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Armchair Splits in the Pacific

10,000 Birds

So, on seeing my lifer Bassian Thrush in Sydney, I was glad to have a) finally seen that species and b) finally glad to tick that arbitrary odometer up to a meaningless milestone. We seem to live in an age of splitting, only last week it was announced that another 460 odd species have been split. An armchair split, no less.

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Restless New Zealand Fantails

10,000 Birds

Unlike many endemic species they aren’t remotely rare, and can be seen just about anywhere in the country, and they are also amazingly confiding, allowing close approaches and even coming close to us of their own volition. The family also reaches into India and as far east as samoa and Fiji. Also known by its Maori name of P?wakawaka,

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The complete guide to Dodo relatives, living and dead

10,000 Birds

One of these clades holds a diversity of Old World species in several distinct groups, including an Australasian clade, the green-pigeons, the emerald- and wood-doves, the imperial-pigeons and fruit-doves (favorites of mine), and the subjects of our investigation today, the 15 known members of the Raphini. ” Beehler et al.’s

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What Exactly is a Pardalote?

10,000 Birds

There were two species there, even, of a type I had never heard of. Insofar as they relate to other bird families, they are perhaps closest to the thornbills, another family that is mostly Australian but reaches as far as Thailand and Fiji. You’ll find pardalotes over most of Australia, but only four species in all.

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