Cladistic art

 

If you know, you know. 

Next cousins

 

- So we are cousins then, my dear Sir Bustard...
- Humpf, I don´t think so, you cuckoo clock trash!

So a 2014 genetic study shows that bustards are more related to cuckoos and turacos than to cranes and other gruids?! HA HA HA. But sure, it does make sense in some really bizarre way. Come to think of it, the bustard does look like a truly monstrous cuckoo. 

The falcons have already been outed as closer to passerines than to other raptors. Sure wonder what other surprises awaits us out there...

Otidimorphae

Mountains of the Moon

 

A Giant Potto (and it really is huge) and two scary mystery birds...don´t get me wrong, but is *this* the best the fabled Mountains of the Moon at Ruwenzori can offer us in terms of cryptids? Geezus, I had expected albino killer apes, dinosaurs, or at the very least some really nasty spider, but naah!

Some cryptozoological riddles from Ruwenzori

Therefore God

 

Not an Aldabra rail, I´m afraid
Credit: Jlfutari

Ooookay...

The bird that came back from the dead by evolving twice 

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

Not so ugly ducklings

A review of Lars Jonsson´s "Birds of Lake, River, Marsh and Field" 

This is the third volume in a five-volume series of field guides written and illustrated by Lars Jonsson. This volume covers typical birds found in or around lakes, rivers, marshlands and agricultural landscapes. The geographical range is Northern and Central Europe, north of the Alps but south of the "taiga". Ducks, shorebirds, grebes and rails are prominently featured, as are assorted passerines. We also get to meet the crane, the kingfisher and the swift.

Personally, I think that this series is rather idiosyncratic. Birds are not usually connected to a distinctive biotope, I mean they do fly! I'm pretty sure you can find a lot of birds around the average European lake not included in this slender little volume. Indeed, Jonsson later published a one-in-all volume called "Birds of Europe", covering the entire continent from Iceland to the Bosphorus.

However, as a work of art in its own right or a birthday gift to a bird-lover, even the third volume of the original series works just fine. These ducklings sure aint ugly! Four stars.

Excellent coverage of disgusting birds

Seriously, you didn't *really* expect me to stop reviewing HBW volumes, did you now?

"The Handbook of the Birds of the World" (HBW for short) is a multi-volume encyclopedia describing and illustrating all 9000 extant species of bird. This is the third volume in this encyclopedia to end all encyclopedias. It covers the Opisthocomiformes, Gruiformes and Charadriiformes. Some of the birds covered are so common that they feel almost jaded, for instance the gulls. Others are exotic and somewhat bizarre. The hoatzin is a bird so unique that it has been placed in an order all by itself. Its chicks have claws on their wings (a bit like the fossil Ur-bird Archaeopteryx) and can swim, something the adult birds don't seem to master. We also get to know the sheathbills, who look a bit like a cross between pigeons and gulls. The sheathbills live on islands close to the Antarctic, and are "opportunistic feeders", to use the euphemistic expression. In plain English, they feed on everything: faeces, discarded placentae or umbilical cords from seal births, and they are even said to steal milk from seals by placing their beaks in between the suckling pups and their mother's mammary glands! I'm not sure if I even want to believe that...

The sheer volume of information contained in this gargantuan book is staggering, and so is its price. The HBW is really a reference work for libraries, and the text can be quite heavy for a general reader. However, these books contain excellent photos, all in color, of a wide variety of birds. Some of them are quite dramatic. This volume shows skuas attacking giant petrels, penguins and even sheep! The photos and color plates are the main reason why even an ordinary Joe might want to own some of the books in this series, but, alas, they are probably too expensive for the likes of you and me.

Still, HBW deserves five stars.

OK, what was that absolutely disgusting stuff about sheathbills, again?