tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77580664502187853092024-03-05T22:14:15.682+00:00Andrew's Birding StuffAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758066450218785309.post-28494369675789694462017-04-05T20:47:00.001+01:002017-04-06T22:58:27.304+01:00Another rant about the Zitter<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "arial";">A friend recently asked my local birding group about a small stripy bird he had photographed in Cyprus. It was identified as a Zitting Cisticola (</span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Arial;">Cisticola juncidis)</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "arial";">.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "arial";"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I agreed with the identification, but personally I think that Zitting Cisticola is a stupid name and I would always use its original English name of Fan-tailed Warbler. After all, this small brown bird looks like a warbler, sounds like a warbler and displays a beautifully fanned tail during its song-flight.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">The ludicrous name Zitting Cisticola seems to have been contrived for two reasons: firstly because birds in the <i>Cisticola</i> genus are not now considered true warblers (whatever that means); and secondly, because taxonomy despots wanted to avoid the preposterous risk of confusion with a rare Central American bird that has also been given the name Fan-tailed Warbler. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">But Zitting Cisticola is such a crass name. First, no one even knows what <i>Cisticola </i>actually means. The -<i>cola</i> element refers to an “inhabitant” (from the Latin verb <i>colere, </i>to inhabit) but the <i>cist-</i> bit could be derived either from Latin <i>cista</i>- (“of a woven basket”, perhaps referring to the fantail’s finely woven nest) or from Greek <i>kistos</i> (“a flowering shrub”). So the Cisticola is a bird that lives either in a fancy nest or in a pretty bush. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">And “zitting”? You won’t find any dictionary that includes “zit” as a verb. Zit is a well-known noun meaning a pimple, a small red swollen spot, especially one on the face. So far as I know, the Fan-tailed Warbler is not prone to facial blemishes, so “zitting” presumably refers to the bird’s song, which sounds a bit like scissors rapidly snipping.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Since the Fan-tailed Warbler is by far the most abundant and widespread species within its genus, most of the other 50 or so <i>Cisticola</i> species did not even have English names until the taxonomy tsars came along. And if you agree that the adjective “zitting” is silly, you will be astounded by the even more idiotic English names that have been offloaded onto on some of the other <i>Cisticola</i> species. Let me present the following:</span></span></div>
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<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Bubbling Cisticola </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">(C bulliens)</i></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Chattering Cisticola </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">(C anonymus)</i></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Chirping Cisticola </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">(C pipiens)</i></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Churring Cisticola </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">(C njombe)</i></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Croaking Cisticola </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">(C natalensis)</i></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Piping Cisticola </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">(C fulvicapilla)</i></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Rattling Cisticola </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">(C chiniana)</i></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Siffling Cisticola </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">(C brachypterus)</i></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Singing Cisticola </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">(C cantans)</i></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Tink-tink Cisticola </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">(C textrix)</i></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Tinkling Cisticola </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">(C rufilatus)</i></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Trilling Cisticola </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">(C woosnami)</i></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Wailing Cisticola </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">(C lais)</i></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Whistling Cisticola </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">(C lateralis)</i></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Winding Cisticola <i>(C galactotes)</i></span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></span></li>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">So if you agree that "zi</span>tting<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">" is ridiculous, what do you </span>think<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span>about<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> "s</span>iffling", "tink-tink"and <span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">"tinkling"? </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">And some members of the genus that have managed to avoid stupid names derived from their calls or songs have instead been lumbered with equally wacky monickers such as the following:</span></span></span></span></div>
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<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Carruthers's Cisticola <i>(C carruthersi)</i></span></span></span></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Cloud-scraping Cisticola <i>(C dambo)</i></span></span></span></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Foxy Cisticola <i>(C troglodytes)</i></span></span></span></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Lazy Cisticola<i> (C aberrans)</i></span></span></span></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Rock-loving Cisticola<i> (C emini)</i></span></span></span></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Stout Cisticola <i>(C robustus)</i></span></span></span></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Tiny Cisticola <i>(C nana)</i> </span></span></span></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Wing-snapping Cisticola <i>(C ayresii)</i></span></span></span></span></li>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">As mentioned above, another dubious reason for discarding the name Fan-tailed Warbler is that this name is also used for a rare American species. This upstart New world bird is a rare and shy forest-edge bird found along the Pacific slope in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. It was given its name comparatively recently, while the Old World Fan-tailed Warbler has been known for centuries as a common inhabitant of grassland habitats across southern Europe and the Middle East, throughout Africa and southern Asia and even right down to northern Australia. Indeed, the Old World bird is so widespread that it outnumbers all the other 50 <i>Cisticola</i> species put together.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Since our Old World bird clearly had first dibs on the name Fan-tailed Warbler, it should have been up to the Americans to find a new name for their own bird — even if they simply called it an American Fan-tailed Warbler. After all, they already accept the names American Wigeon, American Coot, American Woodcock, American Oystercatcher, American Avocet, American Golden Plover, American Kestrel, American Bittern, American Crow, American Dipper, American Robin, American Tree-creeper, American Goldfinch, American Tree Sparrow, American Redstart, etc.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Etc.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">For my previous rants on this topic, see my blog posts at: <a href="http://mrandrewhaynes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/loony-bird-names_25.html"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; line-height: normal;">http://mrandrewhaynes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/loony-bird-names_25.html</span></a> and <a href="http://mrandrewhaynes.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/renaming-bird-species.html"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; line-height: normal;">http://mrandrewhaynes.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/renaming-bird-species.html</span></a></span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758066450218785309.post-82485113062579554432017-04-05T20:44:00.001+01:002017-04-06T22:55:59.208+01:00Deceitful use of bird images<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6qv2m-Z2sxnXU9A6TJ8axAkHP_aeX0XIUtUpjg6FrbTQzrpaUnuQI_LBq-bZDrOmoyS0PDI47urNU11OmjwlcyAjtrByZWO3klbVDrDDXnrjAcpLNZn-_bNd5Dy8eI2IzOifnx1-B0j6l/s1600/S+Am+penguin+toucan.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-kerning: none;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">While idly flicking through a brochure for a cruise holiday company I noticed that the illustrations accompanying the blurb for two of its cruises included misleading images of birds. Both these cruises follow the southern coasts of South America, and both illustrations show species that would never be seen during these voyages.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6qv2m-Z2sxnXU9A6TJ8axAkHP_aeX0XIUtUpjg6FrbTQzrpaUnuQI_LBq-bZDrOmoyS0PDI47urNU11OmjwlcyAjtrByZWO3klbVDrDDXnrjAcpLNZn-_bNd5Dy8eI2IzOifnx1-B0j6l/s1600/S+Am+penguin+toucan.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6qv2m-Z2sxnXU9A6TJ8axAkHP_aeX0XIUtUpjg6FrbTQzrpaUnuQI_LBq-bZDrOmoyS0PDI47urNU11OmjwlcyAjtrByZWO3klbVDrDDXnrjAcpLNZn-_bNd5Dy8eI2IzOifnx1-B0j6l/s320/S+Am+penguin+toucan.jpeg" width="320" /></span></a><span style="font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">The first cruise, labelled “Sensational South America: Santiago to Rio”, is a voyage south from Valparaiso (Chile), round Cape Horn and back north to Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), with stop-overs in various mainland ports and a detour to the Falkland Islands. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The illustration for this cruise shows three different birds — flamingoes, penguins and a toucan. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">Now the flying flamingoes could well be Chilean Flamingo, a species found throughout temperate South American. So no problem there. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">And the penguins are clearly King Penguin, which cruise-goers may certainly see around Tierra del Fuego or possibly in the Falkland Islands — although the illustration stupidly manages to depict them on a white sandy beach in front of Rio de Janeiro’s outlandish statue of Christ the Redeemer, even though this species has never been seen so far north. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">But the most absurdly misplaced bird in the illustration is the toucan. There are more than 40 species of toucan, but not one of them can be found so far south. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">And the species depicted is clearly a Keel-billed Toucan, which is a bird of Central America. Its range just extends into northern Colombia and north-western Venezuela, but its southern limit is still well within the Northern Hemisphere and some 2,800 miles (4,500km) short of Santiago or Rio.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEF-kvBt1vWPkRDhoAtoG7fdqWHrMVjRGDY2F0DZX256EyUBj8p8pZPXVbnlFItM4-6zzi2aw-9IWgYRFWxDGlHzXP047rhbDV23H9_gnBioqP_6ySTs4RdFAu3VeNnPitel6dF-qVOtAu/s1600/S+Am+puffins.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"></span></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEF-kvBt1vWPkRDhoAtoG7fdqWHrMVjRGDY2F0DZX256EyUBj8p8pZPXVbnlFItM4-6zzi2aw-9IWgYRFWxDGlHzXP047rhbDV23H9_gnBioqP_6ySTs4RdFAu3VeNnPitel6dF-qVOtAu/s1600/S+Am+puffins.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEF-kvBt1vWPkRDhoAtoG7fdqWHrMVjRGDY2F0DZX256EyUBj8p8pZPXVbnlFItM4-6zzi2aw-9IWgYRFWxDGlHzXP047rhbDV23H9_gnBioqP_6ySTs4RdFAu3VeNnPitel6dF-qVOtAu/s320/S+Am+puffins.jpeg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">The Keel-billed Toucan may be badly out of place, but even more ludicrous is the choice of bird to illustrate the second cruise. Listed as “Buenos Aires Stay and South America Explorer”, this option is similar to the first voyage but travels in the opposite direction. And its brochure image clearly — and preposterously — shows two Atlantic Puffin. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">Don’t be fooled by the word “Atlantic”. The Atlantic Ocean may well extend down the east coast of South America, but the Atlantic Puffin is restricted to the colder northern waters of the North Atlantic, where it breeds on the coasts of north-west Europe, the Arctic fringes and eastern Canada. In winter an intrepid Puffin may venture as far south as the North Carolina coast — but that is still well inside the Northern Hemisphere and no less than 5,000 miles (8,000km) north of the cruise’s starting point in Argentina.