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Big Ticks; What Was Your Last New Family?

10,000 Birds

There are just two left for me in the Sibley Guide to Canada and the bits of the USA that count (Hawaii need not apply) – the Olive Warbler (Peucedramidae)and the silky-flycatchers (Ptilogonatidae). I got my first Emus ( Dromaius novaehollandiae ), family Casuariidae, in West Australia back in 2000.

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Rails: The Once and Future Kings of the Pacific

10,000 Birds

Outside the truly ancient islands that are fragments of sunken continents; New Zealand, Fiji, New Caledonia and the like, the Islands of the Pacific are, geologically, ephemeral things. Go to French Frigate Shoals, in the far north of Hawaii, and you’ll find a chunk of rock no larger than medium city train station.

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