Hi John and b'ausers,
I was fortunate to find Hypocolius (note spelling) whilst working in
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia nearly a decade ago, they are a winter visitor
there and (I believe) migrate to Iran and central Asia in summer, they
are a rather charming species and can often be found in small thorn
bushes where they make a 'siffling' call not unlike a Eurasian Wigeon.
They can be rather hard to approach and will flush en-masse only to
return to the same spot a few minutes later.
The species I feel most concern for though would have to be Basra
Reed-Warbler (Acrocephalus griseldis), during my stay in KSA I was
fortunate to find 'hundreds' on my local 'patch' and managed to get some
video of the species and their (unique) vocalizations. Unfortunately
since then I understand good old Saddam has 'drained' the Basra marshes
to 'ethnically-cleanse' the area of the local (shi-itte) marsh arabs,
and probably wiped out the entire species.
It would be interesting if anyone could provide any update to this info.
Tom Tarrant
John Leonard wrote:
When watching pictures of the war in Iraq one of my first thoughts was
Hypocoulis.
This is a taxanomic oddity, a medium-sized bird which appears to be
unrelated to any other, and at various times has been linked with the
shrikes, waxwings and bulbuls.
The Tigris and Euphrates river-valleys in Iraq are its main summer
range. Does anyone know what its conservation status is? Might it be
endangered by the war? (My understanding is that its habitat is scrub
and cultivation, not marshland, so the destruction of the marshes on
the lower Tigris and Euphrates may not have affected it).
John Leonard
Tom & Marie Tarrant
Samsonvale, Queensland 4520
Australia
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