The Datang space stretches North from Tengchong, with principally only one highway (G219) having much less and fewer site visitors earlier than it will definitely peters out in a collection of curves about 10 kilometers earlier than reaching the border to Myanmar.
Sadly, this makes it sound a bit extra fascinating for birding than it turned out for me – although admittedly, I spent lower than a day there. And the world was advisable to me, so probably my restricted birding expertise are in charge, quite than the birds themselves.
That mentioned, there have been just a few fascinating birds, such because the Bar-throated Minla.
Considerably unusually, the HBW calls it a “small gray to yellow babbler” – whereas the species certainly has some gray elements, that isn’t the colour that sticks to thoughts when seeing or remembering the chook.
Other than some restricted description within the HBW, there may be once more quite restricted data accessible on the species, maybe as a result of it doesn’t often reside on college campuses and thus isn’t a most well-liked goal for ornithologists.
An Indian paper mocks the Lovely Sibia when discussing the range-restricted species that may be seen at an Indian birding spot, the Eaglenest Sanctuary: “… the ever-present Lovely Sibia Heterophasia pulchella, a colorless ashy-grey chook titled lovely!”
That appears a bit unfair to me. I often prohibit my unfair jokes to people.
Plus the sibia apparently performs an essential function within the pollination of 1 endangered rhododendron species (supply).
When looking for data on the Black-headed Sibia, I stumbled throughout a promising-sounding net web page titled “Uncovering the Fascinating Behaviors of the Black-headed Sibia“.
Nevertheless, the article itself disappoints. The fascinating conduct primarily appears to be that the members of the species “seek for bugs and larvae in bushes”. And the outline of the distinctive look of the species is adopted by what feels like a disclaimer, particularly that whereas “… the Black-headed Sibia has distinctive options, it may be confused with different chook species”.
If that was not boring sufficient, someone additionally analyzed the entire mitochondrial genome of the species.
Seeing Blyth’s Shrike-babbler (or White-browed Shrike-babbler) permits me to say certainly one of my favourite bands, the UK-based Blyth Energy (named after a locomotive, not named after the ornithologist Edward Blyth – someway I believe that the shrike-babbler is called after the latter although I form of hope to be improper).
Blyth Energy songs that may be accessed on-line and include my very own suggestion embrace “Animal Farm“, “Weapons of Fortress Cary” “Alnwick & Tyne” and “Higher to bat“. Recommendation to chook species that need to get featured on this weblog: Don’t select names which can be too much like names of my favourite bands. For instance, a hypothetical Nationwide Bulbul would haven’t any probability to get any protection right here.
That is in distinction to the Brown-chested Bulbul. This chook might in some unspecified time in the future might have did not pay its membership charges to eBird – at the very least judging from the quite hostile description of the species as a “massive uninteresting bulbul of scrubby forest edges, farmland, and parks”. Makes the species nearly sound a bit apocalyptic.
A paper on the species asks the essential query “Does nest sanitation elicit egg rejection in an open-cup nesting cuckoo host rejecter?”
To rephrase: if you happen to put some trash right into a nest of a chook together with a cuckoo egg, does that enhance the possibility that the cuckoo egg will likely be kicked out?
How you can discover out? Here’s what the paper says: “Within the first group, we added a blue, non-mimetic egg to the nest of the host, whereas within the second group we added a blue, non-mimetic egg and a peanut half-shell.” So, both only a faux egg or a faux egg and trash (a peanut shell).
And the outcome: all peanut shells have been expelled, however the ejection price of the faux eggs was the identical in each teams and (I feel) fairly low at about 53%. So, probably loads of cuckoo chicks would have been raised by the bulbuls. Poor bulbuls, however then once more, they’re massive uninteresting birds anyway, in keeping with eBird.
Scientifically talking, the result’s this: “Our examine indicated that nest sanitation conduct of Brown-breasted Bulbuls didn’t affect their egg recognition and that egg discrimination skill of Brown-breasted Bulbuls was in a roundabout way associated to nest sanitation conduct.”
