Don's photos are of very scraggly birds just semi-thawed from the
freezer, but most of the plumage tracts and colours are recognisable.
The possible Odidi is quite small Don says (there is nothing extra in the
photos to guage the sizes by), possibly shorter than 15cm, and is a
passerine in his opinion. It is a dull bird, brownish on top and greyish
under with a beak similar to (my opinion) a Grey-headed or White-browed
Robin.
The most interesting thing about the plumage is that the wings are very
short, and even though the flight feathers appeared to be fresh, we
wondered if it might be flightless.
The description of the song of the odidi (or odedi) quoted in Don's "Birds
of the North Solomons" has had me thinking for years. Diamond described it
as whistled phrases with occasional trilled notes. If the name "odedi" is
onomatopoeic, I can imagine it describing a song with a long whistle (the
"o") followed by a flourish.
This is highly reminiscent of the songs of the Fiji Bush-Warbler and Palau
Bush-Warbler, both of which Doug Pratt and I showed many years ago to be
Pacific outliers of the genus Cettia, along with the Shade Warbler of the
southern Solomons (Asian continental Cettia species have similar songs, and
we hypothesised that the three Pacific species were derivatives of the
Japanese Bush-Warbler C. diphone, which sounds very much like the Fiji
species. Our revision has been accepted ever since.
I have therefore always suspected that the odedi might also be a
Cettia. Your description certainly does not contradiict that notion; have
the specimens been compared to the Shade Warbler, a likely close relative
if I am correct?
I would greatly appreciate your passing this on to Don; is there any way I
can see the photos?
--
Ronald I. Orenstein Phone: (905) 820-7886
International Wildlife Coalition Fax/Modem: (905) 569-0116
1825 Shady Creek Court
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada L5L 3W2
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
www.shc.melb.catholic.edu.au/home/birding/index.html
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message
"unsubscribe birding-aus" (no quotes, no Subject line)
to
|
