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Birding Hongbenghe, Yunnan (Part 1)

10,000 Birds

The scientific species name of the Rusty-naped Pitta oatesi honors Eugene William Oates (1845-1911), an English civil servant in India and naturalist. He published a number of books on birds of India and Burma, making me wonder how hard all these overseas civil servants really worked in their day jobs. ” ( source ).

Burma 221
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Birding the Ndumo area, South Africa

10,000 Birds

Poor researchers Nicola Coumi and Rob Slotow failed to find anything particularly interesting about vigilance in Bronze Mannikin groups. Mind you – it is indeed a description, not a video, as the research was done in 1952. ” I wish I had this kind of optimism. They probably did not even have Twitter then.

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Birding Sepilok, Borneo (Part 1)

10,000 Birds

Apparently, the Greater Coucal is associated with some superstitions – in India, seeing one is believed to be auspicious, and in some areas, eating the flesh was regarded to help with illnesses such as tuberculosis. And of course, some Chinese researchers worked on the complete mitochondrial genome of the Greater Coucal.