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Eye Level with a Whiskered Treeswift

10,000 Birds

There are four species in the family, ranging from India to the Solomon Islands. It’s a forest specialist, and hunts from a perch, which isn’t just unusual among the swifts (as in it never happens), it’s also unique within the family. Whiskered Treeswift.

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Birding Kadavu and Nadi in Fiji

10,000 Birds

I quickly got a good view of an Orange-breasted Honeyeater , a local endemic, and the Vanikoro Flycatcher , a geographically disjunct oddity that occurs only in Fiji and the Solomon islands. The Kadavu race is now placed in the White-throated Whistler , along with birds from Gau and Lau in Fiji and some birds in the Solomon Islands.

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Some thoughts on scientific collecting

10,000 Birds

The species was in the news because some scientists had finally managed (or bothered – it’s much the same thing) to locate the population high in the mountains of the Solomon Islands, and catch and photograph one. When I first heard that the kingfisher had been collected my response wasn’t “why?”