You are currently browsing the Wingbeat: The WINGS Birding Blog archives for October, 2009.
Traveling birders with some flexibility might be able to take advantage of the offers at American Airlines over the next couple of months. An excellent opportunity to set up a private tour with a WINGS leader or to visit us here in southeast Arizona!
Stuart Elsom writes:
I’ve just returned from seeing Britain’s first EASTERN CROWNED WARBLER in County Durham, northeast England. There was a huge twitch, with about 500 birders present at dawn for this superb bird.
Britain's First Eastern Crowned Warbler. © Dougie Holden.
The discovery of this bird is a very interesting story. A photographer was visiting a site where Long-eared and Short-eared Owls often come in off the sea. He was lucky enough to have an owl arrive very near where he was standing, but was uncertain whether the bird was a Long-eared or a Short-eared.
The photographer posted his owl photos and invited comment from local birders–and on the same page was a photo of the “Yellow-browed” Warbler he’d photographed nearby earlier that day.
Visitors to the website quickly lost interest in the owl images when they came to the conclusion that the warbler was in fact an EASTERN CROWNED, the first for Britain.
Happily, the bird was still present today.
The English east coast is proving to be a real magnet for “Sibes” right now, with many Radde’s, Pallas’s, and Dusky Warblers. There have also been a few Red-flanked Blue-tails, Pechora Pipits, an Eye-browed Thrush, a Brown Shrike, and from North America, two Veeries.
- Stuart
Steve Howell has updated the photo gallery for his 2011 Western Pacific Odyssey (the last time this itinerary will be available from our cruise company).
Kagus can be surprisingly accommodating! Photo: Steve N.G. Howell.
There are some astounding images in Steve’s collection. I know I should be most enthusiastic about the birds, but the gallery’s other “flying” creatures are absolutely breathtaking. Take a look!
Thanks to Jon Dunn for catching the typo in the latest e-newsletter: the beauty depicted above is, of course, a White-crested Laughingthrush, photographed on Jon’s tour Thailand: The Coast to the Highlands.
We were happy to welcome Brian Finch to Tucson this past weekend, where he was able to do a little birding in habitats sometimes surprisingly similar to his usual haunts in Kenya, Madagascar, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Brian at Catalina State Park. Photo: Rick Wright.
Catalina State Park produced Woodhouse’s (Western Scrub-) Jay and noisy Crissal Thrashers; best of all were two Steller’s Jays, part of what is shaping up to be a nice lowland invasion here in southeast Arizona.
Steller's Jay in mesquite at Catalina State Park. Photo: Rick Wright.
Brian also visited the Patagonia area with Gavin Bieber and Jake Mohlmann; that day’s considerable highlights included Baird’s Sparrow and a vagrant Palm Warbler.
Safe travels home, Brian, and see you next time!
Which North American breeding bird has been called “the horseshoe blackbird”?
Eastern Meadowlark, Nebraska. Photo: Rick Wright.
The bird we now know as the Eastern Meadowlark was given the rather unimaginative name Alauda magna–”big lark”–by Linnaeus in 1758. The great Swedish taxonomist based his description on a painting by Mark Catesby, labeled “The Large Lark.”
Almost sixty years later, Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot moved the species to a new genus, Sturnella, thus creating the slightly nonsensical scientific name Sturnella magna, “big little starling.”
Vieillot’s description of the newly erected genus was also based on a painting, this time one in Buffon’s great Natural History. Buffon, abandoning the prosaic nomenclature of Linnaeus and Catesby, had called the bird “Merle à fer-à-cheval,” the horseshoe blackbird, a reference to the black necklace crossing the yellow breast.
Keep up with Rich as he birds Peru: his blog will be updated whenever he gets a chance, which we all hope means frequently indeed.
Quick: take a look at your bookshelf. I bet a more than substantial number or the guides bending the boards were written by WINGS leaders.
Killian Mullarney fills us in on the publication schedule for the second edition of Birds of Britain and Europe, widely praised as the best field guide for any region anywhere:
“So far as I am aware, just about everything is ready now. Printing will commence very soon, and publication is currently scheduled for March 2010.
“The number of pages has increased by about 10% in the revised edition. Twenty-four new spreads have been used, both to alleviate some of the more crowded plates in the first edition and to treat around 40 additional species, the majority of which are the result of taxonomic changes. Treatment of wildfowl, shearwaters, grebes, birds of prey, cranes, large gulls, pigeons, doves, owls, pipits, chats, thrushes, warblers, flycatchers, shrikes, and North American passerines have all been extensively revised, with the addition of numerous new and improved images. Distribution maps have been updated where necessary.”
Something else to look forward to in the New Year 2010!
We’ve learned that our friends at Heritage Expeditions will be conducting their final Western Pacific Odyssey in spring 2011, and so that will be your last chance for the pelagic trip of a lifetime on that incredible route with Steve Howell.
A Tahiti Petrel, one of something like 40 tubenose species seen on this cruise. Photo: Steve Howell.
After our 2007 cruise, Steve wrote:
“Starts in New Zealand and ending in Japan, this amazing trip crosses more than 4,000 miles of ocean in the western Pacific. The islands visited en route on our voyage included Norfolk Island (home of the Norfolk Island Pine, as well as great birds), New Caledonia (with the unique Kagu, plus Crow Honeyeater and Cloven-feathered Dove), the Solomon Islands (lots of great birds, including Solomon Sea-Eagle, Moustached Treeswift, Rennell Shrikebill, Finsch’s Pygmy-Parrot, Eclectus Parrot, Buff-headed Coucal, Blyth’s Hornbill, and Midget Flowerpecker), and Truk, in the Federated States of Micronesia (with Caroline Islands Fruit-Dove, Swiftlet, Reed-Warbler, and White-eye, among others).
“And then there were the seabirds, including nearly 40 species of tubenoses, starting with New Zealand Storm-Petrel, ending with Steller’s (Short-tailed) Albatross, and in between including Parkinson’s, Beck’s, Tahiti, White-necked, Collared, and Bonin Petrels; Heinroth’s and Bannerman’s Shearwaters; and Polynesian, Tristram’s, and Matsudaira’s Storm-Petrels! And there were some great whales and dolphins as well as spectacular flying fish in many colors.”
I’m ready to go–you?
