-Black-eared Wheatear (Oenanthe hispanica)
-Purple Heron (Ardea purpurea)
-Blue Tit (Parus caeruleus)
-Ringneck Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus)
-Eurasian Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis)
-Great Bustard (Otis tarda)
-Pin-tailed Sangrouse (Pterocles alchata)
-Eurasian Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis)
-Eurasian Bee-eater (Merops apiaster)
-Hoopoe (Upupa epops)

The top ten birds that I mot likely to see, in Spain, are:

-Wallcreeper (Tichodroma muraria)
-Eurasian Bittern (Botaurus stellaris)
-Eurasian Roller (Coracias garrulus)
-Osprey (Pandion haliaetus)
-Bluethroat (Luscinia svecica)
-Spanish Imperial Eagle (Aquila adalberti)
-Buttonquail (Turnix sylvatica)
-Purple Swamphen (Porphyrio porphyrio)
-Waldrapp Ibis (Geronticus eremita)
-Spanish Blue-winged Magpie (Cyanopica cooki)

And my favourite birds of all over the world (very difficult to choose):

-Kakapo (Strigops habroptilus)
-Kagu (Rhynochetos jubatus)
-Prince Albert Bird of Paradise (Pteridophora alberti)
-Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephius principalis)
-Takahe (Notornis mantelli)
-Blue Vanga (Cyanolanius madagascarinus)
-Long-taled Ground Roller (Uratelornis chimaera)
-Cuckoo-roller (Leptosomus discolor)
-California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus)
-Bronze-tailed Sylph (Sappho spathanura)

Morgan (7 y.o.)

Here’s my list of birds I like in no particular order:

1) Hyacinth Macaw
2) Green Jay
3) Blue Bird of Paradise
4) Great Grey Owl (So magestic; so powerful looking)
5) Golden Eagle (Talk about large)
6) Golden-Collared Macaw
7) Roller
Common Raven
9) Blue Jay
10) Red-Shouldered Hawk (I was living in North Carolina for one year 2 years ago, and there was a family of Red-Shouldered Hawks roosting on the swingset outdors. Turns out they have been there for 11 years!)

On a side note, this “bird” is quite beautiful. I say “bird” because Boeing 747s aren’t birds, but this thing is spectacular!
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1115723/L/

Joe,

I never knew you had birded so much and always thought your interest was a little more casual. Chalk it up to my density.

dp

I am incapable of spelling the word lose correctly, as I always spell it loose. This can be very embarassing when you mean to say someone’s losing their wife but the message gets interpreted as meaning a women with loose morals.

It pays to check before submitting…

For “Their” read “There” in para 4
For “could” read “good” in para 5

I only found your blog the other day, and sent you and email to say hi. Then you sent me a nice reply back, thanks!

Then you say the bird at the top of your world list is the Kakapo. It was certainly was my top too, until 2002 when I spent two weeks monitoring the movement of all the birds and their brand new chicks. 22hrs a day, 7 days a week for two weeks I was hanging out with them. Fantastic. Haven’t written about it yet on my blog but will stick up a photo or two tonight for you all.

So then I went to look at your piece on the Kakapo, which was very well written! It is unusual to see something so accurate written about NZ species from outside NZ. Their is a neat little twist to the 2002 breeding season story which I will summarize on my blog sometime.

So then I followed Jay’s comment back to his website, only to find that he had linked to the press release on Fairy Tern that I wrote on Friday! We got could coverage on it here, and ENS picked up the story too.

So… it’s a small world.

My top ten birds I’ll take you to see if you come to NZ, all of which are beautiful:
1. Little Spotted Kiwi
2. Fairy Tern
3. Takahe
4. Kaka
5. Kokako
6. Kereru
7. Fantail
8. NZ Robin
9. Red-crowned Kakariki
10. NZ Dotterel

That list is in no particular order, some rare and some common and there’s more than ten that I would stick on that list.

Having lived in Europe for four years, and spent lots of vacations there, the birds of Europe are interesting in their own way. As Nuthatch says, the typical garden birds that have adapted to centuries of living among humans are rather nice. For example:

1. White wagtail
2. Chaffinch
3. European goldfinch
4. Nightingale (stuff of legends)
5. Robin redbreast (so friendly and cute)
6. Bullfinch
7. Hoopoe (very cool bird)
8. Jay (no, not the blogger)
9. Great tit (picture would be safe for work if I had one)
10. Blue tit

1. Painted bunting (thanks, Jay)
2. Red-faced warbler
3. Blue-throated hummingbird
4. Violet-crowned humminbird
5. Magnificent hummingbird
6. Painted redstart
7. Western tanager
8.Green Jay
9. Scarlet tanager
10. Rose-breasted grosbeak

Believe it or not, my husband and I have argued over Wallcreepers as well. He works for a European company, and on a business trip was going to do a little birding on the side — to go for a Wallcreeper that was wintering on the walls of the Neuschwanstein castle in Germany. I told him he did not dare see a Wallcreeper before I did! The editor of Birder’s World notes in my comments that there’ll be an article on Wallcreepers in the August issue.

BTW, I felt much the same as you regarding Europe as a birding destination, but having visited, they do have great garden birds, and I really enjoyed it. But Latin America will always have my heart.