Home Birds Birding Hongbenghe, Yunnan (Half 3)

Birding Hongbenghe, Yunnan (Half 3)

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Birding Hongbenghe, Yunnan (Half 3)

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

(Sure, I’m joking. In line with the extremely profitable e-book ” 7 Habits of Extremely Profitable Birding Weblog Submit 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 unique phrase), it ought to begin with a Black Bulbul.

 

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 you must surrender on the good pink invoice.

However you achieve a crest.

I could 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 one in every of its nests, which appears to assist my principle.

 

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 Crimson-vented Bulbul is their soulmate.

 

Whereas the pink vent of that bulbul may be very attribute, the white throat of the White-throated Bulbul is way 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 hen to call it.

 

Absolute newbies within the space of hen images is perhaps inclined to make use of red-eye correction after taking photographs of the Ashy Drongo. However no, the attention shade is actual, higher depart it alone.

 

What if all the pieces you ever knew seems to be flawed? This can be a discovering offered in a paper on the Better 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
Better Racket-tailed Drongo Dicrurus paradiseus”

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

They can even be glad to be alive within the first place after studying this horror story about Better 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 other way up in entrance of her face, and shaking it a few instances while wanting round her, inflicting the sufferer’s dad and mom to develop into frantic of their mobbing. She shifted to a different department and once more held the chick the other 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 photographs.

Lesser Racket-tailed Drongos in all probability 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 individual’s meals preferences by stating that he/she eats principally all the pieces).

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

For some cause, it will be important for eBird to level out that the Blue-bearded Bee-eater doesn’t look swish in flight. A Blue-bearded Bee-eater I requested about this identified that almost all eBird writers don’t look very swish cramped of their Financial system seats both. Most 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 fascinating article discusses this in some element.

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

The researchers speculate that that is due to the distinction towards 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’d in all probability ask for some good bathing amenities.

They’d in all probability additionally ask for many towels, which weren’t supplied right here.

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

Perhaps a protection mechanism to keep away from ending up as a cage hen?

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

Given the small measurement 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 a superb clarification for the sceptical look of the owl in these photographs.

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”.

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

That is the type of discuss that instantly makes me consider an amazing e-book title, “Hyperbole and a Half“.

After all, not each reader of 10,000 Birds is excited about birds. Subsequently, authors are inspired to deal with crossover subjects that mix ornithology with different areas of scientific curiosity. An excellent instance of this method is me mentioning a paper on “Three Species of Chewing Lice (Mallophaga: Ischnocera) from the Widespread 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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