Controversial clades

 

This one might be a bit confusing, tbh. But there you go!

Den hemlighetsfulla storken

Credit: Chris Eason

Verkar vara något slags djupekologiskt prestigeprojekt. Inte ens allmänheten får veta var den svarta storken befinner sig! Men okej, kan väl vara bra om man är...svart stork. 

Goda förutsättningar för den svarta storkens återkomst

Dead as a Leguatia

 

A fascinating tale (and tall tale?) about a supposed mega-sized rail (rallid bird) at the island of Mauritius. Probably a misidentified flamingo...but then, that flamingoes once roamed this island was unknown until recently! So it´s still kind of a true cryptid story...

The Enigma of Leguatia

The Method of the Siddhas

I´m sure the woke left will now want to cancel Bali as a tourist destination. Or no? 

As for the Balinese authorities, I wonder what kind of Tantra they consider culturally approved? Can I drink "nectar" from a cup made from the fresh cranium of a dead Canadian tourist? How about sacrificing a Lesser Adjutant (a local stork species) during a ghastly ritual devoted to a hunch-backed goddess? Can I curse Pancasila by dancing nude, only smeared in ashes, at the Mother Temple of Besakih? 

Asking for a friend named Franklin Jones... 

Canadian deported from Bali for selling "Tantric orgasm classes"

White flight

If you are positively obsessed with storks, specifically white storks, this Austrian documentary will make your day (or the entire week). The documentary shows the magnificent birds as they interact with vultures, cows, horses, martens and humans. The storks seem to nest practically everywhere: cathedrals, crusader castles, power lines, radio masts and old Roman aqueducts! They also spend time feeding at city dumps. At times, “Flight of the Stork” becomes more like a brochure for tourists, showing Gibraltar, Istanbul and a truly rustic village in Croatia. The documentary ends with the stork slowly riding towards the sunset…well, almost. It turns out that the white stork is originally an African bird which spread to Europe after the Ice Age, and it still returns to its original homeland every winter. I would love to see a similar documentary about, ahem, black storks…

A handbook of exciting birds

"Handbook of the Birds of the World" (HBW) is a 13-volume encyclopedia whose ultimate aim is to describe and illustrate *all* living species of birds. Three more volumes are projected. The series began in 1992, and the last volume won't be published until 2011.

This is the first volume, and it covers many exciting bird groups, including pelicans, tropicbirds, frigatebirds, penguins, flamingos, albatrosses, and the non-flying birds, such as the ostrich and the emu. It also covers a more boring bird group, namely the ducks! Each section begins with a general introduction, followed by species presentations. These include color plates and range maps. Unfortunately, the color plates are quite bad. The birds often look caricatured, even ugly, and some of the plates are poorly printed. Thankfully, the book also contain hundreds of photos, all in color, and these are much better. Despite its high price (265 dollars), the book is well-worth buying if you are seriously interested in these particular bird groups.

As already mentioned, this is just the first volume in a 13-volume series. Naturally, a work that takes almost 20 years to publish, will tend to change over time. I noticed this when I leafed through the other HBW volumes at my local university library. The first volume looks like a regular encyclopedia. Anyone with a general interest in birds can read it. The later volumes are superbly illustrated, with much better color plates, but the text feels heavy and technical. These later HBW volumes also suffer from total information over-load. Essentially, the HBW has been transformed from a regular encyclopedia to a scientific reference work for ornithologists.

Be that as it may, I give this first volume of the HBW four stars, for the text and the photos. Had the color plates been better, I would have given it five stars. The entire series also deserve five stars, despite becoming progressively more difficult to digest for ordinary mortals, since it's extremely well-produced.