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The Cattle Egret Expansion

10,000 Birds

I’d like to introduce you to a diminutive heron, the Cattle Egret Bubuclus ibis. The Cattle Egret is native to Africa, where it is a familiar sight among herds of large mammals. Cattle Egret is more closely related to herons in the genus Ardea then the species termed egrets in the genus Egretta. coromandus.

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Bring back the Blue Tit

10,000 Birds

I pushed for Wikipedia to adopt them, and then to follow the taxonomy, and given the dominance of Wikipedia in Google search results, this is no small thing. Similarly when the Hoopoe and Cattle Egret were split, these are widespread birds with huge ranges even after the split. I’m not blind to the list’s faults, though.

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Birding Shanghai in June 2023

10,000 Birds

Cattle Egrets are thoroughly modern birds – they were among the first species to ditch mailed letters for faxes, then switched to email early, and now (at least in China) mostly communicate by WeChat. They are also early adopters with regard to their foraging – nowadays mostly following tractors rather than cattle.

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Birding Chongming Island in summer

10,000 Birds

I do not get too many comments on my blog posts, but it seems that whenever I write about jacanas – whether in Africa, Australia, or Asia – there is an unusually high number of reactions (well, maybe one or two rather than the usual zero) from female readers. This Cattle Egret has just read a paper stating that it would be 3.6

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I and the Bird: What is a Vulture?

10,000 Birds

Despite filling very similar garbage disposal related niches, the vultures in North America and the vultures in Eurasia/Africa are really not that closely related. Large, hulking, and menacing, the Old World Vultures , who reach their greatest diversity in sub-Saharan Africa, had a reputation, maybe undeserved, for viciousness.

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The Domestic Turkey and the First Thanksgiving

10,000 Birds

Thus, the cattle we raise for meat and dairy are sometimes called Bos taurus while the extinct wild form is always called Bos primigenius. Long before that time Mexican domesticated Turkeys had been adopted by Native Americans in the American Southwest as well.

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