Tag: Tim Melling

Tim writes: Forktails are a small family of seven species that inhabit mountain streams in Southeast Asia.  They are in the Old World Flycatcher family (Muscicapidae).  The White-crowned Forktail (Enicurus leschenaulti) is the largest of the family at 28cm and it is familiar to many birdwatchers as the logo of the Oriental Bird Club.  They…

This must be one of the weirdest ever Wallcreeper photographs.  They breed on remote cliffs, usually at low density, and that largely grey plumage makes them difficult to spot, unless they fly to reveal their red, black and white wings.  In all my years of birdwatching I haven’t seen very many Wallcreepers, but each of…

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…

Tim writes: this rare pheasant is endemic to China, centred on the Sichuan Province. It is the largest and most highly-glossed of the three species of Monal Pheasant.  I have tried twice previously to see this elusive species without a sight or sound of one.  But this year I saw six males and three females…

Tim writes: Thomas’s Pika (Ochotona thomasi) is yet another mammal with barely any published photographs.  It is a Chinese endemic, being restricted to isolated forested peaks within a relatively small area.  It was only described new to science in 1948 but that was mainly due to its similarity to other Pika species.  In fact we…

Tim writes: Przewalski’s Nuthatch (Sitta przewalskii)  is a scarce Nuthatch that only occurs in mature pine forests in southeastern Tibet and west central China.  It was formerly considered just a subspecies of the White-cheeked Nuthatch of the western Himalayas but recent molecular work has confirmed it as a good species.  In addition, the ranges of…

Tim writes: Ruff is one of only two British birds where the males are routinely called by a different name to the female (Reeve), the other being Blackcock and Greyhen.  Ruffs and Reeves were both first noted in print in 1634 and were identified as such in Ray’s 1678 work, which was the first bird…

Tim writes: Pine Bunting (Emberiza leucocephalus) is the eastern counterpart of the European Yellowhammer, even though the males are extremely dissimilar.  But their songs and calls sound the same, and the females look similar, except Pine Buntings lack any yellow, especially in the flight feathers.  But to complicate matters the two species interbreed where they…

Tim writes: the parent Black-browed Albatrosses build a huge egg cup-shaped nest out of mud so they usually only nest next to streams where they have a ready supply of mud within beak’s reach, but they will repair and re-use the nest in subsequent years.  On the Falklands where I photographed these, Black-browed Albatrosses lay…