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Business Birding Basics – part II

10,000 Birds

Apart from a juvenile Southern Beardless Tyrannulet we were just seeing roads and factories. In Zimbabwe, Buluwezi Murambiwa provides guiding services to guests at the Seldomseeen Cottages in Bvumba, in the border region with Mozambique. Of course, the trip was a disaster. Saint Gall , the patron of birds, then smiled upon us.

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Getting the Bill – Taste, Touch and Smell in Birds

10,000 Birds

A Dominican missionary in Mozambique in the 16th century was astounded to find honeyguides eating the wax from his altar candles! Birds use rectal bristles (at the base of the bill) and tiny touch factories called Herbst corpuscles to detect touch. Honeyguides, for example, are strongly attracted to the smell of wax.

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