The Datang space stretches North from Tengchong, with mainly only one highway (G219) having much less and fewer site visitors earlier than it will definitely peters out in a sequence of curves about 10 kilometers earlier than reaching the border to Myanmar.
Sadly, this makes it sound a bit extra attention-grabbing for birding than it turned out for me – although admittedly, I spent lower than a day there. And the realm was advisable to me, so almost definitely my restricted birding expertise are responsible, moderately than the birds themselves.
That mentioned, there have been just a few attention-grabbing birds, such because the Bar-throated Minla.
Considerably unusually, the HBW calls it a “small gray to yellow babbler” – whereas the species certainly has some gray components, that’s not the colour that sticks to thoughts when seeing or remembering the fowl.
Aside from some restricted description within the HBW, there may be once more moderately restricted info accessible on the species, maybe as a result of it doesn’t normally reside on college campuses and thus will not be a most well-liked goal for ornithologists.
An Indian paper mocks the Lovely Sibia when discussing the range-restricted species that may be seen at an Indian birding spot, the Eaglenest Sanctuary: “… the ever-present Lovely Sibia Heterophasia pulchella, a colorless ashy-grey fowl titled stunning!”
That appears a bit unfair to me. I normally limit my unfair jokes to people.
Plus the sibia apparently performs an vital position within the pollination of 1 endangered rhododendron species (supply).
When looking for info on the Black-headed Sibia, I stumbled throughout a promising-sounding net web page titled “Uncovering the Fascinating Behaviors of the Black-headed Sibia“.
Nonetheless, the article itself disappoints. The fascinating habits primarily appears to be that the members of the species “seek for bugs and larvae in bushes”. And the outline of the distinctive look of the species is adopted by what feels like a disclaimer, specifically that whereas “… the Black-headed Sibia has distinctive options, it may be confused with different fowl species”.
If that was not boring sufficient, anyone additionally analyzed the whole mitochondrial genome of the species.
Seeing Blyth’s Shrike-babbler (or White-browed Shrike-babbler) permits me to say certainly one of my favourite bands, the UK-based Blyth Energy (named after a locomotive, not named after the ornithologist Edward Blyth – by some means I believe that the shrike-babbler is called after the latter although I sort of hope to be flawed).
Blyth Energy songs that may be accessed on-line and include my very own advice embody “Animal Farm“, “Weapons of Fortress Cary” “Alnwick & Tyne” and “Higher to bat“. Recommendation to fowl species that wish to get featured on this weblog: Don’t select names which can be too much like names of my favourite bands. For instance, a hypothetical Nationwide Bulbul would haven’t any likelihood to get any protection right here.
That is in distinction to the Brown-chested Bulbul. This fowl could sooner or later could have didn’t pay its membership charges to eBird – a minimum of judging from the moderately hostile description of the species as a “giant boring bulbul of scrubby forest edges, farmland, and parks”. Makes the species nearly sound a bit apocalyptic.
A paper on the species asks the vital query “Does nest sanitation elicit egg rejection in an open-cup nesting cuckoo host rejecter?”
To rephrase: for those who put some trash right into a nest of a fowl together with a cuckoo egg, does that enhance the prospect that the cuckoo egg shall be kicked out?
The right way to discover out? Here’s what the paper says: “Within the first group, we added a blue, non-mimetic egg to the nest of the host, whereas within the second group we added a blue, non-mimetic egg and a peanut half-shell.” So, both only a pretend egg or a pretend egg and trash (a peanut shell).
And the consequence: all peanut shells have been expelled, however the ejection price of the pretend eggs was the identical in each teams and (I believe) fairly low at about 53%. So, doubtlessly loads of cuckoo chicks would have been raised by the bulbuls. Poor bulbuls, however then once more, they’re giant boring birds anyway, in response to eBird.
Scientifically talking, the result’s this: “Our examine indicated that nest sanitation habits of Brown-breasted Bulbuls didn’t affect their egg recognition and that egg discrimination capability of Brown-breasted Bulbuls was indirectly associated to nest sanitation habits.”
