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In recent years Indonesia has been competing with the Andes as the region giving rise to the biggest number of undescribed bird species (naturally, all of them endemics). But since Indonesia has more than 1,700 bird species (and that many islands, too), why is this guide dealing only with 1,400?
This map shows the distribution of the World’s bird species, based on overlying the breeding and wintering ranges of all known species. Indonesia (1615 / 1603). It makes me think what is the meaning of life, the universe and everything? Why am I here? And where all those birds are? Map by BirdLife International. The Oriental realm.
And apart from local people, primate researchers sometimes spot it, but it is a species seen by fewer than ten living birders. This book is essentially about those birds that breed on the continent south of the Sahara, a topic few birders are familiar with.
The archipelago consists of 17,000 islands stretching out over 2500 miles along the Equator with a varied history of avian research and study, most on the under- or not-studied side. So–the book covers islands that belong to the Republic of Indonesia and to Malaysia. So, this is no ordinary bird guide. Does it make a difference?
Such programs are somewhat inefficient anyway – in one study , the breeding success of wild male pheasants was 2-5 times higher than for hand-reared and released ones while for females, hand-reared birds were 3 times as vulnerable to predation as the wild ones.
Interestingly, the molt of the males takes about 20 days longer than that of the females – the authors speculate that this is because of the different peak time efforts in breeding, with the males being involved earlier (singing, establishing territory) than the females (incubating, nestling care). photos per 100 trap nights.
The falcon breeds in south-eastern Siberia and Northern China but winters in Southern and East Africa. Apparently, soloensis stands for “Discovered in or native to the Solo River valley” (Wikipedia; the Solo river is a river in Indonesia). Still as impressed as before?
A study on the breeding biology of Whitehead’s Broadbill was just published in May 2023 but leaves a bit of a puzzle as the breeding success is described as relatively high, meaning there should be other reasons for the population decline of the species. This is particularly acute in Indonesia ( source ).
For example, a researcher and presumed ornithologist set out with two hypotheses related to the Ashy Drongo (and another drongo species) and wrote a paper about it. While I would not want to encourage anyone to put birds in cages, it is interesting to read about the experience of somebody breeding Black-headed Sibias in captivity.
At some point, a Chinese researcher had a brilliant idea: Let’s prepare a paper on the complete mitochondrial genome of the Grey-backed Shrike! He spent the years from 1836 to 1858 in Asia, first in Indonesia, then in China, partly as the consul of the city of Hamburg in China.
While the conclusion seems fairly established now, the paper still puts it in the usual wordy and careful statement: “The shorter minimum stopover duration of both species in spring may indicate a faster migration than in autumn, suggesting a time-minimizing strategy in spring to reach the breeding grounds as fast as possible.”
Given the complexity of the research, the result feels like a bit of a letdown – “northern populations start migration earlier than southern populations, especially in autumn” The species name of the Chestnut-eared Bunting is fucata , from the Latin “fucare”, to paint red. No wonder no species are named after me.
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