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">To make matters worse, when I investigated the cruise company’s website I found a page about South American cruises on which was an image of a Blue-and-yellow Macaw. Now, unlike the toucan and the puffin, this macaw is a genuine South American bird. It can even be found south of the Equator. But, once again, it is a species that cruise-goers have virtually no chance of seeing during their trips around the continent’s southern fringes. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXAYldYFRlz6-hhcg5sndyeOK4TwmuZ3eQ3j7DBpyFZorEbyGTuwsmPQxGPZIrpo7Y4-PBAbCU69jyAUDc8ClGiCdIdeUJpPs6FzOmDTsjUoYcodN2jcZDrUswPbh_kDuWWKV1MH_1cA75/s1600/Macaw+copy.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXAYldYFRlz6-hhcg5sndyeOK4TwmuZ3eQ3j7DBpyFZorEbyGTuwsmPQxGPZIrpo7Y4-PBAbCU69jyAUDc8ClGiCdIdeUJpPs6FzOmDTsjUoYcodN2jcZDrUswPbh_kDuWWKV1MH_1cA75/s200/Macaw+copy.jpeg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">The Blue-and-yellow Macaw occurs only across the northern regions of South America and is rarely found anywhere near the ocean other than on the shores of the Caribbean Sea. It may also be seen on the Atlantic coast, but only as far south as Brazil’s most northerly outposts — some 1,500 miles (2,400km) short of any cosy port visited on the cruise company’s itineraries. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">Could cruise passengers spot any other macaw species instead? Almost certainly not. South America hosts a further 18 species of macaw, but several of these are just clinging on to existence, if not already extinct. As with the 40 species of toucan, their restricted range means that, barring a miracle, cruise passengers will not see any of them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">My initial intention was to spare the cruise company any embarrassment by not identifying it. But I have changed my mind mainly because of the company’s name — Imagine Cruising. <i>Imagine!</i> It certainly needs plenty of imagination to promote South American cruises with images of birds that could not possibly be seen on any of the hyped itineraries.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758066450218785309.post-33701945914546527332017-03-07T09:37:00.000+00:002017-03-07T09:37:27.736+00:00The “inornate” warbler<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12px;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Early in April last year (2016) I was lucky enough to catch up more than once with a rare Yellow-browed Warbler at my birding “local patch” in north-west London — Brent Reservoir, also known as the Welsh Harp.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Yellow-brow can be hard to observe, since it is almost constantly in motion, flitting short distances from branch to branch. Luckily it is not shy, and I had close views of it and also heard its distinctive call, a piercing “tsee-WEET”— strikingly loud for one of the smallest Old World warblers.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Yellow-browed Warbler (<i>Phylloscopus inornatus</i>) breeds across much of northern Asia and normally winters in tropical south-east Asia. But on leaving the breeding sites some young birds take a wrong turn and head west across Europe instead of south to the usual wintering grounds. In Britain the bird is normally seen only in small numbers in autumn, mainly on the east and south coasts of England or on northern Scottish islands. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Most of the birds that reach Britain move on, probably to continue west and drown in the Atlantic, but a few — usually only in single figures — attempt to winter here. One of these rare overwintering birds was found at Brent Reservoir on 23 December 2015. It lingered for a few days, allowing some regular local birders and a number of twitchers to see it. (I missed it because I was away over Christmas.) It obligingly stayed until 1 January 2016 so that New Year’s Day birders could include it on their next year list. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The bird then vanished but, to our surprise, it reappeared (or was it a different bird?) three months later, on 3 April 2016, at another part of the site, where it stayed for a fortnight, showing itself daily. I may be wrong, but so far as I know our spring bird was the first Yellow-brow ever seen in London in April. It was certainly one of only a couple of individuals known to have survived into spring 2016 anywhere in Britain.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">According to my bird books, the Yellow-browed Warbler is also known as the Inornate Warbler. Inornate? Have you ever come across this word? I hadn’t, so — as always when confronted by an intriguing word — I turned to the metadictionary website OneLook (<a href="http://www.onelook.com/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; line-height: normal;">www.onelook.com</span></a>), which searches for words across a range of online dictionaries and encyclopaedias. In this case, OneLook offered just a single reference to “inornate”, in Collins English Dictionary, which gives the definition “simple, or not ornate”.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Now so far as I am concerned, the Yellow-brow does not deserve to be labelled “simple, or not ornate”, since it is a pretty little thing. It has greenish upperparts, whitish underparts and two prominent yellowish-white wing bars. Most strikingly, it has a long yellow supercilium, an eyebrow stripe running from the base of its bill and above its eye and finishing towards the rear of its head. This can be clearly seen in autumn, when the bird is most often encountered in Britain, although by April our bird’s supercilium had become worn and less pronounced. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Yellow-brow’s closest relative is the equally rare Hume’s Warbler (<i>P humei</i>), which is similar but generally duller (even more “inornate"?). Better-known near relatives found in Britain are three slightly larger birds — the Common Chiffchaff (<i>P collybita</i>), the Willow Warbler (<i>P trochilus</i>) and the Wood Warbler (<i>P sibilatrix</i>). These three are also eligible to be described as “inornate”, since they have shorter and less obvious eye-stripes and they lack wing bars, although they may have yellower tummies than the Yellow-brow. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Our Brent Reservoir superstar was last seen on 17 April 2016. I hope it managed to make its way back to its birthplace and find a mate.</span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758066450218785309.post-70476710292852939252017-03-07T09:04:00.000+00:002017-03-07T09:04:21.462+00:00An expert birder who has never seen a bird <div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-align: justify;">I learnt recently about a remarkable South American birder who is recognised as one of the continent’s leading bird experts. He can identify hundreds of species, but he has never seen any of them.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; text-align: justify;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Born in 1986 in Montevideo, Uruguay, Juan Pablo Culasso has been blind since birth. But a gifted sense of hearing has allowed him to memorise more than 3000 different sounds from more than 720 bird species. He is helped by having perfect pitch, which means that he can hear a tone and immediately identify it as F-sharp, B-flat or whatever. Only one in about 10,000 people has this ability. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Culasso’s interest in birds dates from a young age, when his father read to him from a bird guide that was accompanied by audiocassette recordings of bird calls. The youngster found that he could easily memorise these sounds, and this ability inspired an enduring love of birds. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In 2003, as a teenager, Culasso was invited to join an ornithologist on a field visit to record Uruguayan birds such as Tawny-bellied Seedeater (<i>Sporophila hypoxantha</i>) and Rufous-rumped Seedeater (<i>Sporophila hypochroma</i>). This experience led to an obsession with documenting the sounds of nature, and he went on to study bioacoustics in Brazil. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In 2014 Culasso’s facility for recognising birds through their voices alone won him a prize on a National Geographic television programme. In the final test, he had to identify 15 birds chosen at random from recordings of 250 species, and he recognised every one. He spent most of his $45,000 winnings on audio equipment.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">After a decade in Brazil, Culasso is now back in Montevideo, working — not surprisingly — as a nature sound recordist. His career has even taken him on a two-month trip to Antarctica, where he recorded the wildlife of the Southern Ocean and the sounds of melting icebergs.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Although blindness may seem a major obstacle for birding, Culasso embraces it. He points out that those who rely mainly on sight have a visual field of only 70 degrees ahead of them, while a lack of vision allows one to concentrate on the sounds received from every direction — left and right, front and back, above and below. When he accompanies sighted birders on field trips he regularly identifies birds by sound long before his companions have managed to recognise them by sight. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Culasso’s success at sightless birding offers a lesson for all birders. It is all too easy to rely mainly on visual identification, but remaining alert to the sounds around you can make a big difference to any birding expedition. </span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758066450218785309.post-66448575332659935902017-03-07T08:42:00.000+00:002017-03-07T08:54:44.061+00:00Rollo’s regrettable legacy<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Although it is dispiriting to read about birds that have become extinct in recent times or are heading for oblivion, it is also heartening to learn about species that reappear long after they have been assumed to have died out.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">One example is Beck’s Petrel (<i>Pseudobulweria becki)</i>, which was refound a few years ago after being overlooked for 80 years. However, this species still faces a high risk of extinction. Much research is needed if we are to detect, respect and protect its breeding sites, believed to be on small Melanesian islands.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">While relishing the re-emergence of this species, I find it irritating that its English name and its scientific binomial both commemorate a man whose activities threatened its survival. Until its rediscovery, Beck’s Petrel was known only from two specimens “collected” during a 1928/29 South Pacific expedition by Rollo Beck (1870–1950), an American ornithologist who seems </span>to<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> have made a living by selling the corpses of vulnerable birds to museums.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Although the petrel that bears his name still survives precariously, Rollo Beck may have contributed to the extinction of at least two other creatures. One of these was the Guadalupe Caracara or Quelili <i>(Caracara lutosa)</i>, a bird of prey endemic to Mexico’s Guadalupe Island. Once common on the island, its numbers plummeted towards the end of the 19th century, mainly because of an extermination campaign by goat herders who believed that the bird predated their kids. In 1900, when the caracara had already been almost wiped out, Beck visited the island and found 11 birds. Having no land-based predators (other than goat herders), they were tame and approachable, and Beck shot nine of them to supply to museums as scientific specimens. Since Beck’s fateful trip to the island there have been no confirmed sightings of this species.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">In 1906, Beck also “collected” three of the last four known specimens of Pinta Island Tortoise <i>(Geochelone nigra abingdonii)</i> — even though he knew that, like the Guadalupe Caracara, this subspecies of the Galápagos Tortoise had already been almost wiped out. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">After Beck’s testudinal butchery the Pinta Island Tortoise was believed to be lost. But in 1971 a lone male was discovered. Dubbed “Lonesome George”, he was taken to a research station for protection. He died of old age in 2012, after failing to mate successfully with females of a closely related subspecies. