You are browsing the archives of 2006 February.

For some people, the idea of waking up before dawn to board a boat plying icy winter waters for distant views of ambiguous seabirds DOESN’T sound like fun. What are these people thinking? Clearly, we’re not talking about birders; members of that group usually thrill to the thought of a February pelagic cruise. The Core [...]

Red-cheeked Cordon-bleu Uraeginthus bengalus
Abuja, Nigeria. 2004 and 2006
 
The Red-cheeked Cordon-bleu Uraeginthus bengalus is a common African waxbill, typically found in wooded savanna and rank grassland, and also in gardens, scrub, fields, and secondary, degraded habitats . Only the male has the distinctive red-cheek. Where this species overlaps with the more southerly Blue Waxbill/Cordon-bleu, it apparently [...]

The name of this humble website is based on a round number, a very round one indeed considering the shape of all those zeroes.  10,000 is the approximate number of bird species in the world but certainly not the actual number. If I understand correctly, the known number of avian species lies somewhere south of [...]

Dusky Moorhen Gallinula tenebrosa
Sydney and Melbourne Botanic Gardens. Various dates.
 
The Dusky Moorhen Gallinula tenebrosa occurs in Australia, New Guinea and Indonesia. New Guinea birds are smaller, at 25-32cm in length, than the Australian race (35-40 cm, 55-65 cm wingspan). In Indonesia, it is losing ground to the closely related Common Moorhen Gallinula chloropus on those [...]

1. Given a) the massive fears over poultry flu in the US, and b) the sky-high cost of oil used in transport, does the following news item really make sense to anyone at all? Answers by email please…

From //www.meatnews.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Article&artNum=11012

U.S. MAY IMPORT CHICKEN FROM CHINA

UNITED STATES/CHINA: USDA may clear processing plants in China to export poultry [...]

(What follows is a personal and individual opinion and is not to be considered representative of any other individuals or organisations. It should be read in an angry and fed-up tone though…)

This month the respected journal “New Scientist” published an inflammatory article looking at the genesis and the pattern of outbreaks of the ‘Avian Flu’ [...]

Spanish Sparrow Passer hispaniolensis
Sulaibikhat Nature Reserve, Kuwait. 06 February 2006
 
Spanish Sparrows are “very common winter visitors” to Kuwait, with a highest daily count of 1500 being made at Jahra Farms on 11th Jan 2002 (George Gregory, ‘The Birds of the State of Kuwait’, 2005).There a few small scattered breeding colonies in Kuwait, and a number [...]

The Core Team went birding for Saemangeum yesterday. Even in the face of Super Bowl Sunday holiday observances, our commitment to global environmental justice remains firm. Anyway, I wanted to get out birding and Mason wanted to run around. We all like Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, the adults for its plethora of winter waterfowl, the [...]

How about those Seahawks? Though I’m a serious New York Giants fan, Seattle’s NFC Championship makes me pretty happy. Why, you ask? Besides the fact that Big Blue just wasn’t ready this year so it didn’t matter who took the conference, I’m very pleased that a football team with an obscure avian appellation is competing [...]

Grey-headed Flying Fox Pteropus poliocephalus
Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, Australia
 
Grey-headed Flying Foxes can be seen around Sydney, in groups called camps. Flying fox camps can be made up of many thousands of bats hanging from the branches of trees - as some of the photos below show. The camps are often located in gullies of eucalypt [...]