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The Metamorphosis

10,000 Birds

The Purple Swamphen now is considered a superspecies, with each of its six races are designated full species – and in the strange world of birding, a superspecies is rather less than a species, not more. This is despite the most likely African origin of the species. Swamphen yes, but Grey-headed? Again: Grey-headed?

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Birding Shanghai in June 2023

10,000 Birds

This leaves Shanghai in June with basically just the year-round species and the summer breeders, maybe with a few added ultra-lazy individuals of migratory species. Fortunately, there are a few more such breeding species than most Shanghainese are aware of. Such as the Black-winged Cuckooshrike.

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15 Australian Birds (Episode 3)

10,000 Birds

Wikipedia seems not too impressed with the species, stating that “the brown honeyeater is a medium-small, plain grey-brown honeyeater” The Latin species name indistincta (indistinct, obscure) sounds similarly underwhelming. The species was bred at the zoo of Memphis, Tennesee ( source ). ” ( source ).

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15 Australian Birds (Episode 6)

10,000 Birds

” Funny how the difficulty of breeding a species can be illustrated in simple monetary terms. But that may have helped me to see them – the species is quite nomadic and settles wherever there is rain. Ok, back to the (presumably non-sacred, certainly non-mummified) Australian species. In a paper published in 1938 (!),

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Birding Chongming Island in summer

10,000 Birds

Maybe better not to ever meet such a “mother” (given that I have been living in China for too long to be up-to-date regarding political correctness etc., On the other hand, there have been reports of Black-crowned Night Heron chicks being adopted by Common Terns ( source ).

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Black-headed Gull

10,000 Birds

Perhaps where the form asks if I have ever indulged in criminal or terrorist activities, or whether I have more than $10,000 in negotiable monetary units, they should include a section inquiring as to my thoughts on the new classification and sequence of genera and species adopted for gulls of the subfamily Larinae.

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The A-Team

10,000 Birds

Anyway, so I started checking my bird photo collection for photos of species starting with an A (after all, this is a bird photo blog, though I sometimes tend to forget this). Let us start with some of the cheaters in the A-Team – the ones just adopting the name of a continent to get into this post. Are you still with me?