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">In view of Rollo Beck’s appalling record, surely it is time to award Beck’s Petrel a less cynical name? </span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758066450218785309.post-36678049599723188762016-12-25T00:26:00.001+00:002016-12-25T00:29:13.500+00:00A rotten Christmas Robin<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Every year the Royal Mail issues a collection of Christmas postage stamps. Its set for 2016 depicts six of </span>the<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> corniest Christmas clichés — snowman (2nd class post), robin (1st class post), tree (£1.05), lantern (£1.33), stocking (£1.52) and pudding (£2.25).</span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;"> </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjitGVoKCogus1vDUQQATjbZ38YuGc9FT-2z-U9YJF35SN3VUTzixRGihonAbUvCS5-8DvZK_LrHcQkwS3n_zCwDEuKOsFKUyV3TeLk3h0iOzfu5kZIRZ04vjs1cOC7xB8vMRVjyrP486ZM/s1600/Robin.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjitGVoKCogus1vDUQQATjbZ38YuGc9FT-2z-U9YJF35SN3VUTzixRGihonAbUvCS5-8DvZK_LrHcQkwS3n_zCwDEuKOsFKUyV3TeLk3h0iOzfu5kZIRZ04vjs1cOC7xB8vMRVjyrP486ZM/s320/Robin.jpeg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Unfortunately, the representation of the Robin on the first class stamp is far from first class. The image may be roughly the right shape for a Robin, but the bird has been given a breast of a garish pillar-box red rather than the more subtle orange-red of a real adult Robin. Even worse, the chocolate brown around and below this bib is quite wrong. In real life the Robin’s colourful breast patch has a delicate bluish-grey margin either side of it, and the bird’s undercarriage is whitish from the belly to beneath the tail, shading into pale reddish-brown on the flanks. Only the upperparts and wings are actually brown.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The stamp also gives its Robin yellow legs, a yellowish bill and a conspicuous white eye with a tiny black pupil. In fact the legs and bill should be brown and the eye is entirely black, surrounded by a fine white eye-ring. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Examining this rotten representation of a Robin set me thinking about why the bird has become a Yuletide symbol. One alleged origin for its association with Christmas lies in maudlin folklore linking its red breast to either the birth or the death of Jesus. One legend says that when </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">ickle baby Jesus was in his manger in the stable, the fire lit to keep him warm began to die down. A little brown bird flew in and flapped its wings to make the embers glow and re-ignite the fire. A stray red-hot ember flew from the hearth, landing on the bird’s breast to make it glow bright red. An alternative version has the fire flaring up and the bird scorching its breast by placing itself in front of the fire to protect the baby Jesus. In either case, Mary supposedly declared that the reddened breast was a sign of the bird’s kind heart and that the bird and its descendants would wear a red breast proudly for evermore. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Equally nauseating is the story that when Jesus was dying on the cross a Robin flew up and tried to remove his thorny crown. But it was not strong enough and its passionate attempts led to its breast being stained red with Jesus’s blood. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: normal;">A more plausible origin for the Robin’s association with Christmas derives from the nickname “Robin” given to Victorian postmen because of their red tunics. (</span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Red is, of course, still used by the Royal Mail on its logo, postboxes, vans, etc.) Because people expecting Christmas mail eagerly awaited the arrival of the red-breasted postman, some greeting card artists illustrated their cards with images of postal delivery. However, one artist decided that instead of drawing Robin the postman, he would draw Robin the bird with letters in its little beak. The trend caught on and, as Victorian tastes grew more extravagant, Robins were even slaughtered to provide red feathers for decorating cards.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">But despite these alleged origins, </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-weight: normal;">it may be </span><span style="font-weight: normal;">that</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-weight: normal;"> </span><span style="font-weight: normal;">the</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-weight: normal;"> Robin's association with Christmas is simply because, </span><span style="font-weight: normal;">like</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-weight: normal;"> Yuletide evergreens such as holly, ivy </span><span style="font-weight: normal;">and </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-weight: normal;">mistletoe (</span><span style="font-weight: normal;">which</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-weight: normal;"> become </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">more obvious once deciduous plants have lost their leaves), it is more noticeable at this time of year. Robins become more conspicuous by December </span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">partly because UK numbers are boosted by birds from colder climates migrating to Britain in the autumn and partly because, unlike most garden birds, the Robin draws attention to itself by singing regularly in the winter. </span></span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;">Incidentally, the name Robin is a fairly recent acquisition, only officially accepted by the British Ornithologists’ Union in 1952. The bird’s Anglo-Saxon name was Ruddock, but by the Middles Ages it had become known as Redbreast. In the 16th century there was a fad for giving common birds personal names, so that the Daw became Jack Daw, the Pie became Mag (Margaret) Pie, the Wren became Jenny Wren, tits became Tom Tit, etc, and the Redbreast became Robin Redbreast. Over the years, Jack Daw and Mag Pie condensed to Jackdaw and Magpie, and the Wren and the tits dropped their adopted forenames. But the Redbreast went on to lose its “surname” and become just plain Robin.</span></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758066450218785309.post-70903733398120251422016-09-19T21:13:00.001+01:002016-09-19T21:17:49.342+01:00The migrant Greylag is no laggard<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The Greylag (</span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Anser anser</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">) is a large grey goose, the </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Anser</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> ancestor of most domestic geese and the bulkiest of the geese found in Europe. It can be distinguished from other grey geese by its large head, thick neck, dull pinkish legs and heavy pinkish-orange bill.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">In the UK, truly wild Greylag occur only as winter visitors to Scotland and Northern Ireland, to which they migrate in autumn from their breeding grounds in Iceland. Elsewhere, particularly in eastern England, the Greylag has become established as a resident species after being released in suitable areas. These non-migratory birds tend to be semi-tame and can be found around gravel pits, lakes and reservoirs, just like the introduced Canada Geese and Egyptian Geese with which they often associate.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">By now, the more prescient readers will have noticed that I call the species Greylag rather than Greylag Goose. That is because I have always understood that the “lag” part of the name is an old word meaning goose, so that referring to the bird as Greylag Goose is tautological. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">But recently, after coming across a couple of Greylag at my local birding patch, where they are not regularly found, I started wondering whether I was right about the origin of the name. So I checked a range of online dictionaries (via the wonderful <a href="http://www.onelook.com/" target="_blank">OneLook</a> metadictionary) and was surprised to find that only two sources seemed to agree with me. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">One of these, the mighty Oxford Dictionary, states that the name has its origin in the early 18th century and that lag is an old dialect word for goose, of unknown origin. The other, Wiktionary, says that lag is an old name for a goose “derived from the call used to move such animals along”. Oxford agrees that “lag” was formerly used in calling or driving domesticated geese but suggests, not unreasonably, that the call was derived from the name rather than the other way about.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">But apart from those two sources, every online dictionary that ventures to offer an origin for the name states that “lag” is a reference to the bird’s supposed habit of remaining in Britain relatively later than other migratory wild geese before setting off for its breeding grounds. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">This claim seemed to me to be nothing but crass folk etymology, since I was not aware of any evidence for a delayed spring migration for this species. </span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">So I decided to check. And what did I find? I came across a </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03078698.2000.9674238" target="_blank">study carried out for the British Trust for Ornithology</a> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">suggesting that, rather than lagging behind other wild geese, Greylag actually tend to leave their winter quarters in Scotland significantly earlier than their grey goose relatives. </span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">Combining records for Scottish departures and Icelandic arrivals between 1950 and 1997, the study reported that the greatest Greylag movement was from April 11 to 15, compared with April 17 to 21 for White-fronted Goose, April 25 to 28 for Brent Goose, April 26 to 30 for Pink-footed Goose and April 27 to May 1 for Barnacle Goose.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I rest my case. Far from being castigated as a slowpoke, the wild Greylag should be lauded as a migratory pacesetter. Labelling it a laggard is clearly wrong. The Oxford/Wiktionary etymology must surely be right and the other dictionaries are all mistaken. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">So I am justified in continuing to call the bird just a Greylag rather than a Greylag Goose.</span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758066450218785309.post-9660149981742291312016-09-17T12:40:00.000+01:002016-09-19T21:18:24.365+01:00Farewell, Einojhani Rautavaara<div style="font-family: helvetica; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">From a somewhat belated obituary in <i>The Times</i> of 14 September 2016, I recently learnt of the death on 27 July 2016 of the Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara, aged 87. He was a composer I have admired since I first heard his romantic and impressionistic <i>Cantus Arcticus</i>, subtitled <i>Concerto for Birds and Orchestra</i>, which is probably his best-known work. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Many years ago, when I was still unaware of any Finnish composers other than Jean Sibelius, I was scanning the <i>Radio Times</i> and came across details of a Radio 3 performance of <i>Cantus Arcticus</i>. Intrigued by the reference to birds, I recorded it on cassette tape and listened to it over and over again.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">I know now that the work originated in 1971 in a commission from the University of Oulu for Rautavaara to write a cantata for performance at the following year’s degree ceremony. However, after accepting the commission, the composer discovered that the university choir was not up to scratch and so decided to replace them with the best voices in the world — those of wild birds, and specifically those from the area around the city of Oulu. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Oulu is on the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia in northern Finland, close to the Arctic Circle. Rautavaara ventured out into the chilly landscape surrounding the city and recorded bird calls and songs both within the Arctic Circle and in the Liminka wetlands, a few miles south of Oulu. He then interwove these sounds into the orchestral texture of a three-movement work that also requires various wind instruments to mimic bird sounds.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">The work’s first movement, <i>Suo </i>(“The Marsh”), opens with two solo flutes, which are gradually joined by other wind instruments and the sounds of marshland birds recorded in spring. I recognise some of the commoner bird sounds and I have read that the recording also includes Terek Sandpiper and possibly Ortolan Bunting. I would love to hear an expert’s analysis of all the birds on Rautavaara’s recording. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">In the plaintive second movement, <i>Melankolia </i>(“Melancholy”), the featured bird is the Shore Lark, but birders might not easily recognise it because Rautavaara brought its call down by two octaves to give it an eerie “ghost bird” effect. The mournful bird sound is accompanied by tender string figures.