Tim writes: Parrotbills are a small family of south and southeast Asian birds that have taxonomically puzzled ornithologists for years. They used to be in a genus Paradoxornis, which means “puzzling bird” because nobody knew where they belonged in terms of bird families. The confusion was exacerbated because it was long thought that the Bearded Reedling was the only European member of that family, but it is in a family all by itself which is unrelated. They are now known to be in the Warbler super-family, with Fulvettas as their closest relatives. They are generally shy and elusive, inhabiting high altitude bamboo forests, and are never particularly common. I have seen a number of different Parrotbill species but have only managed to photograph two. This Brown Parrotbill (Cholornis unicolor) is about 20cm long and is found in the Central and Eastern Himalayas. Its scientific name Cholornis rather unkindly means “defective bird” while unicolor inaccurately describes it as all one colour.
The bouffant hairstyle and snooty look remind me of Oscar Wilde’s Lady Bracknell. “A handbag?”
I photographed this Brown Parrotbill at about 3000m asl near Labahe in Sichuan. The air is clean up there, as you can see with all those lichens.
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As always Tim a lovely photo accompanied by some interesting and informative text.