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Green-rumped Parrotlets: from egg to adult Text and photographs copyright Nick Sly (except Rae Okawa where indicated) and are used with his permission. Getting intimate with a species over the course of the breeding cycle is one of the more rewarding aspects of birding, and field research too.
Well, not quite like clockwork, because this year one pair of Pied Oystercatchers on Cable Beach laid their first clutch of eggs a bit earlier than normal. This year the first clutch was laid at the end of May and this is the first time we have had eggs laid in May along Cable Beach since 2000. Pied Oystercatchers feeding alone.
Besides the avian attributes of flight, feathers and laying eggs, potoos are quite possibly the most unbird-like birds in the world. Sometimes called “Poor-me-ones&# on account of their haunting calls, these bizarre denizens of the night come in 7 different flavors from the family Nyctibiidae within the order Caprimulgiformes.
They are part of a family of New World Quail which includes Gambel’s, Mountain, Scaled and Montezuma Quail, as well as the Northern Bobwhite. In California, coveys break up and pairs begin forming in February or March, followed by nest building and egg laying in May or June. References: 1 Baicich, Paul J. and Harrison, Colin J.
One bird species that we occasionally observe around Broome is the Yellow-billed Spoonbill, but we had not seen one for a few years until recently. We soon observed several bird species and then a Yellow-billed Spoonbill flew overhead. Not only is it a bird species we rarely encounter, but we had never found a breeding colony before.
It covers 403 species: 172 nonpasserine species and 231 passerine species in the Species Accounts, 198 species beautifully illustrated by the author in the Plates section. The scarcity of information on the young of some avian species is astounding. Woodpeckers are a family of focus for Tuttle-Adams.
Crested Pigeons only lay two eggs and the nest we observed in our local park successfully hatched out two young. The Crested Pigeon would have incubated the eggs for twenty one days. The Crested Pigeon family remained in the tree away from danger for quite some time with both parents present.
There are no Atlantic Puffins on Hog Island; they live locally only on Eastern Egg Rock, a painstakingly-restored seabird nesting colony which hosts three species of tern (including the endangered Roseate Tern ), Eider Ducks , Black Guillemots , and more, as well as 120 pairs of puffins. There’s one!”. I wanted more birds.
The month and this particular period is all the more auspicious for me and mine, as so many friends and families celebrate spring birthdays. My family took our annual post-Easter Egg hunt hike at Powder Mills Park, where I spied several gorgeous matched pairs of Wood Ducks along with lots of different woodpecker species.
I’ve been fortunate to see two Penguin species in the wild (African and Galapagos) and have dreamed of seeing more–maybe even all!–especially The goal of Around the World For Penguins is simple: Describe the 18 species of penguin and their breeding grounds “from the perspective of a traveller.”
Shorebirds – or “shorbs” for the cuteness factor (as if that needed any enhancement) – remain one of the most fascinating families of birds for me. Obliging species like Grey-headed Kingfisher , Long-crested Eagle , and even a pair of Greater Blue-eared Starlings ensured we didn’t get anywhere quickly.
Torresian Crows Corvus orru are the most common of the Crow family in the northern part of Australia and are the most likely of the Crow species that you will encounter. In Broome it is the only Crow species and we do not have Ravens , so it makes identification easy.
The first eggs were laid in the first week of July, which is the case each year. The eggs take 28 days to hatch and it is then at least 35 days before the chicks are developed enough to fly and there have been problems with predation as in other years. Pied Oystercatcher sitting on eggs in the nudist area of Cable Beach.
There are 154 species of cuckoos in the world, and they’re all a fascinating bunch. I have encountered a few of the more quirky members of the family, including the brilliant and aptly-named African Emerald Cuckoo, India’s ultra-shy Sirkeer Malkoha, and the fascinating Lesser Ground Cuckoo in Costa Rica.
When you monitor a species of birds over many years you learn a lot from your observations and you soon become aware of the fact that some birds are just better at parenting than others. There is egg predation, chick loss and sometimes possibly just some “bad parenting”!
This is the home of the Rusty-naped Pitta , admittedly one of the less glamorous of the family, particularly the subspecies found in Yunnan, but still a nice sight and still a pitta. The scientific species name of the Rusty-naped Pitta oatesi honors Eugene William Oates (1845-1911), an English civil servant in India and naturalist.
Even when writing my book with all ardent efforts to remain unbiased; the section on Sandpipers & Allies was by far the longest – surpassing mega-families like Thraupidae and Tyrannidae. Lesser Yellowlegs can easily be confused with the aforementioned species except when they are standing next to each other.
A discarded pigeon’s egg reminded me that spring is just around the corner and that nest boxes should be readied in anticipation. If you have room for only one nest box in your garden, target a likely species and select a suitable style of box with the appropriate entrance opening. What’s this? Where did winter go?
Some 320 species have been recorded here, and in springtime it is possible to observe more than 150 bird species in a week. Due to heavy rains many clutches of Great Crested Grebes had failed, but we observed both nests with eggs (and left the area immediately) and adults with chicks, some of them piggy-backing their mothers.
For the purpose of this post being of a reasonable length, I’m only going to touch on members of the Tyrannidae family of New World Flycatchers which can be found in the cocoa estates of Trinidad and Tobago. Even though they belong to the same family, many flycatchers have different habits. Piratic Flycatcher.
The text goes far beyond just those two birds, however, as Doug works his way through the puzzles presented by the incredibly wide diversity of bird behavior, even within species, citing current research and new and old theories, reasoning out the most likely and unlikely answers. The six middle chapters are my favorite reading. ” (p.
