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Don’t you adore it when weblog publish writers break up matters that don’t curiosity you within the first place into two separate elements? Welcome to Birding Tongbiguan, half 1. The boring title shouldn’t be even completely true – the publish consists of photographs taken at Rongshuwang and Nabang, locations a couple of dozen kilometers away from Tongbiguan. Significantly the latter – Nabang – would previously simply have merited its personal publish, however latest developments there that now make the place a bit like the previous border between West and East Germany modified that.
eBird calls the Asian Inexperienced Bee-eater a “small, dainty bee-eater”, which sounds good and peaceable. However to not bees.
So, when there is a chance, the bees take revenge, as described within the self-explanatory paper “Revenge of the bees: Asian Inexperienced Bee-eaters Merops orientalis trapped in a mist-net stung to loss of life by Purple Dwarf Honeybees Apis florea“. Apparently, the bees solely stung the bee-eaters, ignoring different birds additionally trapped within the internet.
The authors of the paper sound a bit helpless, stating that “On the time of discovery, each birds [two bee-eaters] had been nonetheless alive, but it surely was not potential to free them from the online as a result of the bees started to assault the ringer.”
Blue-bearded Bee-eaters appear to have a fairly intelligent looking technique. They provoke honeybee colonies, which then fly out and assault the fowl. The bees pursue the fowl till it settles down someplace, attempt to sting it, and get eaten (supply).
Why transfer towards the meals when you’ll be able to have the meals transfer to you? After all, the identical applies to pizza providers for people.
The species title athertoni is derived from Lt. J. Atherton (1797-1827), a naturalist (no matter meaning precisely) and a member of the British Military in India.
He additionally served with the thirteenth Gentle Dragoons, combating with them at Waterloo (although he can solely have been about 18 at that time – I assume baby safety legal guidelines had been considerably lax at the moment).
The Blue-winged Minla is usually a significant contributor to blended flocks within the space, which does rather a lot to extend the attractiveness of those flocks.
Sadly, there’s not a lot literature on the species apart from the inevitable evaluation of the mitochondrial genome.
These Widespread Rosefinches with a excessive IQ spend their winter right here in Tongbiguan reasonably than in coldish Shanghai, the place I may also see them at Tianmashan.
True to kind so far as fact in fowl names is worried, Inexperienced-backed Tits do probably not have a inexperienced again – the HBW talks of “greenish upperparts” however even that’s reasonably beneficiant. The truth is, if I needed to title the colour on the again of the tit within the HBW illustration, I might simply name it yellow. Effectively.
When speaking about fowl sizes, the body of reference is every part – for eBird, the Inexperienced-backed Tit is a “small songbird” whereas for the HBW it’s a “massive … tit”.
Why oh why do abstracts so typically begin with completely meaningless sentences? Witness this primary sentence of an summary peripherally mentioning the Gray Bushchat: “Nesting is a standard phenomenon associated to the birds’ reproductive conduct”.
One other paper on protection mechanisms of the Gray Bushchat in opposition to being parasitized by cuckoos is a little more significant, stating that “nest desertion is a crucial anti-parasitism technique for gray bushchats in response to widespread cuckoo parasitism, and experimental verification confirmed that this anti-parasitism adaptation exists primarily within the early egg-laying stage”.
That paper additionally comes with a really good PowerPoint-type illustration exhibiting the interplay between host and cuckoo – it may have simply been developed by a administration guide like myself.
One other reasonably nasty interplay between a Gray Bushchat and a Widespread Cuckoo is described right here.
As typical in China, there are some nameless Leaf Warbler species – however who cares, aside from Bella of Alpinebirding?
The River Lapwing is listed as Close to-threatened – one cause being its dislike for folks, which I can relate to: ” numbers of river lapwings and villages per km of river are inversely correlated” (supply).