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">The third movement, <i>Joutsenet muuttavat </i>(“Swans migrating”), features the calls of migrating Whooper Swans. As the movement progresses in a long crescendo, the texture becomes gradually more complex and the calls of the swans are multiplied to create the impression of swelling numbers. Finally both the bird calls and the orchestra fade away as if lost in the distance.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Cantus Arcticus is a majestic work that conveys a wonderful image of big skies, wide open spaces, bleak marshes, chilly winds, etc. If listening to it does not send a shiver up your spine then there may be something wrong with you. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">NOTE (1): for anyone who may be interested, Einojuhani Rautavaara’s name is pronounced <i>EH-ee-noh-yoo-hah-nee RAH-oo-tah-vaah-rah</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">NOTE (2): My recommended recording of <i>Cantus Arcticus</i> is a version by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra with the Finnish conductor Leif Segerstam, found on the Ondine label. Almost as good is a low-price Naxos recording by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, conducted by another Finn, Hannu Lintu (whose surname happens to be Finnish for bird). If you don’t want to buy a recording you can find several versions to listen to on YouTube. Musicians may like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uRQkXSfDOU"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: black;">www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uRQkXSfDOU</span></a>, which lets you follow the sheet music while listening to a recording by the Deutsche Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern conducted by Christoph Poppend. If you like pretty images, try <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc_j5jEFY5k"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: black;">www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc_j5jEFY5k</span></a>, in which the RSNO recording is accompanied by a live kinetic painting by Norman Perryman, apparently representing the Finnish landscape. At <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZhrBPMn2zw"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: black;">www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZhrBPMn2zw</span></a> you can watch a video of a performance by an excellent amateur orchestra, the Calgary Civic Symphony. </span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758066450218785309.post-30864523188734831842016-09-16T08:08:00.000+01:002016-09-16T08:08:25.891+01:00The Great Crested Grebe and the Plumage League<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">In 1970, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds introduced a logo in the form of a graphic representation of the head of an Avocet (or a Pied Avocet, if you like, to distinguish it from three New World species of Avocet).</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Avocet was an apt choice because over the previous couple of decades the RSPB had played a major role in re-establishing this species as a breeding bird after its extinction in Britain in 1893. However, an equally suitable logo might have been a Great Crested Grebe, because without this species the RSPB might never have been founded. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Although previously well established in Britain, the Great Crested Grebe almost disappeared in the 19th century. Why? Because of wholesale slaughter in the interest of ladies’ fashion. Smart ladies in the Victorian era loved to wear large hats with wide brims decorated in elaborate creations of silk flowers, ribbons and colourful feathers — and sometimes even the stuffed skins of entire birds. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Because of its exotic head and neck plumes, the Great Crested Grebe was one of the species slaughtered to meet this fashion. Thanks mainly to plume-hunters, Britain’s breeding population plummeted until, in 1860, just 42 breeding pairs were recorded. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">In 1889, from her home in Didsbury (now a suburb of Manchester), Emily Williamson set up the Plumage League to campaign against the use of feathers in hat-making. She was concerned at both the cruelty of plume hunting and its severe effect on the population of some species.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">The league had just two simple rules: (1) “that members shall discourage the wanton destruction of Birds, and interest themselves generally in their protection”; and (2) “that Lady-Members shall refrain from wearing the feathers of any bird not killed for purpose of food, the ostrich only excepted.” (The Ostrich was excluded because its tail-feathers could be harvested without harm.) </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">As the British species most at risk from plume hunters, the Great Crested Grebe was one of the league’s main concerns. Non-British birds being decimated by plume-hunters included the Roseate Spoonbill and various species of egret, flamingo and bird of paradise. By the time the league was founded, the fashion industry had almost extinguished some of these birds.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">In 1891, the league merged with a similar protest group established in Croydon by Eliza Philips, who hosted regular “fur, fin and feather” meetings at her home. They called the merged group the Society for the Protection of Birds. The organisation went on to be granted a Royal Charter in 1904 and has subsequently grown to become the largest wildlife conservation charity in Europe, with more than a million members. In 1989, on the centenary of Plumage League’s foundation, a plaque was placed on Emily Williamson’s former home to honour her work.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Thanks to the campaigning begun by Emily and Eliza, there are now more than 5,000 breeding pairs of Great Crested Grebe in the United Kingdom, spread across most of England, lowland Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. </span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758066450218785309.post-64973781254707698992016-04-10T21:58:00.001+01:002016-09-18T21:40:30.310+01:00The extinct Dodo that never even existed<h2>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Everyone has heard of the Dodo — that large, flightless relative of the pigeons that was found only on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius and became extinct in the 17th century. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Known to science as <i>Raphus cucullatus</i>, this docile and inquisitive bird was first recorded by Dutch sailors in 1598. Because of subsequent hunting and habitat destruction, along with predation by mammals introduced by man, numbers rapidly dwindled and the last widely accepted sighting of a Dodo was in 1662. Although there were some possible later encounters, it is generally agreed that the species was fully extinct by the end of the 17th century. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Yes, everyone is aware of the Dodo. But few people have heard of a close relative from the volcanic island of Réunion, which lies 225km (140 miles) west of Mauritius. This bird, the Réunion Solitaire (<i>Raphus solitarius</i>), has a unique feature — not only is it also officially extinct, but it seems never to have existed in the first place! It was, however, accepted as a second species of Dodo until as recently as the 1980s, and it still appears in some official lists of extinct birds and is described on a number of websites. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKi6IAkP2K_-XAkPjEtZzVkxYHhABHN6rYh4pGqSaE8VHFphBy7IIYf6rD7OFFwU5m8jkAHfVZ8PcHna9BMIeeV09G2RAFwGqT6YIDWMBKkf0BuoRP67XH3urcZ2QDnagJf5ZZOGDTNna-/s1600/Re%25CC%2581union+Solitaire.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKi6IAkP2K_-XAkPjEtZzVkxYHhABHN6rYh4pGqSaE8VHFphBy7IIYf6rD7OFFwU5m8jkAHfVZ8PcHna9BMIeeV09G2RAFwGqT6YIDWMBKkf0BuoRP67XH3urcZ2QDnagJf5ZZOGDTNna-/s320/Re%25CC%2581union+Solitaire.JPG" width="234" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(37, 37, 37); color: #252525; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Image of a Réunion Solitaire, based <br />on 17th century written accounts</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">The Réunion Solitaire is known only from old written descriptions and pictorial records. Travellers' accounts from the 17th century describe a large white bird that could fly only with difficulty. One account specifically referred to it as a Dodo. It is perhaps not surprising that illustrators in Europe who had not seen the bird for themselves produced images depicting it as a white variant on the better known Mauritian species. </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Réunion’s “Dodo” was given the name Solitaire because it seemed to prefer the solitude of the mountains — although it is quite possible that the bird had only become confined to mountainous areas because of heavy hunting by man and predation by animals that man had introduced. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(37, 37, 37); color: #252525; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: small;">Hypothetical restoration of the Réunion <br />Ibis, based on subfossil remains, 17th <br />century written accounts and extant <br />relatives in the same genus</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Records indicate that the Réunion Solitaire was driven to extinction by the early 18th century. However, no remains of a Dodo-like bird have ever been found on Réunion, and it is now generally accepted that the solitaire was not even closely related to the Dodo. </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Since 1974, subfossils of an extinct ibis have been unearthed on Réunion, and it appears that this bird was the real solitaire. The Réunion Ibis was first scientifically described in 1987 and was given the specific name </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Threskiornis solitarius</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">. Its closest extant relatives are the African Sacred Ibis (</span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">T aethiopicus</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">) and the Malagasy Sacred Ibis (</span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">T bernieri</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">).</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Although Réunion never had its own Dodo, the Mauritian species did at least have one genuine cousin. This bird lived on Rodrigues, the last of the three major volcanic islands in the Mascarene Archipelago, some 620km (385 miles) east of Mauritius. The Rodrigues Solitaire was described and drawn by François Leguat, leader of a group of French Huguenot refugees who were marooned on the island from 1691 to 1693. Like the Mauritian Dodo and the Réunion Ibis, this bird also fell foul of human hunters and introduced mammals. It probably became extinct some time between the 1730s and 1760s.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(37, 37, 37); color: #252525; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-align: start;">François Leguat’s drawing of the </span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(37, 37, 37); color: #252525; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: start;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(37, 37, 37); color: #252525; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-align: start;">Rodrigues Solitaire — the only </span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(37, 37, 37); color: #252525; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: start;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(37, 37, 37); color: #252525; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-align: start;">known drawing by someone </span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(37, 37, 37); color: #252525; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: start;" /><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(37, 37, 37); color: #252525; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-align: start;">who observed the bird in life</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Apart from a handful of other contemporary descriptions, including Leguat’s detailed account and drawing, nothing was known about the Rodrigues Solitaire until a few subfossil bones were found in a cave in 1789. Since then, thousands of bones have been excavated. They have allowed taxonomists to decide that the bird was certainly a near relative of the Dodo. However, it was not close enough to be placed in the </span><i style="font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Raphus</i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> genus and it was given its own genus, </span><i style="font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Pezophaps</i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> (meaning “pedestrian pigeon”). But </span><i style="font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Raphus cucullatus and Pezophaps solitaria</i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> are close enough to share an extinct subfamily, the Raphinae, within the large pigeon family, the Columbidae.