They will only breed if the conditions are good and the male will be responsible for nest building and incubating the 6-12 eggs for approximately 60 days. There had been good rains the previous year and as a result of that there were numerous family groups. Emu family on the other side of the fence. Emu assessing the fence.
The one bird I did not see here, however, was the Bateleur Eagle … One highlight in the area is the Saddle-billed Stork , likely to be the tallest species in the stork family. The African Spoonbill is one of the six global spoonbill species, and the main African one (there are also some Eurasian Spoonbills in Africa).
Every year we observe both egg and chick loss amongst our Pied Oystercatcher pairs along Cable Beach and also in Roebuck Bay during their breeding season. The breeding season starts around the end of June and there are still eggs being laid and chicks hatching, but now these are the second clutches of eggs.
In late July, I travelled a half hour north of Morelia to Lake Cuitzeo (kweet-SAY-oh) to see if our two inevitable first migratory species from up north, Baird’s Sandpiper and Wilson’s Phalarope, had begun arriving. At that point, neither species was yet present, and there wasn’t much of a lake, either.
If you want to pretend to combine learning Mandarin and learning about this species, watch this video. There is also the usual article about the first sighting of the species at a new location. If you want to guess the name of this species, please follow my instructions. How exciting. Take out a magnifying glass. Here they are.
So, in order to show a few more photos of the bird than the usual two or three had I included this bird in a post of birds seen around Wolongshan, Sichuan), here is one dedicated to the species. The Latin species name is semitorques , which means something like “half-twisted” – but I have no idea why.
Or, Pygmy leaf-folding frogs, Afrixalus brachycnemis, from Tanzania, tiny climbing frogs who lay their eggs in leaves and then fold the leaves over them for protection, sealing the nest with secretions. There is a large family of frogs, Bufonidae, that includes most of the warty, hoppy creatures we think of as toads.
Some other members of the shrike family were a bit less testosterone-driven at Nanhui – like this Bull-headed Shrike … … this rather attractive-looking Tiger Shrike … … or one of the many Brown Shrikes passing through Nanhui on migration. Then, I was not sure whether this was the right thing to do.
The koel and coucal are both from the extended cuckoo family Cuculidae. They hold a similar status in their family as the Common Gallinule and American Coot cling to amongst the Rallidae. In all, there were 6 cuckoos representing 4 species in just one tree. But the tree had more to offer.
A few families have a small number of eggs in the clutches, like gulls or cormorants. Others, like the petrels and some of the auks, will lay a single egg per breeding attempt. One North American species I am very familiar with is the Cassin’s Auklet , which ranges from the end of the Aleutian Islands to California.
Both the male and female of the species have a bright red crown. Most Acorn Woodpeckers are cooperative breeders and live in family groups of up to a dozen or more individuals. Within a group, 1–7 male co-breeders compete for matings with 1–3 joint-nesting females who lay their eggs in the same nest cavity.
The family of Pied Oystercatchers soon made their move to Gantheaume Point. Typically the whole Pied Oystercatcher family spend a lot of time either feeding or roosting. Pied Oystercatchers are not a species that we observe flying very often at all. Although it is stood alone in the header photo it has its parents very close by.
I have a day in Sydney with my sister and family and then go home to Broome… hopefully not delayed by the threat of a Qantas baggage handlers strike starting Tuesday morning as I try to fly north-west. I am proud to say that I have managed to see over 60 species of birds in my 6 weeks in Busan and that is a lot more than I had expected.
I spent this past weekend in Saugerties at my folks’ house in order to look for Easter eggs, let Desi enjoy time with his cousins, and generally have a good ol’ time with family. I had no luck with the rails or bitterns but I did manage to see quite a few species, including some that were very cooperative.
So, the basic idea is to show 15 species of Australian birds in each post and give you the usual trivia about them. This species has also eliminated the need for childcare – the chicks emerge from this pile on their own and never even get to see their parents. Similarly, the Grey Shrikethrush is neither a shrike nor a thrush.
Each year Hog Island offers programs, taught by a stellar staff of naturalists and artists, to groups of all kinds (teenagers, adults, families). The process took eight years and has since been duplicated all over the world with a variety of species, explained one of our guides … the genial and informative Dr. Kress himself.
Though I have not had a chance to take photos of hummingbirds yet, it is likely that sunbirds are the more photographer-friendly species as they sometimes perch to feed rather than hover. Similarly, both bird families have a distinct significance for humans. A female: no forked tail, not much color.
Even the Latin species name soror (“sister”) indicates the similarity to another pitta species (blue-naped). The eBird description of the Small Niltava starts with the surprisingly dull statement that “size distinguishes this species from other niltavas” Who would have thought.
We saw a smaller member of the potoo family, Northern Potoo , Nyctibius jamaicensis , at Cuero y Salado Wildlife Refuge, boating and birding the Salado River. Our group got to see another species that is a master of camouflage on our trip for the Honduran Emerald. Later on, we saw a second one that was actually moving!
The HBW even mentions the importance of Ruoergai for this species: “Key sites for migrants include the Ruoergai Plateau (China), which is also an important breeding area” Common Mergansers also seem to use these wetlands as breeding area. Understated elegance is also something the White-browed Tit is rather good at.
The Juniper Titmouse ( Baeolophus ridgwayi ) is a passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. One of my favorite bird species living by my house is the Juniper Titmouse. Although the Juniper Titmouse is not officially a threatened species, its numbers have been declining due to loss of habitat. Others had more luck.
First published in 1973 in association with the Asa Wright Center, the book focuses on species descriptions, with illustrations grouped together in plates positioned in the center of the book. It is organized taxonomically, with families identified by first scientific and then popular name. The AOU has not accepted that split.
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