When birding Sabah, Borneo, one virtually inevitably passes via Kota Kinabalu, the largest metropolis and the vacation spot of just about all worldwide flights. Whereas no birder would come right here only for the birds of the town, a few of them are price spending a couple of hours on. One location to search out them is Tanjung Aru Seaside – I’ll in all probability write a separate put up on it later. An alternative choice is simply to search out some rice paddies on the outskirts and search for birds.
There, you might discover the Java Sparrow. The HBW describes its conservation standing as “considerably paradoxical” – it’s listed as Endangered on its native island of Java because of trapping for meals and for the cage chook commerce. Nonetheless, it’s fairly frequent in lots of areas it has been launched to, together with components of Borneo.
Like many immigrants, the chook is banned from getting into the USA, although not by the standard authorities businesses however by the Division of Agriculture. As a chook primarily feeding on seeds, it’s thought to be a menace to crops (in actual fact, the Latin species title of oryzivora combines the phrases for rice, “oryza”, and consuming, “vorus”).
In case you are a listener of classical music, do you like Schoenberg or Bach? When you select the latter, your music style is extra aligned with that of Java Sparrows (although the pattern dimension on this examine, 4 birds, of which 2 most well-liked Bach whereas the opposite two confirmed no clear choice, appears reasonably small).
One other examine gives some hope to human males who consider themselves pretty much as good karaoke singers. The examine confirmed that male Java Sparrows in higher situation can sing songs with bigger word repertoires and better trill efficiency. So, females may take higher singing as an indicator of higher well being.
(I do know I’ve quoted from it earlier than, however must quote the traces “It didn’t take a lot so that you can fall beneath my spell however up till then you definitely’d by no means seen karaoke sung effectively” from Alan Energy’s “Prodigal Son” once more).
Persevering with with the subject of singing, apparently, Zebra Doves are extremely valued for his or her singing, significantly in components of Southern Thailand.
One supply even states that a spot known as Chana in Thailand is “the rising Southeast Asian capital of Zebra Doves” and that there “the doves usually are not solely price greater than gold but in addition maintain larger values within the native society”.
So, when a big fuel separation plant was in-built Songklha, Thailand, the locals weren’t solely anxious concerning the impression of the emissions on their very own well being but in addition on their Zebra Doves – and subsequent analysis appears to have confirmed these detrimental results.
The significance of the Zebra Doves‘ singing can also be implied within the Javanese language – apparently, “Zebra Dove” is a Javanese metaphor for a selected vocal kind (supply).
The rice paddies are additionally the habitat of three completely different munia species: the Scaly-breasted Munia …
… the Chestnut Munia (regardless of the eBird assertion that the species “prefers wetter areas than Scaly-breasted Munia” – each have been present in precisely the identical location) …
… and the Dusky Munia. The latter apparently adapts to its scorching and humid setting by lowering its metabolism (supply), an possibility that sadly will not be simply accessible to the consistently sweating birdwatcher/chook photographer.
The latter paper makes me glad to not be concerned in ornithological analysis, because it casually mentions that “Munias proved troublesome to take care of in captivity, wouldn’t eat, and usually died inside a day or two.”
Possibly higher to be caught by a Brahminy Kite than to die in a cage of a researcher … although small birds make up for under a small a part of the food regimen of those kites.
Wordnik defines “Brahminy” as “Dedicated to Siva by the Brahmans”, which solutions one query however results in two follow-on questions, who’s Siva (“Shiva performs a number of roles as a Hindu deity. He’s the good ascetic, the grasp of fertility, the grasp of poison and medication, and Lord of Cattle. His mixed roles are exemplary of a bent in Hinduism to see complementary qualities in a single ambiguous determine”, Brittanica), and who’re the Brahmans (members of the best Hindu caste, that of the priesthood, Oxford Reference). No additional follow-on questions (“What doe Hindu imply? Why is there a Lord of Cattle, and what precisely is his job description? When will you lastly return to the principle subject of this put up, which I assumed was birds?”) allowed.
eBird calls the White-breasted Woodswallow a “chunky” chook – members of the species may discover this barely offensive.
The journal “Australian Fowl Watcher” has a paper titled “White-breasted Woodswallows ‘Artamus leucorhynchus’ feeding on distasteful butterflies” describing woodswallows consuming a sure species of butterflies – however with out explaining why these are “distasteful”. Did science go so far as the researchers consuming a few of the butterflies themselves, with a purpose to choose their style?
Because the picture under exhibits, these birds keep wholesome by going via an elaborate routine of yoga workouts that by no means work that effectively for me.
Apparently, the Malaysian Pied Fantail has solely not too long ago been break up from the Philippine Pied Fantail. Its white eyebrow (you may say supercilium as an alternative if you wish to sound extra scientific) is much less pronounced than that of its Philippine relative, giving it a cuter, much less stern look
Displaying solely the picture of a feminine Pink-necked Inexperienced Pigeon is unlucky as solely the male has an precise pink neck. Blame the incompetent photographer for not capturing a male.
Sadly for the storyline of my weblog put up, the Latin species title “vernans” simply means “sensible” or “flourishing” reasonably than being the title of a merciless and evil Western explorer resembling Edward Vernans, Rely of Aberdeen (1805-1845), a Scottish explorer of Borneo who I simply made up.
I used to be questioning whether or not it’s nonetheless politically right to make use of the phrase pygmy, as in Sunda Pygmy Woodpecker. There are fairly a couple of synonyms for pygmy – possibly sooner or later, we should speak of the Sunda Undersized Woodpecker?
Considerably surprisingly, eBird doesn’t appear to treat this species as cute, calling it as an alternative a “small plain woodpecker”.
I didn’t know earlier than, however there’s a scientific journal titled “Journal of Oil Palm Analysis”. Certainly, driving via Borneo in a while this journey, I received the impression that no less than the lowlands of Sabah largely encompass oil palms. Anyway, mentioned journal has a paper on the food regimen of the Yellow-vented Bulbul, as this species is a quite common one in oil crops.
I assume the researchers – not being ornithologists – didn’t have a very onerous time writing a sentence resembling “On this examine, 45 people of P. goiavier [Yellow-vented Bulbul] have been dissected for abdomen content material evaluation”.
The outcomes of the examine usually are not totally constructive for the bulbul – whereas it feeds on bugs, which may be seen as useful, one of many important meals gadgets is a weevil that’s vital in pollinating the oil palms. Certainly, one net web page is titled “Weevils: The unknown and underappreciated pollination heroes”.
Considerably disappointingly, Yellow-vented Bulbuls usually are not drawn to the ethanol in fermenting fruit (supply). I believe I might have labored on some type of joke based mostly on such an attraction. Not solely do these bulbuls feed on the improper bugs, additionally they don’t simply lend themselves to some lame jokes. Disappointing.