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Columbidae family features about 310 species. Sadly, the Dodo and the Rodrigues Solitaire are among no fewer than 10 family members to become extinct since 1600, which is the conventional date used for estimating “modern” extinctions.</span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758066450218785309.post-62687890560760560652016-04-10T15:55:00.000+01:002016-09-19T21:20:38.973+01:00Return of the crane<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12px;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">During a recent short break in Cambridgeshire, my wife and I visited a wetland nature reserve. As soon as we reached the car park overlooking the site I noticed two large birds flying across </span>the<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> reserve towards us. As I scrabbled for my binocular they dropped down into the wet grassland about 200 metres away. But even before I could train my lenses on them, I realised to my delight that they were cranes — the first I have ever seen in Britain.</span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "helvetica";"> </span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Common Cranes in Cambridgeshire</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">While I was trying to photograph the distant birds, I met a binocular-toting dog-walker and asked her if cranes were regular visitors to the reserve. She told me that a pair had successfully bred a few years ago and then stayed on, sometimes joined by a few other birds. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">(I will not identity the site, since I suspect that the conservation organisation responsible for it does not want publicity. There is certainly no mention of cranes on the reserve’s website pages.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The by-no-means-common Common Crane (<i>Grus grus</i>) is mainly a long-distance migrant, breeding across northern Europe and Asia and predominantly wintering in northern Africa. It is one of Britain’s rarest birds, normally encountered only as a scarce passage migrant in spring and autumn. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Common Crane bred in Britain in the Middle Ages, but land drainage and hunting led to its disappearance as a breeding bird by the start of the 17th century. But then in autumn 1979 two birds appeared in Norfolk at Hickling Broad and stayed on rather than continuing south. Three years later they raised a single chick — the first successful breeding in Britain for about 400 years. Over the following few years, they made further breeding attempts. Other birds stopped off from their migration to join them and a few of them also stayed on. And Hickling Broad now has a resident flock of about 20 birds, with two or three pairs breeding successfully each year. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">This natural success in Norfolk stimulated a scheme called the Great Crane Project, in which the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Pensthorpe Conservation Trust have sunk hundreds of thousands of pounds into persuading hand-reared cranes to breed in the Somerset Levels. The RSPB alone currently has a target of raising £1.5 million for this dubious project (see <a href="http://www.rspb.org.uk/joinandhelp/donations/campaigns/greatcraneproject/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; line-height: normal;">http://www.rspb.org.uk/joinandhelp/donations/campaigns/greatcraneproject/</span></a>). </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">According to the RSPB website, the rationale for this horrendously costly scheme is that the small Norfolk Broads population “remains isolated” and cranes therefore “need a big helping hand” to recolonise their other former wetland haunts. But does the Norfolk population really “remain isolated”? And do cranes really need an extravagant “helping hand” elsewhere? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Without any expensive hand-rearing, cranes began breeding at the RSPB’s Lakenheath Fen reserve in Suffolk a few years ago, and they have also bred on Humberside and in north-east Scotland, as well as at the Cambridgeshire reserve where I saw them. There is no reason why they should not naturally continue to spread into other wetland areas across Britain without the “helping hand” of the Great Crane Project. The money splurged on this profligate scheme could surely be used more effectively elsewhere.</span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758066450218785309.post-31697069833708967602016-04-06T23:48:00.000+01:002016-04-10T23:10:31.605+01:00On not hearing the first cuckoo in spring<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">For centuries, the call of the Cuckoo has been considered a harbinger of spring. The bird’s arrival was once so keenly awaited that April 14 was designated Cuckoo Day because the first Cuckoo was usually heard on or about that day in southern England.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">According to an old verse, the Cuckoo sings from St Tiburtius Day to St John's Day — ie, from Cuckoo Day, which is also the feast day of St Tibertius (a Christian martyr in ancient Rome), to June 24, which is Midsummer Day and the feast day of St John the Baptist. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Why the June 24 cut-off? Since the Cuckoo is a brood parasite — relying on other birds to raise its young — it has no breeding territory to defend and so has no need to continue singing further into the summer. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">But today the call of the Cuckoo is far from common. The species has been in decline for 50 years or so, and since the early 1980s its population has dropped by two-thirds. In 2009 it was added to the UK red list of Birds of Conservation Concern. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">The reasons for the Cuckoo’s decline are not known. Some people have blamed it on the destruction of the habitat of the small birds that find themselves fostering young Cuckoos. However, this is unlikely because none of the main host species — the Meadow Pipit, the Dunnock, the Reed Warbler and the Pied Wagtail — is also in significant decline. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Another possible cause is an increased use of pesticides on farmland. This may have reduced the numbers of caterpillars, which are the Cuckoo’s main prey. But other birds that feed mainly on caterpillars have not shown such a sharp decline. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: large;">Climate change has also been suggested as a factor. Global warming has certainly shifted forward the host birds’ breeding by a few days, but there is no evidence of any link to the Cuckoo’s decline. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: large;">With no specific evidence of problems in the bird’s summer haunts, we should perhaps be looking elsewhere. Major causes of decline may be the deterioration of conditions along the Cuckoo’s migration routes and problems within its over-wintering grounds in sub-Saharan Africa.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758066450218785309.post-4530730391862944952016-03-01T10:48:00.001+00:002016-04-10T23:10:21.656+01:00The four-mile-high goose<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Most migrating birds fly at altitudes within the range 150–600m (490–1,970ft). However, some species are known to climb considerably higher, particularly if their migration routes take them across mountain ranges. For example, in the 1950s, an expedition to Mount Everest found skeletons of Northern Pintail (</span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Anas acuta</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">) and Black-tailed Godwit (</span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Limosa limosa</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">) at an altitude of 5,000m (16,000ft) on the Khumbu Glacier.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So what is the world’s highest flying bird? Well, the record is indisputably held by an unfortunate Rüppell's Vulture (<i>Gyps rueppellii</i>). This hapless bird was sucked into the jet engine of a plane flying over Ivory Coast at an altitude of 11,300m (37,000ft) above sea level on 29 November 1973. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">But soaring birds such as vultures can take advantage of the slightest upward air current to reach great heights with little effort. So which is the highest flying bird that depends mainly on muscle-power? The award must go to — <i>insert drum roll here — </i>the Bar-headed Goose (<i>Anser indicus</i>). </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Bar-headed Goose breeds in high altitude wetlands in central Asia and migrates over the Himalayas to winter in northern India. Bar-heads have been recorded by GPS (global positioning system) flying at altitudes of up to 6,540m (21,460ft) — 4 miles high — and at the same time engaging in the highest known rate of climb to altitude for any bird. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Anecdotal reports suggest that Bar-heads can fly even higher than this. They have apparently been heard flying across the summit of Mount Makalu – the fifth highest mountain on earth at 8,481m (27,825ft). And George Lowe, who supported Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in the first ascent of Mount Everest in 1953, reported seeing geese fly over the top of the world’s highest mountain at around 8,840m (29,000ft). </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It was long thought that Bar-headed Geese reached these high altitude by catching a ride on the jet stream across the mountains. However, a recent study found that they prefer to fly early in the morning when there is less wind, spurning the updraughts or tailwinds that most other migrating birds would use.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So how do these birds manage to attain a height at which the air is so thin that it provides less than half the oxygen available at sea level? Not surprisingly, studies have shown that they have to flap much harder, putting in around 30 per cent more effort at altitude than at lower altitudes. But research has also shown that, in common with Rüppell’s Vulture, the Bar-head’s blood cells contain a special type of haemoglobin — the blood protein responsible for transporting oxygen around the body — that absorbs oxygen more quickly at high altitudes. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Another factor is that the bird’s wing muscle fibres are particularly dense in small blood vessels (capillaries), which extend especially deeply into the muscles. And each muscle cell’s mitochondrion — the “powerhouse” that generates cellular energy — is found close to the cell membrane adjacent to capillaries, which reduces the oxygen’s diffusion distance within the cell.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">All these adaptations show that, compared with low-altitude geese and ducks, Bar-heads have evolved beautifully to cope with thin air by enhancing the oxygen supply to their flight muscle. </span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758066450218785309.post-79005193169332948452015-06-11T11:17:00.001+01:002016-04-10T23:10:13.358+01:00Electing a national bird: the result<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 20px;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The result of the vote to elect an "official" national bird for the UK (see earlier post) was announced during BBC1's <i>Springwatch Unsprung </i>on 10 June 2015. The Robin was an easy winner, with more than a third of the vote. </span></div>
