Do you know what all of the birds in this picture have in common?

Left to right: Rufous-necked Wood-Rail; Eurasian Wigeon; Red Knot; Barrow's Goldeneye; Anna's Hummingbird; and Bar-tailed Godwit.

You're not likely to find them all in the same spot, that's for sure! But these species were all seen in North America this year by Neil Hayward, a birder doing a North American Big Year. As of this afternoon, Hayward has seen a total 744 species in 2013, with 3 additional "provisional" species. That puts him in a very good position to break the record set by Sandy Komito, who saw 745 (+3 "provisional") species in 1998.

Komito had serious competition from two other birders during that big year. The adventures of all three became the basis for a popular book and the big screen film "The Big Year" starring Steve Martin, Owen Wilson, and Jack Black. Hayward is maintaining a very entertaining blog of his year at Accidental Big Year 2013.

Have a look -- the next two weeks will probably see him zipping from state to state and he could very well blow the record out of the water!

The Bateleur is a beautiful and rather colorful species of eagle found in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa and Arabia.

The name Bateleur means "Street Performer" in French. The bird is so named particularly after tight-rope walkers, because of its habit of rocking while soaring or gliding, as if keeping its balance. Adult Bateleurs are notable for their extremely short tails, especially when compared to other birds of prey.

It takes seven or more years for a Bateleur to reach full adult maturity; before that time their tails are actually longer than those of full-grown adults! Juvenile wing feathers are longer as well; as young birds learn to fly, they use the longer feathers to keep stable in the air. During each molt from hatching to adulthood, the wing and tail feathers grow in shorter and shorter.

The Bateleur is thought to be the species represented by stone-carved Zimbabwe Bird sculptures. The carvings, found in the ruined city of Great Zimbabwe, were created in the 11th century and later. The country is named for the ancient city and the Zimbabwe Bird is the national emblem of modern Zimbabwe.

We recently added the Bateleur to Birdorable. If you can't get enough of this very interesting and colorful bird of prey, be sure to check out our collection of cute cartoon Bateleur gifts!

If you think our Birdorable birds are cute as adults, what about when they are babies? Below are some baby photos (shared via Flickr Creative Commons) of the Great Egret. Great Egrets nest in a large colony group, which is known as a rookery or a heronry. In North America, the average clutch size (number of eggs laid) is about three. Incubation takes 23-27 days. Young chicks have a sort of prehistoric look to them, but they get progressively cuter as they age:

Great Egret (Ardea alba) nest with three chicks at the in the Morro Bay Heron Rookery 21 May 2009 by mikebaird

Great Egret Chick by Andrea Westmoreland

(4 of 9) Great Egret Chicks in Nest w/ Parent by mikebaird

great egret chick pair woody by JKD Atlanta

2 of 3 Great Egret Nest with Adult and Two Chicks, Heron Rookery, Morro Bay, CA 27 May 2010 by mikebaird

5 of 6 Great Egret (Ardea alba) nest with three chicks at the Morro Bay Heron Rookery by mikebaird

2 of 6 Great Egret (Ardea alba) nest with three chicks at the Morro Bay Heron Rookery by mikebaird

great egret chicks woody nest by JKD Atlanta

Pretty cute, right? Be sure to check out our Birdorable Great Egret t-shirts and gifts!

Halloween is just a couple of days away! If you're in desperate need of a costume then we may have the solution for you. Check out these two printable Birdorable owl masks! The faces of our cute Barred Owl and Barn Owl are here in larger-than-life full color, ready to print out and wear for Halloween or your next bird-themed fancy dress party! The masks can be made to wear, with the simple addition of some string, or made masquerade-style, stuck on a stick. Just click on a mask thumbnail to download the PDF:

Have you used any of our free printable downloads at home, in your classroom, or at an event? We’d love to hear about it! Send us photos of the pages in action, or the final result – we may showcase them on our blog!

Get ready to dress up your pumpkins this Halloween with some cute Birdorable birds! Below you can download four different cute bird pumpkin carving patterns of varying skill levels as free downloads. Two of our patterns are simple bird cut-outs, and two are inverted designs where the area around the bird must be carved away. Just click on a pattern thumbnail to download the PDF and get carving!

• Our first free pumpkin carving pattern is a cut-out Birdorable chickadee. Chickadees love Halloween, you know! After all, they are always singing, "Trick or treat-treat-treat-treat," aren't they?!
• Next, our free spoonbill pumpkin pattern is another cut-out, though a bit more involved. You know, I bet that spoon-shaped bill would be very handy at cleaning out pumpkin guts this time of year!
• Our cute owl pumpkin cut-away pattern has the owl looking out from inside the pumpkin, how adorable! Owls own the night - even on Halloween - and this little cutie is no exception.
• Finally, we have our cute Birdorable Tufted Titmouse pumpkin pattern. This is another cute-away job, and requires a steady hand to leave enough pumpkin to keep the bird afloat. Be careful carving that wing, too!