Its species title duvaucelii commemorates one in every of these explorers who died reasonably younger – Alfred Duvaucel (1796-1824). Sadly, googling him to get additional info offers me my very own earlier weblog publish as entry quantity 5 (which as typical for my posts is usually freed from any helpful info), so I assume not a lot is thought about him.
Location, location, location – some sensible recommendation for River Lapwings aiming to have a household: “River Lapwing nests on open, unvegetated river banks achieved considerably higher nesting success than these in crop fields” (supply).
Whereas the HBW claims that the Rufous-gorgeted Flycatcher is rare in China, this in all probability doesn’t apply to this a part of Yunnan.
Usually, the HBW entry on this species shouldn’t be very informative – largely the same old boilerplate statements concerning future updates: “Editor’s Word: This text requires additional enhancing work to merge current content material into the suitable Subspecies sections. Please bear with us whereas this replace takes place.” Been bearing with them for fairly some time now.
My guess based mostly on the HBW illustrations is that the Rufous-gorgeted Flycatcher I noticed was a male, however after all, meaning ignoring the usual HBW warning “Please wait with utilizing our illustrations for ID functions till we add helpful info”.
Helpful info is after all one thing you’ll be able to count on from this weblog – largely about music. “If My Mom Thinks I’m Blissful” by The Bug Membership begins with the reasonably good strains “Although I’m not as attractive as I was … I nonetheless can’t get a mortgage and I nonetheless don’t just like the style of beer … I haven’t labored a day in over a yr … And I don’t just like the sound on the information I hear”. I significantly like the best way the guitar is made to sound as low-cost and scrappy as humanely potential.
Reluctantly again to birds. Good to see some Shanghai ones right here in Yunnan as nicely, such because the Scaly-breasted Munia …
… Barn Swallow …
… Black-throated Bushtit …
… or Crested Myna.
Within the new and possibly never-to-be-repeated part of those posts, tentatively titled “Kai shares his very lately acquired information with all three readers who’ve made it this far”, the entry right this moment is the time period “basket case”. I used to be questioning the place the expression comes from, considering of anyone throwing a whole lot of issues in a basket and thus creating an unruly mess. Nevertheless, it appears the true clarification is far grimmer. In response to ChatGPT, “The origin of the expression basket case is believed to have navy roots. It originated throughout World Warfare I to explain troopers who had misplaced all their limbs and needed to be carried in a basket, as they had been unable to maneuver independently.” By some means, I’m not positive I actually needed to know this now.
Anyway, again to birds.
The Scarlet Minivet is one in every of these annoying minivets that may solely distinguished from different, similar-looking minivets by memorizing the colourful areas on the wings as some imaginary nation after which evaluating them with the photographs in a fowl information.
The species title specious (“splendid, sensible”) doesn’t assist in any respect because the minivet is simply as splendid as a lot of the different colourful minivets. This isn’t a putdown, only a assertion of reality.
One among my cats claims that the males style higher than the females (“too bitter”), however then that cat has advised me many lies earlier than – I nonetheless assume it extra seemingly it has by no means eaten any minivet in its life.
The HBW entry for the Siberian Stonechat is strictly the identical because the one for the Amur Stonechat – the glacial velocity wherein the HBW reacts to splits on this particular case is well-aligned with my failure to see any distinction between the 2 species.
However then I discover it laborious to see a distinction between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis both.
The Spot-breasted Parrotbill suffers a bit from having a contradicting scientific species title, guttaticolis, which means “spot-throated” or “spot-necked” reasonably than spot-breasted. I depart it to you, expensive valued reader, to determine whether or not the scientific or the widespread title is extra becoming.
Within the part on different animals which typically ends my posts, the mammal evaluating favorably with Donald Trump right this moment is a few sort of squirrel. If this comparability bothers you, right here’s one thing to consolation you (however not me): Donald Trump would be the subsequent US president, the squirrel is not going to.
An enormous squirrel, truly. Which feels like a species title taken from a science fiction novel for youngsters. Assault of the large squirrels from Mars. Or one thing like that.
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