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A total of 224,438 people voted for their favourite bird from the short list of 10 species on offer. The voting was as follows:</span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Robin — 75,623 (33.7%)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Barn Owl — 26,191 (11.7%)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Blackbird — 25,369 (11.3%)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Wren — 19,609 (8.7%)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Red Kite — 14,057 (6.2%)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Kingfisher — 13,922 (6.2%)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Mute Swan — 13,480 (6.0%)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Blue Tit — 13,123 (5.8%)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Hen Harrier — 12,390 (5.5%)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Puffin — 10,674 (4.8%).</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Despite having previously claimed that the ballot would produce an "official" national bird, the instigator of the vote, David Lindo (who favoured the Blackbird himself), now seems to accept that there is nothing official about the outcome. He announced his hope that the government will agree to recognise the Robin as the official national bird. </span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758066450218785309.post-28632402862740037862015-05-14T10:52:00.001+01:002016-09-19T21:22:27.823+01:00Why I can’t get excited about the demise of "Lady A" <div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; margin-bottom: 6px;">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">There was some fuss early in 2015 over the sighting of a splendidly plumaged Lady Amherst’s Pheasant in woodland near Lidlington, Bedfordshire. Why? Because this “Lady A” was allegedly the last remaining specimen of the species in the wild in Britain. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Twitchers were falling over each other to add the UK’s only authentic Lady A to their personal lists of British species before the lonesome bird bit (pecked?) the dust — although, for all we know, </span>this<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span>handsome<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> male may have had a harem of hens nearby, since the drab lady Lady A looks much like a female Common Pheasant. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Personally I cannot get too excited about the possible demise of the Lady A. Like the Common Pheasant and the rare Golden Pheasant and Reeves’s Pheasant, it is not a native of Britain. It is a 19th century introduction from Asia, where it is not under threat but </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">remains widespread and common in south-west China and Burma. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The bird was given its English name in honour of Sarah, Countess Amherst, whose hubby, the first Earl Amherst, sent a specimen to London in 1828, when he was Governor General of Bengal. Unfortunately, Lord </span>Amherst's</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> bird did not survive the journey, but the gaudy plumage of the male Lady A later made it popular with Victorian collectors. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The male is certainly a colourful bird. On a YouTube video you can see a beautiful captive specimen being tormented (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIGHtrtL1Io).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Not surprisingly, some Lady A pheasants escaped from captivity or were deliberately released into the wild. Small populations became established in several wooded areas of England and Wales, and the birding boffins eventually admitted it to the official list of British species. But then a decline began, perhaps because of increased predation by foxes, and </span>the<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> loss of </span>the<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> species</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> from the UK has been on the cards for some time. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">A few years ago, <i>The Independent</i> hilariously compared the potential demise of the UK’s Lady A to the extinction of the Great Auk in 1840: “Unless it can find a previously unsighted mate, and breeds successfully, Lady Amherst’s will become the first bird species since the Great Auk to be lost from the British countryside.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">This comparison is ludicrous for two major reasons. First, the Great Auk, as a bird of the open seas, was never to be found in “the British countryside”. More importantly, the Great Auk was a native British bird that was completely wiped from the face of the Earth, whereas the Lady A is an artificially introduced species that still thrives in its natural Asian habitat.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Other birds threatened with extinction in Britain, such as the Red Kite, White-tailed Eagle and Chough, have made a comeback to former haunts through reintroduction programmes, but there are no such plans for the Lady A because the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 prohibits the release of non-native species into the wild. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">However, the Lady A may reappear anyway. Look on a website such as </span><a href="http://poultryads.co.uk/" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(4, 46, 238); color: #042eee;">poultryads.co.uk</span></a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> or </span><a href="http://birdtrader.co.uk/" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(4, 46, 238); color: #042eee;">birdtrader.co.uk</span></a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> and you will see that the species is still being bred in the UK for private collectors. Several sightings in recent years have clearly been escapes rather than remnants of the naturalised feral population, and it is highly likely that more birds will abscond into the countryside — to </span>the<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">consternation of twitchers, who can add a tick to their lists only if convinced that a rare bird is truly wild rather than a “plastic fantastic”.</span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758066450218785309.post-84725467832361895982015-03-16T00:12:00.002+00:002016-04-10T23:08:17.835+01:00Electing a national bird<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Back in 1961, readers of </span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The Times</i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> voted the Robin as their favourite bird. Since then, this species has unofficially been seen as Britain’s national avian representative.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">And now, more than 50 years later, we have been asked to vote for an “official” national bird. I do not know what makes this choice “official”, since the entire process seems to have been devised by David Lindo, a publicity-seeking London bird-watcher who likes to be known as The Urban Birder. Whatever makes the choice “official” seems to be only inside Lindo’s head.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">In Lindo’s poll, voters were in late 2014 asked to nominate their six favourite choices from a list of 60 species. The list included some weird options. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Some of the suggestions were not even native British birds. For example, the Pheasant was introduced to Britain — admittedly centuries ago, possibly by the Romans — and the Ring-necked Parakeet, now common in south-east England, is descended from cage birds that escaped or were deliberately released into the wild only some 50 years ago.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Other long list species were birds that have declined to the point that they are at risk of disappearing completely from the UK, such as the Hen Harrier, Turtle Dove and Cuckoo. OK, so Mauritius has the Dodo as its national bird, but should the UK choose a species that is heading for national extinction?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Waxwing was another ludicrous inclusion in Lindo's list. It may be a pretty bird, but it is not British. It is a Scandinavian bird that visits Britain in winter, but rarely in significant numbers. We did have large irruptions in 2011–12 and 2012–13, but in a typical winter — such as 2014–15 — we are lucky if the total influx gets anywhere near four figures. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">And the Barn Owl? Why choose a bird that is found in every continent except Antarctica but has seen a significant decline in its UK population over the past couple of centuries as a result of persecution and changes in farming practice? Should we be celebrating our failure to preserve this beautiful bird?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">And was it a joke to include the Feral Pigeon, a disease-ridden pest also found almost worldwide? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Several other suggested species should perhaps have been avoided because they are already the national birds of other European countries — Mute Swan (Denmark), Golden Eagle (both Germany and Italy), Kestrel (Belgium), Oystercatcher (Faroe Islands), Swallow (Austria and Estonia), Nightingale (Croatia) and Blackbird (Sweden).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Short list</b> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">From the 60 birds on the long list, a shortlist of the 10 most popular suggestions has been drawn up, with final votes for the national bird invited from 16 March 2015 to 7 May 2015 (a date chosen cringingly to coincide with the UK parliamentary elections). The 10 shortlisted species, alphabetically, are: </span></div>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Blackbird</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Blue Tit </span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Hen Harrier</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Kingfisher</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Mute Swan</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Puffin</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Red Kite</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Robin</span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Wren</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The choice of the three birds of prey presumably reflects national guilt over the way these species have across the centuries been persecuted to near-extinction. But that is no reason to elect any of them as a national symbol.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">And what on earth is particularly British about the Puffin, Kingfisher, Wren, Blackbird and Blue Tit? The Puffin breeds in clifftop colonies round much of the North Atlantic but spends most of the year in the open ocean. The Blackbird, Blue Tit, Kingfisher and Wren all occur across most of Europe and much of temperate Asia. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In my opinion, the only shortlisted birds worthy of consideration as our national bird are the</span><span style="font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Robin and the Mute Swan</span><span style="font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">, even though these too can also be found across Europe and in parts of Asia (and the latter is already the national bird of Denmark). I’ll tell you why:</span></div>
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<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Robin</b> Only in the British Isles is the Robin a familiar bird of parks and gardens and relatively unafraid of people. Indeed, it is seen in Britain as the gardener’s friend, and many bird-lovers buy mealworms and other food to put out for it. In contrast, Robins in continental Europe are wary birds, tending to skulk deep in woodlands, because for centuries they have been hunted and killed, like many other small passerines. </span></li>
<li style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; margin: 0px 0px 6px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Mute Swan</b> The Mute Swan also has a special place in British hearts. It can be found on almost any stretch of fresh water and is often bold enough to take food from the hand. This familiarity with man is probably because swans in Britain were for centuries domesticated for food, with all birds being the property of either the monarch or one of two London livery companies. Unlawful killing was a serious offence. But in continental Western Europe hunting was largely unrestricted, and Mute Swans were almost wiped out between the 13th and 19th centuries. Apart from birds introduced to ornamental waters, Mute Swans on the continent, like the Robin, tend to be wary of people. </span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">My own choice? Like the wise <i>Times</i> readers of 1961, I voted for the Robin.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758066450218785309.post-9856348734201310482015-03-12T10:40:00.001+00:002016-04-10T23:00:21.671+01:00Kiwis and yellowhammers<h2>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">The Yellowhammer (<i>Emberiza citronella</i>) is a small bunting found across temperate Europe and Asia. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">Surprisingly, it is also common in New Zealand. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">But h</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">ow on earth did this species get so deep into the southern hemisphere? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The blame lies with so-called “acclimatisation societies”. In the days of colonialism, these organisations were set up in many British colonies in the belief that the local fauna was in some way deficient and could be improved by introducing species remembered from the British motherland. It is for this reason that the European Starling is now a widespread pest across North America and the rabbit has had a disastrous impact in Australia.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">But Yellowhammers in New Zealand? In the middle of the 19th century, the country’s population was growing rapidly. To a large extent the settlers’ diet depended on introduced cereals. But these crops attracted insect pests such as caterpillars and black field crickets. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">Back in Europe, insectivorous bird helped to keep such pests under control. But Kiwi settlers had cleared away New Zealand’s forests, and many insect-eating native birds had disappeared with them. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">It seemed to make sense to protect the crops by introducing insectivores from Britain. But strange</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">ly, the main species chosen by the acclimatisation societies was the Yellowhammer — strange because the main food of this heavy-billed bunting is seeds rather than insects, although they do tend to use invertebrates as an additional food source in the breeding season, when they feed caterpillars and other insects to their nestlings. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">In the 1860s and 1870s, consignments of Yellowhammers were carried on no fewer than 25 ships sailing from London to New Zealand ports. A quarter of these shipments were organised by a family in Brighton, and many of the birds had been trapped around this East Sussex town.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">At first Kiwi farmers welcomed the immigrants, but they soon began to realise that the newcomers actually aggravated the problem since, rather than eating the insect pests, they would feed on both the newly sown seeds and the subsequent cereal crops. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">Nevertheless, </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">with government support, </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">the acclimatisation societies continued to promote the introduction of Yellowhammers until 1880, when public pressure forced the rejection of the final shipment. (It was sent on to Australia, where Yellowhammers — unlike several other introduced Old World passerines — failed to thrive.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">From then on, New Zealand treated the Yellowhammer as an unwelcome immigrant and encouraged efforts to wipe it out by shooting, poisoning and egg collection. But, despite a bounty placed on the birds and their eggs, it was too late. With no major competitor among native species, the Yellowhammer rapidly became established. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">Today the Yellowhammer is a common inhabitant of open country across much of the NZ mainland and many of its offshore islands.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758066450218785309.post-20307293805253482432015-03-11T18:33:00.000+00:002016-04-10T22:58:39.790+01:00Rediscovery of a supposedly extinct bird<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><span style="font-size: large;">Hallelujah! A small Asian bird believed to have died out more than 60 years ago has recently been rediscovered.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Jerdon’s Babbler (<i>Chrysomma altirostre altirostre</i>) is an LBJ ("little brown job") about the size of a House Sparrow. It was initially described in the 19th century by a British naturalist, Thomas C. Jerdon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Although his main interest was the birds of India, Jerdon discovered his eponymous babbler in 1862 in Burma (or Myanmar, if you must). At the time the bird was common in the grasslands of the country's flood plains. However, this natural habitat was doomed to gradual destruction by rice cultivation and the expansion of Burma's urban population<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: xx-small;">.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Until its recent rediscovery, the last recorded sighting of a Jerdon’s Babbler was a single bird that was “collected”— does that mean shot or just trapped? — on 9 July 1941. This date, of course, was at the height of the Second World War. Soon afterwards the area was occupied by Japanese troops, rendering further scientific investigation impossible. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Since the 1939–45 war, Jerdon’s drab little Burmese bird has been assumed to be extinct, although related subspecies — which may well be in line for reclassification as distinct species — have lingered elsewhere in Asia.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">But the good news is that Jerdon’s Babbler has now been rediscovered. The expansion of rice paddies and a growing human population mean that Burma’s floodplains now bear little resemblance to the landscape that Jerdon studied. However, some tiny remnants of habitat suited to the babbler have managed to survive. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In 2014, a research team surveying the remaining grasslands recorded a distinctive bird-call. When they played back their recording in the field they were rewarded with the sight of an adult Jerdon’s Babbler. Over the following days they also found more birds at other nearby locations. Using mist nets, they trapped several more babblers and obtained blood samples and photographs to confirm their identification.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It is always heartening to learn about the re-emergence of a creature assumed to be extinct. The rediscovery of Jerdon’s Babbler gives us us hope for the recovery of other Asian species that may have pessimistically been consigned to extinction. </span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758066450218785309.post-79317357866939823202014-11-16T23:20:00.004+00:002016-04-10T22:57:10.131+01:00A murmuration about birding words<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; margin-bottom: 6px;">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The fanciful word “murmuration” means the act of murmuring, complaining or grumbling. Ultimately derived from Latin, it is first known in English from Chaucer’s <i>Canterbury Tales</i>, in which <i>The Parson’s Tale</i> (c.1390) includes a sentence beginning,“After bakbitynge [backbiting] cometh grucchynge [grouching] or murmuracioun . . .”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">For more than 500 years, the word has also been used as a collective noun for the Starling. It first appeared with this meaning in <i>The Book of St Albans</i> of 1486, an assortment of essays on hunting, hawking, fishing and heraldry. An appendix to the hunting section, written by St Albans prioress Dame Juliana Barnes, gives a gallimaufry of group names, including murmuration of starlings, gaggle of geese, parliament of rooks and exaltation of larks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Few of these collective terms have remained in common use. Most are either long-forgotten or employed only pretentiously or jokily. But murmuration is different from the rest in that it has now acquired a precise, practical application. Instead of being found only as a jocular tetrasyllabic alternative to “flock”, murmuration has been used in recent years specifically to describe the spectacular aerobatic displays that large flocks of starlings treat us to on autumnal evenings before they settle down to roost at dusk.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">By back-formation from this new usage, we now also have the verb “to murmurate”, meaning to engage in murmuration or to gather together for murmuration. You will not yet find the verb in any dictionary but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before it is accepted.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I do not mind “murmuration” being used in this new and more functional way, but I do tend to engage in disgrunted murmuration about the way wildlife commentators are now abusing another birding word — fledge. If you believe the BBC’s <i>Springwatch</i> team you will think that a young bird fledges by taking its first flight away from the nest. No, it doesn’t. That definition is not in any dictionary. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">For hundreds of years, the verb fledge has related not to the action of leaving the nest but to the acquisition of the strong wing feathers that will sooner or later allow the young bird to take its first flight. There is always an interval between fledging and flying, since the fledgling (as it can now be called, rather than a nestling) needs to spend time exercising its wings and building up muscle strength before it can finally fly the nest. This may take many days in the case of some larger species.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">By misapplying the word fledge to the bird’s first flight, <i>Springwatch</i> has devalued its centuries-old original meaning. The word first appeared in Middle English, when it simply meant feathered, and is derived ultimately from the Old English root word <i>flycge</i>, meaning “having feathers, or fit to fly” — fit to fly, but not necessarily flying.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">By the way, and getting back to murmurations, no one knows why Starlings gather in huge flocks to perform their aerial ballets. It may be to attract other Starlings to join them and increase the size of the flock, either because large numbers confuse potential predators or because roosting in dense flocks helps Starlings to keep warm overnight. If you have seen a recent murmuration and want to help with murmuration research, you may wish to complete a Society of Biology survey <a href="https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/starlings"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(4, 46, 238); color: #551a8b;">here</span></a>.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758066450218785309.post-59897558218687059192014-10-23T12:20:00.002+01:002016-04-10T22:55:20.133+01:00Doomed Sibes<div style="margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Every autumn UK twitchers begin to twitch with excitement at the prospect of catching up with rare vagrant songbirds that turn up in small numbers in western Europe after leaving their breeding grounds in the temperate regions of eastern Europe and Asia. Many of these small passerines are known among birders as “Sibes” because their main summer haunt is in Siberia.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">These drifters are almost always juveniles on their first migration — birds that have somehow got their navigational knickers in a twist. Many should have migrated south-east to spend the winter in tropical regions of Asia, but they reach north-west Europe because they have a misaligned internal compass and have set off in the opposite direction. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">These vagrants may appear anywhere in the British Isles, but they are most commonly found on islands at the edge of the Atlantic, such as Fair Isle and the many islands of Shetland and Orkney, where they stop to build up their reserves before attempting to continue their misguided journey over the vast expanse of the North Atlantic. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Many of these birds are identified after being trapped at bird observatories, such as the famous establishment on Fair Isle, or by bird ringing groups on other islands (or, indeed, anywhere on the British mainland). </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The main purpose of these ringing schemes is to check the movements of individual birds and to discover how long they live. But the chance of learning anything from UK-ringed Sibes is remote because, after their brief break for R&R, most of them will continue doggedly in the wrong direction, setting off across the Atlantic until exhaustion causes them to flop into the waves and either drown or succumb to a pelagic predator. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">We know this is their fate because researchers on the Faroe Island have attached tiny radio transmitters to vagrants such as Yellow-browed Warblers and Barred Warblers and tracked their direction of departure once they have refuelled (see <a href="http://192.38.112.111/pdf-reprints/Thorup_JoO_2012.pdf">here</a>).</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Here’s a recent example of a doomed Sibe. A first-winter female Siberian Thrush — an extremely rare vagrant to western Europe — was trapped and ringed at Husøy in Norway on 24 September 2014. Three weeks later it was recaptured at Scousburgh on Shetland Mainland, 600 miles to the south-west. Perhaps it had followed the Norwegian coast and then turned west when the coastline veered off in a more easterly direction. After its Scousburgh recapture at dusk on 15 October 2014 the thrush was released but was not seen again. Presumably, like other disorientated Sibes, it carried on over the Atlantic until exhaustion led to its watery denouement somewhere in the vastness of the ocean. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Knowing all this, I cannot get too excited by the annual appearance of Sibes in western Europe. Instead, as a birder rather than a twitcher, I find it dispiriting that these disorientated young birds are almost certainly heading for an early death.</span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758066450218785309.post-64914675445295660642014-09-25T13:30:00.000+01:002016-04-10T22:54:08.695+01:00Loony bird names <div style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; margin-bottom: 19.9px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">I recently completed a crossword puzzle in a British daily newspaper in which one of the clues was “Migratory seabird”. The answer turned out to be Arctic Loon. I found this annoying because no one on the eastern side of the Atlantic refers to <i>Gavia arctica</i> as an Arctic Loon. In the Old World its long-established English name is Black-throated Diver.