You realize, in my posts, I do the weave. You realize what the weave is? I’ll speak about like two various things, like, Donald Trump and kingfishers, and so they come again brilliantly collectively, and it’s like, mates of mine which can be, like, waste managers, they are saying, “It’s essentially the most good factor I’ve ever seen.”
Just a few months in the past, fellow 10,000 Birds author Paul Lewis wrote “All he [Kai] has to do to give you a invaluable publish is to tug out of few of these photographs [his bird photos], add a number of snarky feedback, and he’s good to go”.
I believe this is perhaps certainly one of these posts, possibly even with out too many snarky feedback (although I can’t but guarantee you of that, and naturally, the primary paragraph additionally may very well be thought of snarky). For the kingfishers of Vietnam are fairly spectacular and able to carrying a publish with out a lot enter from the author.
The primary kingfisher I noticed on the journey was on the primary day, and in Ho Chi Minh Metropolis – the quite common Collared Kingfisher.
The Straits Instances, a Singapore newspaper, has a cute and partly unhappy article on attempting to avoid wasting the lifetime of a Collared Kingfisher affected by an oil spill – full with photographs of the chicken being dried in towels like I do it with kittens discovered on the streets of Shanghai.
Whereas this species is frequent in Singapore, it appears to be uncommon in Goa – a Goan paper states that “The Collared Kingfisher of Goa together with a number of different birds which can comply with within the coming weeks is nearly a star within the birding scene of India.”
One (for my part moderately unconvincing) research of the weight loss program of the White-throated Kingfisher makes use of photographs of the chicken with prey posted on social media as its information supply. Of greater than 1200 photographs posted, solely 89 confirmed a chicken with prey – and of those, 27% have been arthropods (i.e., bugs and related animals), 19% fish, 14% amphibians, 20% reptiles and seven% different birds (together with one mammal and a number of other unknown prey objects).
Why unconvincing? Effectively, if I had a whole lot of photographs of the kingfisher with totally different prey, would I moderately publish the one with a pleasant huge fish or with some small weird-looking insect? So, the number of posted photographs just isn’t prone to be consultant in any respect.
The decision of this kingfisher apparently masked the presence of a small new frog species for a very long time, because the frog’s name sounds similar to the well-known one of many kingfisher (supply). An fascinating coincidence.
How do White-breasted Kingfishers move their time? In keeping with one paper, they spent a mean of 54% of their time scanning, 23% feeding, 13% flying, 6% preening, and 4% resting – although I ponder how clear the excellence between resting and scanning is.
The Black-backed Dwarf Kingfisher is listed as Close to Threatened on Wikipedia and eBird whereas Cornell is vacillating, stating inside the similar paragraph that the conservation standing is Close to Threatened and that the species just isn’t globally threatened and listed as Least Concern. I typically suppose Cornell will not be as centered on birds as the opposite two sources.
eBird admiringly calls it a “brilliantly coloured, tiny forest kingfisher with a coral-red dagger invoice”. It’s certainly one of many smallest kingfishers on this planet.
The scientific title Ceyx erithaca (which means “red-breasted”) appears to point that the chicken was named based mostly solely on black-and-white photographs.
However the absolute star of the present – and for me, of the entire journey – was the Banded Kingfisher, particularly, the male.
Cornell justifiably calls it a “comparatively small however spectacular kingfisher endowed with putting sexual dimorphism” – certainly there’s a large distinction between the male …
… and the feminine, despite the fact that each comply with the identical fundamental design concepts.
An fascinating characteristic is the best way the chicken slowly raises and lowers its crest (video 1, video 2).
You thought I copied the identical photograph twice? No, these two photographs aren’t the identical. Have a look at the crest.
The scientific title Lacedo pulchella (pulchella means small and really fairly) matches nicely.
This photograph is like certainly one of these Japanese woodcuts – younger woman underneath parasol
The genus title Lacedo additionally justifies some clarification – it’s an anagram of Alcedo, the Latin phrase for kingfisher (supply).
Ultimate self-check: How did I do with regard to snarky feedback? I suppose I didn’t completely do with out them, with a researcher pondering that utilizing Fb as a supply is a good suggestion, and Cornell getting some flack … nonetheless, not too unhealthy. Possibly “Altersmilde” (getting mild-mannered with outdated age) is steadily setting in.
Although it’s onerous to finish this publish with out stating that the birds of Springfield, Ohio all assist Kamala Harris today.
