Amongst Chinese language birders, Tengchong – and significantly the monastery on the backside of Laifengshan – is called the most effective locations to see the Slender-billed Oriole.
I don’t fairly get the thrill in regards to the Slender-billed Oriole because it seems to be fairly much 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 looking and trapping for the cagebird commerce and taxidermy”.
The Maroon Oriole seems to be way more attention-grabbing, although my photographs do probably not do it full justice.
Its scientific species title traillii is a uncommon instance of a scientist not made up by me, specifically Thomas Stewart Traill (1781-1862), a Scottish physician. In keeping with his Wikipedia entry, he was a robust however unsuccessful supporter of girls attending the college, so he is without doubt one of the higher folks to call a hen 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 surprising was Traill’s remedy of his spouse, Shirley, and his youngsters. … on many events … Traill got here residence and instantly obtained out a scale for his spouse to step on and be weighed. He then spanked his spouse for her obvious failure to satisfy his expectations. … Traill did this sufficient instances that Shirley started to cover the size.’
The Stunning Sibia is gorgeous even in Mandarin Chinese language (Li se qi mei, “Stunning babbler”) …
… and naturally in science (scientific title 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 hen beneath is a results of a pairing of the 2 morphs.
It’s not obligatory to go away China and go to Nepal to see the Ashy Bulbul – regardless that I’m not certain 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 hen 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 website shouldn’t be a lot much less exuberant:
“Whereas the Bar-winged Flycatcher-shrike might not rank as Nepal’s most famed hen, its placing seems to be, fascinating habits, and contribution to the colourful hen neighborhood positively make it value noticing.”
Contribution to the colourful hen neighborhood. Oh my.
The poor Mountain Bulbul carries the scientific title mcclellandii, after Sir John McClelland (1805–1875) …
… regardless that mentioned man primarily labored as an ichthyologist …
… aside from additionally being despatched to north-eastern India to establish if tea could possibly be grown there. Undecided whether or not he wrote to his spouse about this necessary 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 might the Crested Finchbill presumably occupy?
The Chinese language title 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 sort 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 might consider these photographs of a Chestnut-flanked White-eye as being fairly horrible however they do present the name-giving characteristic of the species moderately nicely.
And – await it – there may be a paper on the mitochondrial genome sequence of Chestnut-flanked White-eye. Welcome to 10,000 Birds, the one web site on the earth the place such papers could be the topic of a operating gag. A nasty one, admittedly.
This Nice Noticed Woodpecker isn’t even making an attempt 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 automobile (an SUV, maybe?) when dwelling in suburbia.
It appears that evidently on this species, the males do a lot of the laborious and the ugly work – specifically 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 shouldn’t be as highly effective as I believed.
In keeping with the paper cited above, feather mites are fairly 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 can also be an excellent place to see Verditer Flycatcher, at the least in winter.
Excellent news for individuals 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 shade of the plant nectar attracts the hen, 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 in the event you don’t like them… nicely, I’ve others”).
A fancy-looking restaurant in a village close to Tengchong has a goldfish pool put in at its entrance. I’m not certain 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 difficulty 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 examine 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 a lot better than fish farmers.
