Photo by Paul Holt

Paul Holt has completely revised our 2010 Sichuan itinerary, and the revamped tour promises to be an exciting return to the heart of the Middle Kingdom.

The Chinese government has spent some $150 billion dollars in the time since the Wenchuan earthquake of 2008, and the tourism infrastructure is well developed and travel through this breathtaking region once again routine.

Our new itinerary visits sites from the subtropical forests of the Red Basin to the snow-capped peaks of the sacred mountains, concentrating on the many specialties and endemics of Sichuan.

The electric-blue Grandala. Photo by Paul Holt.

Oh, and pandas, too.

The LA Times’s photo gallery of the recent Owens Lake (CA) Bird Census includes a couple of great shots of WINGS Leader Jon Dunn.

Among the rarities Jon and his team turned up were Baird’s Sandpiper, Herring Gull, and Lapland Longspur.

Senior WINGS Leader Chris Wood and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology announce the 2009 Young Birders Event, August 6-9 in Ithaca, NY.

James writes:

I’ve been home just a few days from a superb tour to Morocco, and am off to Spain today. In between I’ve started my new survey job and done some local birding; highlights have included two new Dutch ticks, Ring Ouzel (Beflijster) and Gray Partridge (Patrijs), as well as Little Ringed Plovers (Kleine Plevier), Long-eared Owl (Ransuil), and Peregrine (Slechtvalk).

The Morocco tour was one of the best yet. Especially notable were displaying Houbara, Egyptian Nightar, Cream-colored Coursers, Desert Sparrow, Fulvous Babblers, Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters, Western and “Saharan” Eastern Olivaceous Warblers, Western Orphean and African Desert Warblers, Bald Ibis, Audouin’s Gull, Alpine Accentor, Marbled Duck, Lanner and Barbary Falcons, Brown-necked Raven, a brief Maghreb Tawny Owl, Pharaoh Eagle Owl, Levaillant’s Woodpecker, Moussier’s Redstart, Moroccan and Spanish Wagtails, and Brown-throated Martin. We also had Spotted, Crowned, and Black-bellied Sandgrouse; Thick-billed, Hoopoe, Bar-tailed, Desert, and Temminck’s Larks; and  Red-rumped, Seebohm’s, and White-crowned Black Wheatears.

After Spain, I’ll head to Estonia after just five days–just enough time to do some surveying and to enjoy my second Koninginnedag!

Discovered yesterday in southeast Arizona’s beautiful Huachuca Canyon, the ABA Area’s second Sinaloa Wren was photographed and recorded this morning.

To help you look for this and the other great birds around right now, reserve an expert guide at WINGS-sponsored AZ-Birding.com .

In many birds, the color of the iris differs between age and sex groups. The red eye of an adult Spotted Towhee or Gray Catbird, for example, is muddy brown in juveniles, and the bright white eyes of female Bushtits distinguish them readily from males.

An unusual sexual difference is shown by Blue-footed Booby. Both sexes have strikingly pale irides, but in females, the inner iris has a dark ring, making the pupil look noticeably larger than in males.

Blue-footed Booby. Photo: Rick Wright

There’s probably no better place in the world to enjoy up-close encounters with this species than the Galapagos islands, where confiding birds can be seen in large numbers. Join Rich Hoyer on his next charter cruise aboard the luxurious M/Y Integrity.

Belize preserves the largest tract of unbroken forest north of the Amazon. This morning’s NYT has a brief article about birding the country–and a great slideshow with a soundtrack to make you homesick if you’ve been there, and eager to go if you haven’t.

Collared Aracari. Photo: Michael O'Brien.

Want to experience Belize for real? Visit Chan Chich, perhaps the finest birding lodge in all of Central America, with Rich Hoyer in January. I’m scheming seriously to go myself….

Birders read more, and more widely, than just about anybody I know.

I’m grateful to Doug Carlson, author of the definitive biography of Roger Tory Peterson and Assistant Editor at The Georgia Review, for word of the new spring issue of that estimable publication, entitled “Culture and the Environment.”

The keynote essay by Scott Russell Sanders draws responses from Alison Hawthorn Deming, David Gessner, Reg Saner, and Lauret Savoy. The issue also contains poetry by Margaret Gibson and Maxine Kumin, among others, as well as a review essay by Jeff Gundy.

Piping Plover. Photo: Darlene J. Moore

The points of view are diverse, the subjects treated equally so. What I’ve read so far is provocative, occasionally even provoking–you’ve got to read Deming’s riff on the infamous “Piping Plovers Taste Like Chicken” bumper sticker!