10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 14, 2015

I worked with an enormous collection of bird skins in the collection of Te Papa (The National Museum of New Zealand) during my (unfinished) PhD. I remember looking at a single skin of a Long-legged warbler from Fiji, the only known specimen or record of its particular subspecies, the sum total of all knowledge about its kind.

Collecting 231

Collecting Solomon Islands New Zealand Fiji 231

10,000 Birds

JUNE 8, 2011

If studying insects would lead you to suppose that God had an “an inordinate fondness for beetles&# , studying the pre-human avifauna of the Pacific would lead you to conclude that God was also quite partial to rails. The fossil record of the islands don’t show the Buff-banded Rail appearing until after humans arrived.

Tonga 166

Tonga New Zealand Samoa Fiji 166

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 11, 2014

When humans arrived, with the entourage of camp followers that always follows humans, giving up the anti-predator behavious and, well, you can guess what happened next. In a few places mammals and humans may endure, but even there, rails will become island species, albeit ones that retain some anti-predator strategies.

Hawaii 214

Hawaii Mammals Guam Fiji 214