Ed Forum birdwatching 2008

Here they are together:

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EHocking said:
Which Stilt was it?

Himantopus mexicanus
or
Himantopus knudseni

H.m is "Black-necked Stilt"?

ETA: OK, found the last one from you. Black-necked Stilt, but Hawaiian sub-species, thus, H.m.knudseni

Oh, and the Frigatebirds are F.m.palmerstoni ?? As that was your last entry.
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Yes to both the stilt and frigatebirds.

New entries: 17 October 2008, Honolulu, HI.

Red-vented Bulbul - Pycnonotus cafer
Common Waxbill - Estrilda astrild
 
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sphenisc said:
A discussion of "Manky Mallards" can be found here.
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A interesting quote:

In the interests in providing a public service, I’m posting a gallery of what I’m rather disrespectfully calling “Manky Mallards”, "Mallard Mongrels" or "Domestic Duck Disgraces", which is a little unfair really, as Nature sometimes feeds the genes into her great mixer and something quite beautiful pops out the other end, so that hopefully, on the next occasion I get asked to identify an odd duck that clearly doesn’t fit the image in any available field-guide, I can point the luckless finder in the right direction
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An interesting quote:

some sort of Mallard with itsmitochondrialmake-up so mixed that it would take a team of nimble-fingered geneticists months to make sense of it.
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I don't think he is correct about mitochondrial make-up?
As far as I know, mitochondrial DNA is not reflected in the phenotype.
Am I wrong?
 
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The fourth bird above seems to fit this description:

If your duck looks very like a Mallard but is ‘too pale’ and/or has large patches of white, it’s also very likely to be a “domestic”, or a wild x domestic, Mallard - particularly if those patches are asymmetric or appear randomly scattered
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And this description fits the original white duck:

All-white breeds of domestic duck - often with large, all-orange beaks - are common, and feral are usually derived from the well-known “Aylesbury” or the “Pekin Duck”, the breed commonly kept, for instance, across Asia for eating.
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mummymonkey said:
Just noticed in the gallery that the young blackbird has an incorrect label. Should be Turdus merula.
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Thanks. Noted. I've got a very slow connection out here in the Guinea Gulf at the moment, so won't get around to updating the web pages for a couple of days.

In the meantime, I finally saw my first offshore birds in Ghana. Up to this point not even a gull... Lots of Hooded Vultures and Black Kites though. Don't have my field guide at hand, but from memory the ones I saw were Brown Terns and oh, I've forgotten.

ETA: Sea birds were 20/10/08, Gulf of Guinea, Ghana:
Brown Noddy, Anous stolidus
Sandwich Tern, Sterna sandvicensis

Land birds were 19/10/08, Takoradi, Ghana:
Western Reef Egret (dark morph), Egretta gularis
Cattle Egret, Bubulcus ibis
Intermediate Egret, Egretta intermedia

Land birds were 18/10/08, Takoradi, Ghana:
Hooded Vulture,
Black Kite,
Green Wood-hoopoe, Phoeniculus purpureus
Pied Kingfisher, Ceryle rudis
Little Swift, Apus affinis
Lesser Striped Swallow, Hirundo abyssinica
Western Grey Plantain-eater, Crinifer piscator

I'm pretty sure I did see a Sunfish though, which was quite a thrill.

Next post I'll update a couple more new birds from Ghana, Black Egrets and Plantain Eaters (again from memory).
Got to get back to work first before I can update my small list from out here.
20+ hour days are starting to take their toll on me.:boggled:
 
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Not my pic, but I wish it was:

easpider122a.jpg


From here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/10/22/easpider122.xml

Photographs of a giant spider eating a bird in an Australian garden have stunned wildlife experts.The pictures show the spider with its long black legs wrapped around the body of a dead bird suspended in its web.
The startling images were reportedly taken in Atheron, close to Queensland's tropical north.
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I recognised it as a chestnut mannikin (my father used to breed finches until it requried a licence)
 
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Turkey Vultures

I'm sure these ubiquitous beauties have been listed before. Here's some pics of lunch in the street outside my house today.

TurkeyVulture-1.jpg


TwoVulturesII.jpg


TwoVultures.jpg
 
Well, that is something. I would have never believed it. I wouldn't want to run into that spider in a dark alley...well, any alley, really.
 
EHocking said:
Two professors from the Queensland museum state in the associated article, that it's not unprecedented, just rare.
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I remember reading, in the book Watchers At The Pond, a passage in which a praying mantis captures and eats a hummingbird.

Haven't even seen that book in, say, 40 years. I guess that's a memory that kinda sticks with ya.
 
Hokulele said:
And I do not want to see those pictures again. Ever.

(I am not terribly fond of spiders.)

*Shudder*
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I was going to put it in spoiler tags, but then I thought, no, we are all pretty mature, experienced people around here. I'm sorry I did not account for you, Hokulele. :D
 
Here are some shots of our recent trip to northern Australia. Our quest was to catch the mating dance of a Victoria's Riflebird. Which, if you've ever seen David Attenborough's "The Trials of Life", you know is amazing. We actually spotted two specimins of the bird, as you'll see in the video, but missed the dance, despite my breathless exhorting which you'll hear.

As a bonus, we spotted a platypus. Amazing! My wife's excited rambling on the video is something I will forever treasure.

http://picasaweb.google.com/schnitzi/NorthAustralia#
 
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