birding-aus

identified bird - information, I hope

To: "'John Graff'" <>, <>
Subject: identified bird - information, I hope
From: "Philip Veerman" <>
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2013 15:21:13 +1100
Thanks for that. It looked very close but I only compared two pictures. I
did not look at Emperor FW photos on the net. I think though, I'm 60 / 40 or
70 / 30 or even more, towards the better suggestion of a Masked Gnatcatcher,
with all the grays shifted to blues, than my pretty good suggestion of an
Emperor Fairy-wren. I don't know either species.
 
I at least gave them the benefit of the doubt of having a bird in the same
genus and region of the world. Astonishing why they would do that. As Basil
Faulty would say, they "are from Barcelona." The real thing to do is to
write to the company to ask what they did and why. They have a contact page.
They cited the Birds in Backyards project, so why go to that effort of
getting it wrong. It is weird. Perhaps one to ask the Gruen Planet.

 

Philip

 

-----Original Message-----
From: John Graff  
Sent: Wednesday, 20 February 2013 2:11 PM
To: ; 
Subject: identified bird - information, I hope


Hi Phil,
 
Not that I would be anywhere near an expert on Emperor Fairy-wrens, but
there seems to be numerous problems with that as an ID, crown is noticeably
darker than throat in this bird, opposite shown in the few Emperor FW photos
on the net (crown paler), black mask nowhere near as extensive (as you point
out), overall blue colour of this bird is much paler, no black patch on the
lower back........
 
Don't think it's an Emperor
 
Cheers,
John
 

> From: 
> To: 
> Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2013 13:46:00 +1100
> Subject: [Birding-Aus] identified bird - information, I hope
> 
> It looks genuine to me, just a wrong choice of species for the text. I
> thought I remembered that bird and consulted my books. It looks a lot like
> the Emperor Fairy-wren Malurus cyanocephalus from PNG. At least is seems
> entirely consistent with the R Weatherly painting (page 59) in Richard
> Schodde's The Fairy-Wrens book. The only difference is in the photo, the
> black face mask is slightly smaller than in that painting, otherwise an
> exact match. Why they would choose such an obscure species, when they
could
> easily choose what they say it is a mystery. Note they spell Sydney wrong.

> 
> So quite some interpretive license calling it our bird. 
> 
> Philip
> > On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 11:48 AM, Anthony Overs
> > <
> > >wrote:
> >
> > > Hi everyone
> > >
> > > Another bird picture doing the rounds on blogs and Facebook. This
> > > one is labelled as a Blue Fairy Wren of Australia. Any ideas as to 
> > > what species
> > it
> > > actually is??
> > >
> > > http://jackmarinokids.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/blue-fairy-wren.html
> > >
> > > Thanks
> > > Anthony

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