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The Garrulous Jay

10,000 Birds

I remember once reaching over 130 species (a good total for a May Day in England) without having seen or heard a Jay, despite spending time in oak woodland. Not only eggs but nestling birds of many species fall prey to the Jay.” It’s a different matter in the spring.

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Birding Shanghai in November 2022

10,000 Birds

Given the complexity of the research, the result feels like a bit of a letdown – “northern populations start migration earlier than southern populations, especially in autumn” The species name of the Chestnut-eared Bunting is fucata , from the Latin “fucare”, to paint red. Better safe than sorry.

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Birding Shanghai in October 2022

10,000 Birds

For this reason, the species is evaluated as Vulnerable.” The Rufous-tailed Robin used to be called Swinhoe’s Robin but apparently, somebody decided that there were already too many bird species (6, according to the HBW) named after him. The Eurasian Hobby was another notable raptor of the month. They were missed.

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Birding Nanhui, Shanghai, in September 2021

10,000 Birds

I pointed at the bird shown below but he insisted it could not be that species – no long tail … For people of a certain age, gender and background, at some point The Smiths were the most important band in the world. Other species, such as this juvenile Light-vented Bulbul , seem to have more ambiguous feelings about molting.

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Birding Shanghai in May 2023 – Part 2

10,000 Birds

The Fairy Pitta is listed as Vulnerable, with the HBW that the species is “rare; global population probably no more than a few thousand individuals” While the sexes are alike, my guess is that the Fairy Pitta in the photo is a male given its early arrival date in Shanghai.

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What the Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds: A Book Review

10,000 Birds

” Writing about owls means writing about roughly 250 species (I counted 245 on the 2022 Clements spreadsheet, but I might have missed a few, and we all know that each classification system is different). These are behaviors that are most likely to vary across species and topics that make for compelling stories.

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Birding Chongming Island in summer

10,000 Birds

According to the HBW, when breeding, male birds do most of the incubation and parenting while females often leave the nest up to one week before the eggs hatch. According to Couzens, after laying the eggs, females sometimes immediately abandon their first mate and pair up with another male. But maybe that is actually a good thing.

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