An interesting writing by Rajiv Kalsi, Rahul Kaul and S Sathyakumar. It was published as part of the ongoing study of Pheasants and allies in India. In my opinion the most complete paper-based search review for the elusive Himalayan Quail. I asked for permission by mail to publish on PoB, but have yet to receive […]
This species is endemic to the tiny, fragmented forests of the Taita Hills, where it occurs in only four remnant patches, totalling less than 150 ha in area, on a single massif. It is also found in a larger patch of lesser disturbed forest on the adjacent massif of Mbololo. The Taita Hills are a […]
Bourns and Worcester in 1894 wrote the following account: We were so fortunate as to secure aseries of fourteen specimens of this rare horn-bill from Sulu and Tawi Tawi. The tail is pure white. All other parts black, the feathers of back and wings glossed with dark green. The bill in abult birds is coal […]
Comments on the Glaucous Macaw were first published by Sanchez Labrador (1767) who wrote that the Guaa’-obi lived along the banks of the Uruguay River, and to a lesser extent, in the forest near the Paraguay River. The species was first described by Vieillot in 1816, as Anodorhynchus glaucus, based on the observations of Azara […]
The great auk, now almost forgotten in the world by all except the ornithologists, is still remembered among the Penobscot as one of the legendary bird chiefs. While we may hesitate a moment in believing the strict identity of this now-extinct bird with the hero character in one of the creation tales, it nevertheless seems […]
Story After 35 years, a giant fossil penguin has finally been completely reconstructed, giving researchers new insights into prehistoric penguin diversity. The bones were collected in 1977 by Dr. Ewan Fordyce, a paleontologist from the University of Otago, New Zealand. In 2009 and 2011, Dr. Dan Ksepka, North Carolina State University research assistant professor of […]
The story The ancient kings and princes of Hawaii chose this unfortunate creature to be their “royal” bird. As is so often the case when monarchs choose, being the “chosen” one does not necessarily confer safety – and it definitely did not in this case. The honour merely meant that ‘O’os were expected to provide […]
The story This species seems to provide a fairly typical example of the way in which rails develop on isolated islands. It is assumed that this is another form that has evolved from an ancestral stock resembling the Buff-banded Rail, but in this case the evolution was rather more advanced than in others. Following the […]
The story Scattered among the seventeenth century written accounts and illustrations that relate to the celebrated Dodo are descriptions and pictures of a flightless bird of a rather different kind. These pictures show a creature that in overall shape and appearance looks something like a kiwi. A long, down-curved beak, rather hair-like plumage and stout […]
The story The Auckland Islands lie some 320 km south of New Zealand and this rather forlorn group was once home to a species of merganser that, while not entirely flightless, showed a marked reduction in wing size compared with its relatives. As often happens when birds develop in evolutionary backwaters (i.e. areas without mammalian […]