Have you used any of our free printable downloads at home, in your classroom, or at an event? We’d love to hear about it! Send us photos of the pages in action, or the final result – we may showcase them on our blog!

We've added eight brand-new coloring pages for Halloween with some of our favorite birds! That's more coloring pages than we've ever added before at one time. Among the new coloring ages are a Eurasian Eagle-Owl hiding behind a carved pumpkin, Scarlet Macaw and Cockatiel together on a "Happy Halloween" page and a cute King Vulture perched on a grave stone. Download them here:

• Halloween Scarlet Macaw and Cockatiel Coloring Page (more about the Scarlet Macaw and Cockatiel)
• Halloween Eurasian Eagle-Owl Coloring Page (more about the Eurasian Eagle-Owl)
• Halloween King Vulture Coloring Page (more about the King Vulture)
• Halloween American Kestrel Coloring Page (more about the American Kestrel)
• Halloween Barn Owl Coloring Page (more about the Barn Owl
• Halloween Indian Vulture Coloring Page (more about the Indian Vulture)
• Halloween California Condor Coloring Page (more about the California Condor)
• Halloween Tufted Titmouse Coloring Page (more about the Tufted Titmouse)

Check here for more coloring pages. Subscribe to the Birdorable Blog by RSS feed or by email to get notified when new downloads like this are added. Have you used our coloring pages at home, in your classroom, or at an event? We’d love to hear about it! Send us photos of the pages in action, or the final result – we may showcase them on our blog!

Today we have added a new species to Birdorable: the Wood Thrush.

The Wood Thrush is a medium-sized songbird in the thrush family. Related birds include the familiar American Robin as well as the Blackbird of Europe. Wood Thrushes breed across parts of eastern North America and winter across parts of Central America. The song of the Wood Thrush is very beautiful. Wood Thrushes have a double voice box, which allows them to sing a melodious harmony with themselves. This specialized voice box is called a syrinx. Some say that the song of the Wood Thrush is the most beautiful of all bird songs. What do you think?

If you can't get enough of this amazing songster, be sure to check out our selection of apparel and gifts featuring our cute cartoon Wood Thrush!

Today we have added the Inca Tern to Birdorable. Inca Terns have a mostly dark grey plumage, with the tail being darker. The wings are tipped in white. Males and females look alike. Adult birds can easily be recognized by their long white mustachial feather plumes. Mustaches are hot right now, making Inca Terns the most popular birds on the beach!

Inca Terns are piscivorous, meaning their diet consists of mostly fish. They eat small fish including anchovies and silversides which are snatched from the water as the bird swoops down from a hovering position. Love these ornate fish-loving birds? Be sure to check out our collection of cute cartoon Inca Tern gifts!

To celebrate our 500th Birdorable, we've added three new coloring pages to our website today. Go to Coloring Pages to download the PDFs. You can visit the meet pages for each bird to check the colors: Passenger Pigeon, Southern Ground Hornbill and European Bee-eater.

Check here for more coloring pages. Subscribe to the Birdorable Blog by RSS feed or by email to get notified when new downloads like this are added. Have you used our coloring pages at home, in your classroom, or at an event? We’d love to hear about it! Send us photos of the pages in action, or the final result – we may showcase them on our blog!

Today our 2013 Birdorable Bonanza concludes as we reveal our 500th species: the Passenger Pigeon.

You probably know that the Passenger Pigeon is extinct. But did you know that there used to be up to 5 billion Passenger Pigeons living in North America, making it possibly the most abundant bird species on earth? Flocks, so thick with pigeons that they would darken the sky, would take hours to pass by. How did we lose this species? How did we go from billions to none?

Passenger Pigeon nest display at Chicago's Field Museum (photo by blogger)

The answer is complicated, but two major factors contributed to the demise of the Passenger Pigeon. First, habitat loss was devastating. The birds used huge swathes of woodland to nest and feed, and their preferred trees were taken in huge numbers for both logging and human development. Hunting to satisfy a taste for pigeon was the other major factor. The development of commercial train routes and explosive (human) population growth in eastern North America resulted in a huge trade of pigeon meat. Passenger Pigeons were slaughtered on a mass scale in the Midwest and then transported by rail to cities like New York and Boston for food. This brief account is an extremely simplified version of the complicated story of the loss of the Passenger Pigeon. Project Passenger Pigeon aims to educate people about the Passenger Pigeon and about extinction. 2014 is the 100 year anniversary of the death of Martha, the last Passenger Pigeon. Please visit Project Passenger Pigeon on the web to learn more.

This concludes our huge 2013 Birdorable Bonanza! We now offer a whopping 500 different cute cartoon birds, each available on a wide range of products. Thanks for following along!