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“Peacocks and Picathartes: Reflections on Africa’s Birdlife”

10,000 Birds

In case you didn’t know, yes, there is an indigenous peacock living in Africa, the Congo Peafowl. And apart from local people, primate researchers sometimes spot it, but it is a species seen by fewer than ten living birders. Some are incredibly rare and hard to find.

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World birding from a Schrödinger’s house

10,000 Birds

Will the threatened species make it through if there are no birding tourists to make those birds and their habitats valuable to local people just the way they are (as opposed to tropical timber)? Here’s an example: in 2015, American birder Noah Strycker broke the global Big Year record with 6042 recorded species. Kenya 1131 14.

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Exploring the Uncharted Bird World

10,000 Birds

It divides countries into categories, where the next category has 200 more species. In some cases the data are outdated, e.g. Costa Rica has 900 and not 800 species, but I made no corrections, remaining faithful to the original map data. Shown as a list, it looks like this: Less than 200 bird species: Antarctica; oceanic islands.

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What is a Palm-thrush?

10,000 Birds

Once upon a time, when I started birding, this great family included a wide range of species collectively known as the robins and chats. They are a single genus, Cichladusa , with three species, found mostly in Central and Eastern Africa. It all comes back to a split in one of the great bird families, the Turdidae, or thrushes.

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Avian Quiz – April 15, 2011

10,000 Birds

Here are the clues: 1. Some references indicate that this country has nearly 900 different species of birds. 3. Corey has written about one of the species, which I will most likely see when I go. 5. And another list shows 6 endemics and 11 endangered species. Instead, name one of the endemic species in this country.

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Weavers

10,000 Birds

The IOC world birdlist recognizes 90 species that bear the name “weaver” or “malimbe” Not all of these are true weavers as we will discuss below. There are currently 64 recognized species in this genus, a remarkable number indeed, and this includes the 5 Asian and 2 Malagasy species.

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The Bee-eaters of Africa

10,000 Birds

The wonderful family Meropidae contains 27 dazzling species, of which Africa is endowed with no less than 20 species, the balance occurring across Asia and with one as far afield as Australia. We have both resident and migratory species, and this post will briefly discuss each of the 20 species of African bee-eaters.

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