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History repeating itself

10,000 Birds

The two endemic species found in Tonga are not found in these islands, and the other species present are also found on more traditional destinations of Fiji and Samoa. Seeing Buff-banded Rails in Tonga is harder than seeing the extinct species would have been, as they have not lost the wariness that keeps the family often highly cryptic.

Tonga 165
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Restless New Zealand Fantails

10,000 Birds

Fantails are a family that, apart from the aberrant Silktail and Pygmy Drongo, are extremely similar in appearance and behaviour. The family also reaches into India and as far east as samoa and Fiji. Even then they were very quick, and I got many shots like those above. Fantails don’t do necks.

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The Case for Adding the U.S. Territories in the Caribbean to the ABA Area

10,000 Birds

Both Puerto Rico and the USVI have active birding communities that are currently excluded from full membership in the ABA family. All Americans Should be Full Members of the ABA Family. Adding Puerto Rico and the USVI would largely achieve the goal of bringing all Americans into full membership of the ABA family.

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The complete guide to Dodo relatives, living and dead

10,000 Birds

Not, as Linneaus thought, an ostrich, nor even, as later scientists concluded, a distant cousin of pigeons deserving of family rank, it was an honest-to-goodness pigeon, deeply embedded within the family Columbidae. The Dodo ( Raphus cucullatus ) — that towering icon of modern anthropogenic extinctions — was a pigeon.