My guess is that that is an Jap Buzzard. However be happy to disagree.
Whereas there are various explanations for a way new species would possibly develop, I nonetheless discover among the prompt mechanisms a bit implausible. The Jap Buzzard is an instance of how this would possibly occur in actuality (supply). Aparently, there are two subspecies, one on the Japanese islands and one on the Asian mainland. Whereas they winter collectively on among the Western islands of Japan, they then migrate alongside very totally different pathways, one on the mainland and one alongside the string of Japanese islands. Because the Sea of Japan is in between these two pathways (and buzzards neither prefer to swim nor to fly lengthy distances over water as a result of lack of thermals), these pathways appear to be fairly separate from one another, and certainly the 2 subspecies have been genetically separate for about 0.8 million years (which is a very long time for instance when watching a boring film, however not a really lengthy interval by the beneficiant requirements of evolution).
Inexperienced-backed Tits appear to have been studied pretty extensively by ornithologists, which makes me wonder if the species prefers nesting on college campuses or close to good but reasonably priced motels.
For instance, one examine discovered that male tit mother and father favor to feed giant and medium-sized chicks whereas feminine tits make no such distinction. Judging from my expertise within the human world, a really predictable consequence.
One other examine had a equally predictable consequence: Inexperienced-backed Tits are in a position to discriminate in opposition to eggs of the flawed colour (for instance, added by a cuckoo) until it’s too darkish.
(Underneath stress, I’d admit that the precise findings of the examine are a bit extra subtle, however that would cut back the humorous worth of introducing them to my readers. Anyway …)
This Leaf Warbler is a bit embarrassed about its boring look and similiarity to many different species, and would due to this fact favor that its species identify will not be talked about right here. Most birders will perceive.
Purple-tailed Minlas keep slim by solely consuming very small bugs which can be arduous to succeed in. A weight reduction technique additionally advisable for people.
The Mandarin Chinese language identify Huo Wei Xi Mei (fire-tailed babbler) is a little more attention-grabbing than the English identify, and higher aligned with the scientific identify ignotincta.
Sure, typically I’ve extra photographs that I wish to present than helpful info.
One Indian examine discovered that Plumbeous Water Redstarts (and lots of different birds) appear to keep away from the proximity of cell phone towers. Sadly, I can not decide in any respect how strong the science of this paper is (instinctively – being a chemist who has strong publicity to all types of poisonous chemical compounds within the lab – I have a tendency to think about such research as doubtless coming from individuals completely carrying aluminum foil hats, however I might be completely flawed).
Should you consider learning ornithology however dislike maths, you would possibly wish to learn this excerpt of an summary on the presence of Plumbeous Water Redstart at some Himalayan rivers first:
“We then in contrast the efficiency of a number of discriminant evaluation (MDA), logistic regression (LR), and synthetic neural networks (ANN) in predicting this species’ presence or absence from 32 variables describing stream altitude, slope, habitat construction, chemistry, and invertebrate abundance. Utilizing your entire information (=coaching set) and a threshold for accepting presence in ANN and LR set to P?0.5, ANN accurately categorized marginally extra instances (88%) than both LR (83%) or MDA (84%). Mannequin efficiency was assessed from two strategies of knowledge partitioning. In a ‘leave-one-out’ strategy, LR accurately predicted extra instances (82%) than MDA (73%) or ANN (69%). Nonetheless, in a holdout process, all of the strategies carried out equally (73–75%). All strategies predicted true absence (i.e. specificity in holdout: 81–85%) higher than true presence (i.e. sensitivity: 57–60%). “
Don’t say you haven’t been warned.
I’ve to admit I don’t fairly know what the “whiskered” within the Whiskered Yuhina identify refers to. I can not simply spot any whiskers.
The Chinese language identify (yellow-necked babbler) and the scientific identify flavicollis (“golden-necked”) make way more sense to me.
Anyway, one other fowl species with out a lot scientific info on it – an appropriately lame ending to a lame put up.
