for positive identifications, just for knowing which b…
I've been using BirdNet for a while. Is Merlin significantly better?
They're both run by Cornell Labs though BirdNET has a larger data training set. They both use the McCauley library, but BirdNET uses more data beyond that for training so it's actually better than Merlin for that. Merlin's got a lot more functionality than just audio ids, though.
Re: A birder's quest to see 10k species
#24Given the increasing difficulty of finding/seeing new species, at some point it will become 10 or 100 times more costly in time/money to see each new bird.
Re: A birder's quest to see 10k species
#25I have seen about 180. Nothing to brag about but it has taken me about 10 years. I have not been obsessive about it but has been a leisure activity many weekends. I have done it around the area I have been, but not travelled further than maybe 2, max 3 hours for the point of it. It is a nice hobby, sharpens your senses and it is fulfilling to observe nature. Compare for example with Pokemon Go, I find it infinitely m…
It’s more healthy not to be so “obsessive” and just do it because it’s a fun way to get outdoors. Though the obsessive ones get celebrated it seems like a kind of madness, I wonder if they even enjoy it. I do like photographing birds. So I’ll often bring my camera. Once and while you’ll see something different like a heron catching fish. https://www.flickr.com/photos/acomjean/9661826854/in/photost... But a lot of tim…
But on the other hand, our knowledge and classification of the natural world is built on the shoulders of the "obsessive"s.
Most areas of naturalism require digging deep and obsessing over minutiae to unearth new discoveries.
Re: A birder's quest to see 10k species
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not an exclusive bird observer. I make observations of 'moving' organisms from mammals to invertebrates, recording my observations on iNaturalist [1], which is a pretty good way for me to track what I've seen. [1] https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&user_i...
I'm always surprised by the quality of insect pictures on inaturalist. What are you using? My focus has been on fungi and plants, but I try to scan what people are recording in my region just to keep up with what is around, where it is and what time of life it is. The turtles laying eggs around now are worth keeping an eye out for as an example.
I am currently using a Sony RX10M4 camera with a Nisi close-up lens attachment.
It is a 'point and shoot' model (no detachable lens), so the lens attachment helps to zoom in on small organisms. With some support, I can take handheld shots of insects about 5 mm in length.
At the moment, I still find mirrorless cameras by Canon, Sony, etc. a bit too expensive for my taste, so I compromised by getting the RX10M4, which is considered one of the best P&S cameras with a huge zoom range, which is good for shooting all kinds of wildlife, big and small.
Re: A birder's quest to see 10k species
#27I'm shocked that there are only about 10k species of birds. I had expected there to be more, for some reason.
It is actually quite a lot. For example, there are 6400 mammal species.
There's quite a few more birds than mammals, though mammals are not especially diverse, esp. with 60% of mammal diversity in bats and rodents. There's at least 50k identified mollusk species, 65k identified arachnids, and with insects things go nuts with ~900k. There's around 60k identified vertebrate species overall (fish, mammals, reptiles, birds, amphibians, etc), the invertebrates ~1.3 million.
Re: A birder's quest to see 10k species
#28I have seen about 180. Nothing to brag about but it has taken me about 10 years. I have not been obsessive about it but has been a leisure activity many weekends. I have done it around the area I have been, but not travelled further than maybe 2, max 3 hours for the point of it. It is a nice hobby, sharpens your senses and it is fulfilling to observe nature. Compare for example with Pokemon Go, I find it infinitely m…
I'm not an exclusive bird observer. I make observations of 'moving' organisms from mammals to invertebrates, recording my observations on iNaturalist [1], which is a pretty good way for me to track what I've seen. [1] https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&user_i...
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Re: A birder's quest to see 10k species
#29I've been a casual birder for a couple years now. I've been hearing about the Merlin app for a while, but never installed it until this past week. It has profoundly changed my experience of looking for birds. If you're unfamiliar with the app, you can start recording on your phone and it will tell you in real time which birds are singing nearby. I haven't used it for positive identifications, just for knowing which b…
I’ve been using BirdNET for a few years now. Looks like it is the same university that makes Merlin.
BirdNET has more data and more species but Merlin can work in real-time on your phone without internet.
Re: A birder's quest to see 10k species
#30I've been a casual birder for a couple years now. I've been hearing about the Merlin app for a while, but never installed it until this past week. It has profoundly changed my experience of looking for birds. If you're unfamiliar with the app, you can start recording on your phone and it will tell you in real time which birds are singing nearby. I haven't used it for positive identifications, just for knowing which b…
I wonder if there is anything like this for snakes.