Readers’ wildlife photos

24 thoughts on “Readers’ wildlife photos”

1. Looks like the elusive double-breasted seersucker.

   1. Before Memorial Day? Perish the thought! I imagine the fashion rules are different in the tropics.

   2. 🙂

2. I think it is a winged incarnation of Vishnu, but Google seems to think it is an Asian Fairy-Bluebird, Irena puella. We may both be wrong.

   1. A faery, you say? It could then provide some empirical evidence to settle a rather interesting question.

      b&

3. I’ll go with Black Drongo Dicrurus macrocercus. It has the proper tiny white rictal spot.

   1. And the groovy flared tail feathers.

   2. I’ve checked into what you said and I think you’re right!

   3. Cool! I was thinking Fork-tailed Drongo, but this isn’t in Africa. Nice to know about that rictal spot.

4. The etymology of drongo is fascinating. Originally a Malagasy name for the bird it was applied to all the family Dicruridae. These birds are typically black and bold. No doubt someone had this in mind when they named one of their racehorses Drongo in 1920s Australia.
   The luckless equine became famous for a 37 race winless career and his name became synonymous with all no-hopers and perennial losers.
   Drongo is now firmly part of the Australian (and wider English-speaking) vocabulary and I’ve even seen it incorrectly applied back to the bird in the false belief that drongos must be stupid because drongo was named after them.
   Something these rather handsome birds don’t deserve.

   1. Interesting!

   2. We watched these incredible atheletes “hawking” (flying out and catching) insects in the night lighting at the magnificent gold plated Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon (Rangoon), Myanmar.

   3. Thank you! I love to learn where names come from.

5. What a pretty bird with its blue-black feathers!

   1. I wonder what it looks like in ultraviolet.

6. For those who are interested, a new bird phylogeny was published in Nature this week.

   1. Say what? Are you perhaps talking about the one published in Science a couple of weeks ago? This one?

      1. My bad – the article I saw in Nature referenced the 18 papers published in Science.

         1. In Science and other journals….

   2. Which was fascinating in some of the new relationships they came up with.

7. Reminded me of this:

   http://cheezburger.com/1459627776

8. I think it is an Ashy Drongo (Dicrurus leucophaeus) or a Black Drongo (Dicrurus macrocercus) *sorry not sure how to do italics*

   They look a lot alike, and I can’t tell for certain if the eyes are red or not. If the eyes are red it is the former, if not the later. Hope this helps Jerry!

9. They are likely related to the Drongos on the African continent – but can’t find anything solid in terms of DNA evidence.

   1. Thank you, Robin, for both posts.

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