Well our final morning at Fraser's Hill bought us some new birds and some old friends. Some of these had received new names in very recent times due to ever-changing taxonomies. For example, a few years back the photo here would have been labeled "Pygmy Wren-Babbler", though now this sits in a new family creates out of the small tailess babblers like this, which has been named the "cupwings". Hence this little guy, shot on the roadside, is now called Pygmy Cupwing!
We also saw what I would have usually called White-browed Shrike-Babbler, though this complex has recently received a face lift and been split apart. Hence the pair we saw on Fraser's Hill is now known as Blyth's Shrike-Babbler. On top of that the Chestnut-crowned Laughingthrush that opened the day and was just last year grouped within the large babbler family, is now known as Malayan Laughingthrush, and sits within the new laughingthrush family! I could go on to say that the Large Hawk-Cuckoo we saw there may just soon be renamed Dark Hawk-Cuckoo but I won't! Wait a minute, I just did!
2 comments:
"Pygmy Cupwing" - if you're not making this up, then all I can say is remembering the latest names is harder than identifying some of them !
Quick photography question, Sam. What kind of flash do you use (or what setup are you using)? The results have been great!
Post a Comment