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Unusually, the Oriental Dollarbird appears to undergo a bit from a picture downside. In any other case, why would eBird name it a “closely constructed, flat-headed darkish blue chicken”, which sounds extra like an outline of a robotic or a bit of equipment than that of an exquisite chicken? And albeit, the genus identify of Eurystomus, or “wide-mouthed”, doesn’t sound that engaging both …
However it’s a magnificence, the Oriental Dollarbird, consistent with a few of the different members of its household, the Rollers.
In fact, being stunning (or aspiring to be) additionally means strain. Perhaps exacerbated by social media, teenage dollarbird chicks don’t dare to depart the nest till they’ve misplaced weight. In a research performed in Southwestern Japan, dollarbird nestlings first reached a weight of about 160 grams. However presumably as a result of risk of fats shaming, they solely left the nest after having reached a ultimate weight of about 120 grams.
I assume that is partly additionally as a result of their foraging fashion shouldn’t be precisely useful to drop pounds – principally they only sit on some excessive naked tree, go searching, and catch bugs from that submit earlier than returning to it. See the video hyperlinks on the finish of the submit for an illustration of this life-style.
Some Australian researchers revealed a paper clearly meant to impress potential wives and girlfriends with its cultural allusions: “A summer time and winter’s story: elements influencing avian group composition and species abundances in lowland subtropical floodplain forests in central japanese Australia”.
Whereas the “Winter’s Story” allusion is comparatively generic (a Shakespeare play that won’t impress folks a lot), the “Summer season’s Story” is a little more fascinating, referring to a 1996 Eric Rohmer comedy drama. I hope the love lifetime of the authors improved after the publication of the paper …
So, one of many 47 species with seasonal variation in abundance was the Oriental Dollarbird, a summer time customer (as fellow weblog author Clare can attest as properly). In fact, the authors (presumably of their quest to impress their readers) phrased their conclusion on a considerably greater stage “The ecology of avian group meeting in subtropical local weather areas with seasonal and year-to-year variability is advanced and poorly understood” (which means: we’d like extra grants).
One other paper – in a journal with the fascinating and barely puzzling identify “Ecofeminism and Local weather Change” (frankly, the journal title sounds a bit prefer it has been made up by The Onion, however it appears to be actual so far as I can inform) – appears at how urbanization might drive forest birds to settle in suburban and residential areas in Malaysia, one instance being the Oriental Dollarbird.
The paper consists of the next sentence which I want had been written by a drunk ChatGPT: “Contemplating the foraging exercise of birds hardcoded with sustainability, their spatial overlap resultant into service provision, which may imply, baseline incidence or an anticipated encounter equates to help system for ecological vigor.”
I’m wondering if sooner or later, authors will embody such garbled sentences of their papers to show that they weren’t written by generative AI …
Lastly, the Oriental Dollarbird will get an fascinating point out in an Indonesian paper – it performs form of a cameo function. Apparently, in lots of areas of Indonesia, songbird contests are incessantly held. The paper examines the chicken species concerned in these chicken singing contests. Whereas 12 native and three international species had been recognized, the Oriental Greenback chicken was not certainly one of them.
Nonetheless, whereas the Oriental Dollarbird was not used within the contest, it was accessible for commerce. Apparently, among the many folks concerned in these contests, the dollarbird is called a “grasp chicken” that’s used to coach different songbirds to imitate its music. What makes dollarbird chicks notably appropriate as grasp birds is their distinctive, quick, and loud voice.
In fact, if you don’t solely need to watch images of Oriental Dollarbirds, it’s also possible to watch movies of Oriental Dollarbirds – although attributable to my restricted expertise in taking chicken movies, they don’t transfer round a lot in these movies. Consider them as zen movies and watch them right here and right here and right here. All images and movies taken at Nanhui, Shanghai, this spring.
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