My guess is that that is an Jap Buzzard. However be at liberty to disagree.
Whereas there are a lot of explanations for the way new species may develop, I nonetheless discover a number of the urged mechanisms a bit implausible. The Jap Buzzard is an instance of how this may occur in actuality (supply). Aparently, there are two subspecies, one on the Japanese islands and one on the Asian mainland. Whereas they winter collectively on a number of the Western islands of Japan, they then migrate alongside very totally different pathways, one on the mainland and one alongside the string of Japanese islands. Because the Sea of Japan is in between these two pathways (and buzzards neither wish to swim nor to fly lengthy distances over water because of the lack of thermals), these pathways appear to be fairly separate from one another, and certainly the 2 subspecies have been genetically separate for about 0.8 million years (which is a very long time for instance when watching a boring film, however not a really lengthy interval by the beneficiant requirements of evolution).
Inexperienced-backed Tits appear to have been studied pretty extensively by ornithologists, which makes me wonder if the species prefers nesting on college campuses or close to good but inexpensive resorts.
For instance, one examine discovered that male tit dad and mom favor to feed massive and medium-sized chicks whereas feminine tits make no such distinction. Judging from my expertise within the human world, a really predictable outcome.
One other examine had a equally predictable outcome: Inexperienced-backed Tits are capable of discriminate in opposition to eggs of the improper coloration (for instance, added by a cuckoo) until it’s too darkish.
(Beneath strain, I’d admit that the precise findings of the examine are a bit extra subtle, however that would cut back the humorous worth of introducing them to my readers. Anyway …)
This Leaf Warbler is a bit embarrassed about its boring look and similiarity to many different species, and would due to this fact favor that its species title isn’t talked about right here. Most birders will perceive.
Crimson-tailed Minlas keep slim by solely consuming very small bugs which can be arduous to achieve. A weight reduction technique additionally advisable for people.
The Mandarin Chinese language title Huo Wei Xi Mei (fire-tailed babbler) is a little more fascinating than the English title, and higher aligned with the scientific title ignotincta.
Sure, typically I’ve extra pictures that I need to present than helpful data.
One Indian examine discovered that Plumbeous Water Redstarts (and lots of different birds) appear to keep away from the proximity of cell phone towers. Sadly, I can’t decide in any respect how stable the science of this paper is (instinctively – being a chemist who has sturdy publicity to all types of poisonous chemical compounds within the lab – I have a tendency to consider such research as seemingly coming from individuals completely carrying aluminum foil hats, however I might be completely improper).
In the event you consider finding out ornithology however dislike maths, you may need to learn this excerpt of an summary on the presence of Plumbeous Water Redstart at some Himalayan rivers first:
“We then in contrast the efficiency of a number of discriminant evaluation (MDA), logistic regression (LR), and synthetic neural networks (ANN) in predicting this species’ presence or absence from 32 variables describing stream altitude, slope, habitat construction, chemistry, and invertebrate abundance. Utilizing your entire knowledge (=coaching set) and a threshold for accepting presence in ANN and LR set to P?0.5, ANN accurately categorised marginally extra circumstances (88%) than both LR (83%) or MDA (84%). Mannequin efficiency was assessed from two strategies of knowledge partitioning. In a ‘leave-one-out’ method, LR accurately predicted extra circumstances (82%) than MDA (73%) or ANN (69%). Nevertheless, in a holdout process, all of the strategies carried out equally (73–75%). All strategies predicted true absence (i.e. specificity in holdout: 81–85%) higher than true presence (i.e. sensitivity: 57–60%). “
Don’t say you haven’t been warned.
I’ve to admit I don’t fairly know what the “whiskered” within the Whiskered Yuhina title refers to. I can’t simply spot any whiskers.
The Chinese language title (yellow-necked babbler) and the scientific title flavicollis (“golden-necked”) make rather more sense to me.
Anyway, one other chook species with out a lot scientific data on it – an appropriately lame ending to a lame publish.
