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Saturday, November 23, 2024

Birding Hongbenghe, Yunnan (Half 3)


This submit begins like each birding weblog submit ought to begin – by showcasing some bulbul species.

(Sure, I’m joking. In response to the extremely profitable e-book ” 7 Habits of Extremely Profitable Birding Weblog Put up Writers”, solely about 50% of birding weblog posts ought to begin with bulbuls).

And naturally, provided that black is the brand new black (sure, I do know – not a really authentic phrase), it ought to begin with a Black Bulbul.

Birding Hongbenghe, Yunnan (Half 3)

 

In case you are extra of a part-time lover of the colour black, the Black-crested Bulbul could also be a more sensible choice. Although it’s a must to hand over on the great purple invoice.

However you acquire a crest.

I’ll have written this earlier than (at my age, repeating your self is just about the one factor that retains you alive), however the flavescent within the Flavescent Bulbul – although it sounds fairly grand to me – merely means yellowish.

 

The eyes of the Gray-eyed Bulbul make it look completely barely depressed – or am I simply projecting? Anyway, I as soon as discovered a field of Prozac subsequent to considered one of its nests, which appears to help my concept.

 

Some joggers put on very brightly neon-colored shorts, both to point that they’re colorblind or to draw consideration to their rear areas. The Purple-vented Bulbul is their soulmate.

 

Whereas the purple vent of that bulbul could be very attribute, the white throat of the White-throated Bulbul is far much less conspicuous – my guess is the ornithologists merely ran out of appropriate names and thus had to make use of a relatively secondary function of the chicken to call it.

 

Absolute inexperienced persons within the space of chicken images is perhaps inclined to make use of red-eye correction after taking pictures of the Ashy Drongo. However no, the attention shade is actual, higher go away it alone.

 

What if all the pieces you ever knew seems to be unsuitable? It is a discovering offered in a paper on the Larger Racket-tailed Drongo.

Particularly, the thought-provoking and revolutionary discovering is that this:

“Overturning greater than a century of mistaken notions on the plumage of subadult
Larger Racket-tailed Drongo Dicrurus paradiseus”

Many misidentified subadult drongos might be very glad to listen to this.

They will even be completely happy to be alive within the first place after studying this horror story about Larger Racket Tailed Drongo chicks being eaten by gibbons.

“She [the female gibbon] was busy consuming the flesh of the chick, unconcerned by the sturdy mobbing of the drongos. After ending the primary chick she took the second chick from the nest. The chick was calling and waving its legs repeatedly to flee. The feminine Hoolock [gibbon] inspected the chick for a while, holding it the wrong way up in entrance of her face, and shaking it a few occasions while wanting round her, inflicting the sufferer’s mother and father to grow to be frantic of their mobbing. She shifted to a different department and once more held the chick the wrong way up whereas it opened its gape to its widest extent. After some time, she bit off the chick’s head, ate it, after which began consuming the physique.”

If that’s not terrifying sufficient for you, go to the supply paper for pictures.

Lesser Racket-tailed Drongos most likely will hope that the gibbons are very particular of their meal choice – however that’s unlikely because the paper describes the gibbons as “primarily omnivorous” (although that expression strikes me as barely bizarre – as if describing some particular person’s meals preferences by stating that he/she eats largely all the pieces).

Bianchi’s Warbler (if certainly that is what my photograph exhibits) is what eBird calls – in a tone not precisely encouraging future generations of birdwatchers – “One in every of plenty of mind-numbingly related Seicercus warblers”.

For some purpose, it will be significant for eBird to level out that the Blue-bearded Bee-eater doesn’t look sleek in flight. A Blue-bearded Bee-eater I requested about this identified that almost all eBird writers don’t look very sleek cramped of their Economic system seats both. Almost definitely, each events are proper.

The band Van Halen famously banned brown M&Ms from the issues served to them at live performance venues – an attention-grabbing article discusses this in some element.

Blue-throated Barbets apparently even have shade preferences associated to their meals. In response to the HBW, captive wild-caught juveniles from the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Backyard in China are likely to want black and purple fruits over yellow, inexperienced or blue fruits.

The researchers speculate that that is due to the distinction in opposition to the inexperienced cover background – a proof that appears a bit spurious to me if utilized to captive birds.

If Blue-winged Minlas gave live shows, they might most likely ask for some good bathing amenities.

They might most likely additionally ask for plenty of towels, which weren’t offered right here.

The Brown-cheeked Fulvetta is one other chicken thrashed by eBird, which calls it an “unapologetically drab and unmarked fulvetta” with calls that “embrace loud sputtery chattering and rattling.”

Possibly a protection mechanism to keep away from ending up as a cage chicken?

The HBW entry on the Collared Scops Owl is disappointingly quick, provided that that is a particularly cute and engaging chicken and that the entry is attributed to 9 (!) authors. Presumably, every of them wrote just one or two sentences.

Given the small dimension of the owl (23-25 cm), the eBird characterization as a medium-sized owl can also be a bit unusual. Certainly, Wikipedia states that the collared scops owl is a small owl.

These variations are an excellent clarification for the sceptical look of the owl in these pictures.

The Collared Treepie is a member of the Corvid household, which options in a paper within the Journal of Social Work and Social Improvement titled “Finding Crow in Agricultural and Domesticated Waste Administration – Understanding Distribution, Mythology and Utility”.

By which the authors state that “a world with out crows can be a pile of garbage, useless animals, and different perishable issues that might upset the steadiness of the surroundings”.

That is the sort of speak that instantly makes me consider an important e-book title, “Hyperbole and a Half“.

After all, not each reader of 10,000 Birds is all in favour of birds. Subsequently, authors are inspired to deal with crossover matters that mix ornithology with different areas of scientific curiosity. A very good instance of this strategy is me mentioning a paper on “Three Species of Chewing Lice (Mallophaga: Ischnocera) from the Frequent Emerald Dove“.

Presumably, this can be a male …

… and this a feminine (HBW: related, however rufous or chestnut-brown the place male is purplish; lacks white shoulder patch; white and gray on head restricted to entrance of brow and stripe over eye).

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