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">But even more annoying than this crossword puzzle’s Americanism is the attempt by the International Ornithological Committee to make everyone use the contrived compromise name Black-throated Loon. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Why should we be forced to call the bird a loon when the name diver is a far better description? Dictionaries define a loon as someone who is clumsy, stupid or crazy (or, in archaic usage, a rogue or a person of low rank). In what way do birds of the <i>Gavia</i> </span><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">genus fit this description? In contrast, the word diver describes them beautifully, since all five <i>Gavia</i> </span><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> species are excellent underwater swimmers. Changing the bird's name is loony. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">I have written previously about attempts to persuade birders to use artificially concocted new names for birds that can supposedly be confused with other species. A prime example of stupid new names is the ludicrous Zitting Cisticola, which the taxonomy wonks now expect us to use for the Fan-tailed Warbler (<i>Cisticola juncidis</i>)</span><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">. This bird has a wide range in the Old World, being found across southern Europe, Africa and southern Asia and down as far as northern Australia. Its English name is accurate: it’s a warbler and it fans its tail. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">So why does the International Ornithological Committee insist on changing the bird's name? Because some upstart American species (<i>Basileuterus lachrymosus</i>)</span><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">, normally confined only to the Pacific slopes of Mexico and Central America, has also been dubbed a Fan-tailed Warbler. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Why can’t we just label the New World species as an American Fan-tailed Warbler and leave our Old World warbler alone? After all, the bird-name despots are happy for us to use the names European robin and American robin for two other species on either side of the Atlantic that have a vaguely similar appearance but are not closely related. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">In any case, where is the proof that confusion ever arises? If there is ever a risk of bewilderment, we can always fall back on the birds’ unique Latinised binomials. That is precisely why these specific names were devised.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758066450218785309.post-18710027724309950652014-09-07T17:43:00.000+01:002016-04-10T22:52:45.164+01:00Is that a pebbly shripp I hear?<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Last year (1 July 2013), I wrote about popular transcriptions of bird songs, such as the Yellowhammer’s “A little bit of bread and no cheese”. A more accurate rendition would be something like “tsi-tsi-tsi-tsi-tsi-tsi-tsi-tsi-tseeee”, but the memorable bread-and-cheese version certainly helps any non-birder to identify a singing yellowhammer.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Unfortunately, apart from a handful of species that have simple songs and onomatopoeic names — such as Chiffchaff, Cuckoo and Hoopoe — few birds have a consistently rendered song that can be represented verbally. One of those few is Cetti’s Warbler (pronounced CHET-ti), whose strident song can be transcribed appropriately as “Hey! You! Cetti-Cetti-Cetti! That’s me!”</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Even more difficult to describe are birds’ flight calls and contact calls. To return to the Yellowhammer, when I checked a random selection of bird guides on my bookshelves, I found the following descriptions of its call: </span></span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">a discordant “stüff”</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">a rather grating “twink” and “twit”</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">a metallic “chip” and “twitic”</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">a rasping “dzüh”</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">a “chick”</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">a distinctive “chinz”</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">a loud “tchick”</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">a ringing “tink”</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">a “twink” or “</span>tweak<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">”</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">a “tsrik” or “trs”</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">a pebbly “shripp”</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">A pebbly </span>shripp? <span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Would any of those renditions actually help you identify a Yellowhammer?</span></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The best way by far to learn bird sounds is to get out into the field, preferably accompanied by an expert, and listen to the various calls until they are ingrained on your memory. Soon you should, for example, be able to distinguish the Chiffchaff’s soft and plaintive “hu-EET” call from the similarly plumaged Willow Warbler’s slightly slower and more </span>forceful<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> “HU-eet”. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Nowadays, the next best thing to direct experience in the field is browsing the wonderful Xeno-canto website (<a href="http://www.xeno-canto.org/"><span style="color: #021eaa; letter-spacing: 0px;">www.xeno-canto.org</span></a>), through which birders around the world share their recordings of bird sounds. </span></span><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758066450218785309.post-22027100658916353492014-07-11T10:43:00.005+01:002016-04-10T22:51:35.929+01:00Historic year for Scotland’s ospreys <div style="margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In the late 1950s, when I was in my early teens, my scout group camped for a fortnight on the Rothiemurchus Estate near Aviemore. Our campsite was by the side of Loch an Eilein, which translates from the Gaelic as “Lake of the Island”.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">As a fledgling birder, I was intrigued by the island, because I had read that its ruined 13th century castle was the last British nesting site of the Osprey before the species was driven to extinction at the start of the 20th century.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">What I did not know at the time — because it was then a closely guarded secret — was that Ospreys had returned to breed in Scotland. Since 1954 a pair had nested annually at Loch Garten, just a few miles from our campsite. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds had taken on the responsibility of safeguarding the eyrie, mounting a 24-hour guard to defend it against </span>illegal<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> assault by egg-collectors. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">But then the RSPB had a brainwave. Instead of shielding the existence of the Loch Garten eyrie it could </span>instead<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> protect it through the glare of publicity, which would act as a deterrent to anyone with sinister intentions. The society built an observation site at a safe distance from the eyrie and welcomed the public to view the nest and its occupants through powerful binoculars (and more recently via live webcam images). The Loch Garten Osprey Centre became so famous that millions of visitors have now seen the magnificent birds at their nest.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">But 2014 is a momentous year for Loch Garten not only because it marks the 60th anniversary of the Osprey’s return to Scotland but also because one of this year’s chicks will be the 100th to fledge at the site. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The current occupants of the Loch Garten eyrie, Odin and E.J., have produced three young, which should soon gain their flight feathers and take to the air. They are all believed to be female and have been given the names Millicent, Seasca and Druie. The “cent” element of “Millicent” recognises her potential status as the 100th Loch Garten fledgling. “Seasca” has been chosen because it is the Gaelic word for sixty. And “Druie" comes from the name of the river that flows through the Rothiemurchus fish farm and probably provides most of the food for the osprey nestlings.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Over the past 60 years, Ospreys have gradually spread beyond Loch Garten to many other nesting sites, and they can now be found raising young not only at other Scottish sites but also in England and Wales. And I am pleased to see that one of the Scottish sites the birds have recolonised is a 13th century ruined castle on an island in Loch an Eilein.</span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758066450218785309.post-36280048679015377812014-05-16T10:45:00.000+01:002016-04-10T22:50:14.059+01:00Those innovatory nightingales<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Ninety years ago, in 1924, the Nightingale contributed to two major technological innovations. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The first development was the brainchild of a British cellist, Beatrice Harrison, who enjoyed practising outdoors during balmy evenings. In spring 1923, after moving to a house in woodland in Surrey, she was astonished to hear a bird join in with her alfresco performance. Her gardener was able to identify her accompanist as a Nightingale. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The next year, after her debut broadcast for the BBC, Beatrice hatched the idea of broadcasting a duet with the bird. Lord Reith, the founder of the BBC, took some persuading, but at 10.45pm on 19 May 1924 the world’s first live outside broadcast was made from Beatrice’s garden. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The audience for this BBC breakthrough was estimated at more than a million, and the broadcast attracted 50,000 letters. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">However, it now seems that the broadcast actually featured a well-known bird impressionist called Maude Gould. She had secretly been booked as a back-up in case the BBC equipment and crew scared off the real bird, which they clearly did. But analysis of later broadcasts, which continued for some years, shows that they did feature genuine Nightingales. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">In 1927 a gramophone record made from BBC recordings was another innovation — the world’s first commercial recording of any animal in the wild. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">In 1942 the BBC planned a new broadcast on the 18th anniversary of the first. But at the last minute the sound engineer heard a group of nearly 200 RAF bombers setting off for a raid on Mannheim, Germany. Realising that a live broadcast might help the enemy, he stopped the broadcast but asked for a recording. This was later issued as a gramophone record sold in aid of the RAF Benevolent Fund. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">(The incident also inspired a 1975 album, <i>Nightingales & Bombers</i>, by Manfred Mann's Earth Band.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Sadly, the BBC has been reluctant to commit to a 90th anniversary broadcast of live Nightingales. But the RSPB, inspired by the hundreds who signed a petition aimed at the BBC, is setting up a live broadcast of Nightingales from 8pm </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">on Sunday 18 May </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">from Northward Hill in north Kent (a site threatened by a nearby housing development that could drive away these timid birds). You should find the broadcast here: </span><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; line-height: 21px;">http://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/n/northwardhill/nightingales-live.aspx</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">And what about the other 1924 nightingale innovation? The Italian composer Ottorino Respighi was inspired to include a recording of a singing Nightingale in the score of his patriotic suite “The pines of Rome”. Its premiere on 14 December 1924 was the first use of an electronic recording as part of a live performance of a musical work. Since then, of course, recorded sound has increasingly been used to complement and enhance music written for otherwise live ensembles.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7758066450218785309.post-32568210418398950852014-03-23T05:50:00.002+00:002016-09-16T06:53:51.181+01:00Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04104047123745264106noreply@blogger.com0