Amongst Chinese language birders, Tengchong – and significantly the monastery on the backside of Laifengshan – is called probably the greatest locations to see the Slender-billed Oriole.
I don’t fairly get the excitement in regards to the Slender-billed Oriole because it appears to be like fairly just like the Black-naped Oriole and apparently is even considered conspecific by some authorities.
Sadly, the HBW states that the species is “virtually extinct in some areas in China owing to searching and trapping for the cagebird commerce and taxidermy”.
The Maroon Oriole appears to be like way more fascinating, although my pictures do probably not do it full justice.
Its scientific species identify traillii is a uncommon instance of a scientist not made up by me, particularly Thomas Stewart Traill (1781-1862), a Scottish physician. Based on his Wikipedia entry, he was a powerful however unsuccessful supporter of girls attending the college, so he is among the higher individuals to call a chook species after.
He shouldn’t be confused with Stewart Traill (1936–2018), the founding father of a cult-like group of evangelical Christians, the Church of Bible Understanding. Given the next description of this individual, he’s definitely not value naming something after him: “Extra stunning was Traill’s remedy of his spouse, Shirley, and his youngsters. … on many events … Traill got here residence and instantly acquired out a scale for his spouse to step on and be weighed. He then spanked his spouse for her obvious failure to fulfill his expectations. … Traill did this sufficient instances that Shirley started to cover the size.’
The Lovely Sibia is gorgeous even in Mandarin Chinese language (Li se qi mei, “Lovely babbler”) …
… and naturally in science (scientific identify pulchella, “little lovely”).
The Black Bulbul is available in two morphs – one correctly black …
… and one with a white head.
As I noticed each of them on the similar spot in Tengchong, I ponder whether the chook beneath is a results of a pairing of the 2 morphs.
It isn’t essential to go away China and go to Nepal to see the Ashy Bulbul – regardless that I’m not positive the Chinese language birds are fairly as enchanting as those described at nepaldesk.com:
“[E]xploring Nepal’s wilderness for the enchanting Ashy Bulbul is an unforgettable expertise for avid chook watchers and nature lovers alike”. However I can think about that nepaldesk says roughly the identical about some wonderful and enchanting leeches.
The description of the Bar-winged Flycatcher-shrike on the identical web site is just not a lot much less exuberant:
“Whereas the Bar-winged Flycatcher-shrike could not rank as Nepal’s most famed chook, its placing appears to be like, fascinating habits, and contribution to the colourful chook neighborhood undoubtedly make it value noticing.”
Contribution to the colourful chook neighborhood. Oh my.
The poor Mountain Bulbul carries the scientific identify mcclellandii, after Sir John McClelland (1805–1875) …
… regardless that stated man primarily labored as an ichthyologist …
… other than additionally being despatched to north-eastern India to determine if tea might be grown there. Unsure whether or not he wrote to his spouse about this essential mission, or even when he had a spouse.
It’s shocking to see an Elvis imitator in Tengchong however what different ecological area of interest may the Crested Finchbill probably occupy?
The Chinese language identify of the Chestnut-vented Nuthatch is li tun shi, with the “tun” character within the center translated as “buttocks” by Google Translate. I all the time form of suspected “vented” is a euphemism …
Witout being requested, Google Translate additionally provides that Li tun shi means “I opened it once more” in Yoruba. Hopefully this info is helpful for some readers, significantly these with plans to journey to Nigeria.
Usually I’d consider these pictures of a Chestnut-flanked White-eye as being fairly horrible however they do present the name-giving characteristic of the species fairly nicely.
And – await it – there’s a paper on the mitochondrial genome sequence of Chestnut-flanked White-eye. Welcome to 10,000 Birds, the one web site on the planet the place such papers could be the topic of a operating gag. A nasty one, admittedly.
This Nice Noticed Woodpecker isn’t even attempting to cover its spots. However why ought to it.
One paper on Nice Noticed Woodpeckers is titled “Necessities by the Nice Noticed Woodpecker Dendrocopos main for a suburban life”, however opposite to my expectation, it doesn’t state that the birds want a automotive (an SUV, maybe?) when residing in suburbia.
Plainly on this species, the males do many of the arduous and the ugly work – particularly gap excavation and nest sanitation (supply).
Most birders most likely solely pay informal consideration to the Korean Journal of Parasitology and can thus have missed a paper on a newly recorded feather mite on a Gray-capped Pygmy Woodpecker.
Surprisingly, the authors declare that they don’t have any battle of curiosity with this text, indicating that the worldwide feather mite foyer is just not as highly effective as I believed.
Based on the paper cited above, feather mites are fairly host-specific, so this species of feather mites is not going to trouble the Gray-capped Canary Flycatcher. How is that for a hyperlink?
The monastery on the backside of Laifengshan can be an excellent place to see Verditer Flycatcher, a minimum of in winter.
Excellent news for many who are too lazy to make use of Google themselves:
I lastly seemed up “Verditer” on-line.
It means (supply: Oxford Languages):
“A lightweight blue or bluish-green pigment, sometimes ready by 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 function in a paper on a bird-pollinated Himalayan plant.
Apparently, the darkish coloration of the plant nectar attracts the chook, as proven by managed experiments. Or within the language of the “science hippies” (Ze Frank ), the “purple nectar [acts] as a foraging sign”.
If you don’t like blue, right here is the Purple-tailed Minla.
(To cite from “Duck Soup”, the Marx Brothers film: “These are my rules, and should you don’t like them… nicely, I’ve others”).
A complicated-looking restaurant in a village close to Tengchong has a goldfish pool put in at its entrance. I’m not positive what number of vacationers this pool attracts, however it definitely attracts a Brown Fish Owl. From the restaurant roof, the owl presumably selects its dinner earlier than swooping down and grabbing it with none assist from the restaurant employees.
A 2004 paper trying on the battle between one other fish owl (Tawny) and cold-water fish farmers in Taiwan discovered that owls have been a problem at 1 / 4 of the farms noticed. Sadly, on the majority of those farms, owls have been trapped with metal leg-hold traps or mist nets, leading to 10 owls being discovered drowned within the fish ponds. On condition that the research estimates that the owls take solely between 0.05% and 0.66% of the fish, the trapping looks like an overreaction, however then once more, I like owls significantly better than fish farmers.
