Amongst Chinese language birders, Tengchong – and specifically the monastery on the backside of Laifengshan – is referred to as one of the vital very best puts to peer the Narrow-billed Oriole.
I don’t moderately get the thrill in regards to the Narrow-billed Oriole because it seems moderately very similar to the Black-naped Oriole and it sounds as if is even thought to be conspecific through some government.
Unfortunately, the HBW states that the species is “virtually extinct in some spaces in China owing to looking and trapping for the cagebird business and taxidermy”.
The Maroon Oriole seems a lot more attention-grabbing, regardless that my pictures don’t in point of fact do it complete justice.
Its medical species call traillii is a unprecedented instance of a scientist now not made up through me, specifically Thomas Stewart Traill (1781-1862), a Scottish physician. Consistent with his Wikipedia access, he used to be a powerful however unsuccessful supporter of ladies attending the college, so he is likely one of the higher other folks to call a chicken species after.
He will have to now not be at a loss for words with Stewart Traill (1936–2018), the founding father of a cult-like staff of evangelical Christians, the Church of Bible Figuring out. Given the next description of this particular person, he’s by no means value naming the rest after him: “Extra surprising used to be Traill’s remedy of his spouse, Shirley, and his kids. … on many events … Traill got here house and straight away were given out a scale for his spouse to step on and be weighed. He then spanked his spouse for her obvious failure to fulfill his expectancies. … Traill did this sufficient occasions that Shirley started to cover the dimensions.’
The Stunning Sibia is gorgeous even in Mandarin Chinese language (Li se qi mei, “Stunning babbler”) …
… and naturally in science (medical call pulchella, “little gorgeous”).
The Black Bulbul is available in two morphs – one correctly black …
… and one with a white head.
As I noticed either one of them on the identical spot in Tengchong, I wonder if the chicken under is a results of a pairing of the 2 morphs.
It’s not vital to go away China and move to Nepal to peer the Ashy Bulbul – even if It’s not that i am certain the Chinese language birds are moderately as spell binding as those described at nepaldesk.com:
“[E]xploring Nepal’s desolate tract for the spell binding Ashy Bulbul is an unforgettable enjoy for avid chicken watchers and nature lovers alike”. However I will consider that nepaldesk says roughly the similar about some wonderful and spell binding leeches.
The description of the Bar-winged Flycatcher-shrike at the identical web site isn’t a lot much less exuberant:
“Whilst the Bar-winged Flycatcher-shrike would possibly not rank as Nepal’s most famous chicken, its placing seems, interesting conduct, and contribution to the colourful chicken group unquestionably make it value noticing.”
Contribution to the colourful chicken group. Oh my.
The deficient Mountain Bulbul carries the medical call mcclellandii, after Sir John McClelland (1805–1875) …
… even if stated guy principally labored as an ichthyologist …
… with the exception of additionally being despatched to north-eastern India to spot if tea may well be grown there. No longer certain whether or not he wrote to his spouse about this vital venture, or even though he had a spouse.
It’s sudden to peer an Elvis imitator in Tengchong however what different ecological area of interest may just the Crested Finchbill in all probability occupy?
The Chinese language call of the Chestnut-vented Nuthatch is li tun shi, with the “tun” personality within the heart translated as “buttocks” through Google Translate. I all the time more or less suspected “vented” is a euphemism …
Witout being requested, Google Translate additionally provides that Li tun shi approach “I opened it once more” in Yoruba. Confidently this data comes in handy for some readers, specifically the ones with plans to commute to Nigeria.
Generally I might recall to mind those pictures of a Chestnut-flanked White-eye as being lovely horrible however they do display the name-giving characteristic of the species rather smartly.
And – look forward to it – there may be a paper at the mitochondrial genome series of Chestnut-flanked White-eye. Welcome to ten,000 Birds, the one website online on the earth the place such papers can also be the topic of a working gag. A foul one, admittedly.
This Nice Noticed Woodpecker isn’t even seeking to conceal its spots. However why will have to it.
One paper on Nice Noticed Woodpeckers is titled “Necessities through the Nice Noticed Woodpecker Dendrocopos main for a suburban existence”, however opposite to my expectation, it does now not state that the birds want a automotive (an SUV, possibly?) when dwelling in suburbia.
It kind of feels that on this species, the men do lots of the onerous and the unsightly paintings – specifically hollow excavation and nest sanitation (supply).
Maximum birders almost certainly simplest pay informal consideration to the Korean Magazine of Parasitology and can thus have neglected a paper on a newly recorded feather mite on a Gray-capped Pygmy Woodpecker.
Strangely, the authors declare that they have got no warfare of hobby with this newsletter, indicating that the world feather mite foyer isn’t as robust as I believed.
Consistent with the paper cited above, feather mites are moderately host-specific, so this species of feather mites won’t hassle the Gray-capped Canary Flycatcher. How is that for a hyperlink?
The monastery on the backside of Laifengshan could also be a excellent position to peer Verditer Flycatcher, no less than in iciness.
Just right information for many who are too lazy to make use of Google themselves:
I in any case appeared up “Verditer” on-line.
It approach (supply: Oxford Languages):
“A gentle blue or bluish-green pigment, usually ready through including chalk or whiting to an answer of copper nitrate, utilized in making crayons and as a watercolor”.
The Blue-winged Minla has a cameo position in a paper on a bird-pollinated Himalayan plant.
It sounds as if, the darkish colour of the plant nectar draws the chicken, as proven through managed experiments. Or within the language of the “science hippies” (Ze Frank ), the “pink nectar [acts] as a foraging sign”.
If you don’t like blue, this is the Crimson-tailed Minla.
(To cite from “Duck Soup”, the Marx Brothers film: “The ones are my rules, and when you don’t like them… smartly, I’ve others”).
A complicated-looking eating place in a village close to Tengchong has a goldfish pool put in at its front. It’s not that i am certain what number of vacationers this pool draws, nevertheless it no doubt draws a Brown Fish Owl. From the eating place roof, the owl possibly selects its dinner earlier than swooping down and grabbing it with none lend a hand from the eating place personnel.
A 2004 paper shopping on the warfare between some other fish owl (Tawny) and cold-water fish farmers in Taiwan discovered that owls had been a subject matter at 1 / 4 of the farms seen. Unfortunately, on the majority of those farms, owls had been trapped with metal leg-hold traps or mist nets, leading to 10 owls being discovered drowned within the fish ponds. For the reason that the learn about estimates that the owls take simplest between 0.05% and nil.66% of the fish, the trapping turns out like an overreaction, however however, I really like owls significantly better than fish farmers.
