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Clearing up the Collared Kingfishers

10,000 Birds

One new Pacific island form is the Mariana Kingfisher ( Todiramphus albicilla ) from the Mariana Islands in Micronesia. Saipan, Micronesia. Top Flickr user Sjahanmi (Creative Commons, Attribution, Non-commercial). Mariana Kingfisher. Flickr User Tropical Pete (Used with permission). Torrresian Kingfisher.

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Birding Dongfang and Dongzhai on Hainan

10,000 Birds

The HBW reports that until recently several subspecies were commonly recognized, notably brevipes , ocularis , micronesiae , minima , leucophrys , meeki and tannensis , but that the differences are slight and the species is now treated as monotypic.

Branding 176
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Purple Swamphen: Supertramp or superspecies?

10,000 Birds

Dark blackish swamphens occur from eastern Indonesia across Australia, Melanesia, southern Micronesia, and Polynesia as far east as American Samoa, having reached some of these islands only in the last few hundred years and, in the case of New Zealand at least, recolonizing islands previously settled by their cousins.

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Confusing Collared Kingfishers

10,000 Birds

Subspecies albicilla , Saipan, Micronesia. It would be harder to get a stronger contrast to the dark headed Australian sordita than the form found on the Micronesian island of Saipan.

Samoa 166