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Good eye,
I found an adult M
spangled drongo dicrurus hottentottus on my lunchtime excursion today
to Gore Creek Reserve, Greenwich, Sydney. Which reminds me of some trivia: the
longest word (excluding proper names) is reportedly the Dutch word
hottentottententententoonstelling - which translates loosely as " a
hottentot's tent display" (rather rare)!
Other trivia:
1). 'Raptor' is a palindrome of 'Parrot', and I know certain
raptors which make a hobby of lunching on them anyway.
2). BELIEVE IT OR NOT: the most-played CD on Sydney Airwaves
ever, has been of bird calls from Ormiston Gorge, followed closely by
another on shorebirds and waders - explanation: some new FM station played the
Ormiston Gorge CD non-stop repeatedly over a 3 week period, followed by the
other for at least another week before commencing regular programmes this year,
as a sort of test broadcast (providing a fair range of
frequencies).
3). BELIEVE IT OR NOT: National rock station JJJ tonight
reported some ornithological news without any comment, sarcastic or
otherwise (albeit none was really needed) - apparently some research on
flycatchers has been reported from Spain, from which they have derived the
conclusion that females are better-off choosing ugly mates if they want to
happily and successfully raise a family. The Spanish male flycatcher has some
white marking on its head, the size of which is apparently a fair indication of
his strike rate. Those males observed to devote more time to caring for their
offspring, guaranteeing and higher success rate in fledglings, are the ones with
the smallest white marks.
4). I still haven't had a certain lifer in the wild: another
birder. No pre-arranged meetings please, I want to leave it to chance to gauge
the probabilities.
All this after 1 glass of cab-sav!
Regards
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