Finally back from a sort of black hole of over-working... faunistics field courses, microscopy work 8-19 every day and then a course in biodiversity informatics in Stockholm, a dissertation and a hundred other excuses not to do anything... I will try to find some way to make up for this soon... I have started adding everything to the list again, and will have that finished by the end of the week, at least.
In the meantime, let me share my pissed-off-ness with you. I was not allowed to participate in the expedition to Texas/Florida, because some members thought that my collection methods were too potentially dangerous to the birds, and thus placed the expedition leader in an "it's either him or us" situation. I have killed five birds out of almost 3000 during my collections. Two during the first two or three weeks, when I was still learning the technique, one when an assistant made a mistake during her first week, and two when we were working in Australia, and had to adapt a method designed for fulmars and shearwaters in England to Red-necked stints on the beaches of the Indian Ocean. Other than that, no casualties at all.
This should be contrasted against them being perfectly okay with participating in an expedition that uses cannon nets to catch their birds. For those of you who don't know what that is, you basically shoot a number of 40 cm steel bars with a net attached to them into a flock of birds, which usually is just at the water's edge. This means that birds can be killed by being hit by the steel bars, by being decapitated by the front end of the net, by being pierced with stones or similar that are used to cover the net before shooting, by the shock of the cannons, by being drowned by the weight of the net if the tide is a bit too high, by getting too tangled in the net, and by shock and terror when you take it out of the net. All of which cannot in any way whatsoever be prevented! This, they must feel, is safer than fumigating the body of the bird and picking lice from the head manually, all the while paying full attention to the bird and being able to release it as soon as it shows the slightest sign of discomfort or harm.
Consequently, I will likely not be able to get material from all Calidrinae species for my thesis, unless we can find someone else who catches shorebirds in central and eastern USA/Canada. My supervisor has some ideas, but I have no idea how plausible they are. Either way, I am quite upset by this.
I know you would have enjoyed Kotatsu's company, I've had the pleasure of catching up with him on the occasions he's been through London and look forward to returning the favour in Sweden (he doesn't sell his home town though!).
Well, bird-wise it's a nice place, and I invite any and all of you to come birdwatching here, especially in late April to early June. We have lots of easterners here by then!
Right. Got it now I hope.
I would put this one down as a Cooper's Hawk. I understand that the bands on the tail are quite telling, with Cooper's always showing four and Sharp-shinned always showing three.
Kruger National Park, South Africa. I could have easily photographed many more had I not been too distracted by the mammals.
Are your photos visible somewhere?
Black-bellied Plover
Marbled Godwit
You didn't happen to get any lice form these species?^^
Also: I have noted your Plain Titmouse as Juniper Titmouse
Baeolophus ridgwayi, as it was split into two species in 1996. My hardcover copy of Clements' list lists this as
B. griseus. The other species, Oak Titmouse
B. inornatus is only in California-Oregon.
BTW: I've added records from sphenisc, Mako, jasonpatterson, El_Greco, Kestrel, dasmiller, dropzone, amapola, Blue Bubble, EHocking, ad myself. That means that all reports have been added up until today.
