Birding Shanghai in June 2023 – 10,000 Birds

This 12 months, migration appears to have ended a bit sooner than in most earlier years – not very shocking on condition that this was the most well liked Shanghai Might within the final 100 years, and no less than some birds (corresponding to American Robins – notice that these are the pretend robins of the US, they in all probability additionally declare that their identify was stolen from them by the liberal press) comply with isotherms on their migration (source).

This leaves Shanghai in June with principally simply the year-round species and the summer season breeders, perhaps with a number of added ultra-lazy people of migratory species.

Thankfully, there are a number of extra such breeding species than most Shanghainese are conscious of. Such because the Black-winged Cuckooshrike.

eBird calls it “an general sooty-colored cuckooshrike”, considerably – however accurately – contradicting the official identify.

Whereas the HBW states that it breeds at 300 – 2450 meters, in Shanghai – the place such elevations will not be out there outdoors of the higher flooring of some highrises – it makes to with an altitude of about 0 meters as effectively.

Within the handbook “The Herons”, the Purple Heron is claimed to have “a snaky neck”, which is an effective description. Right here’s a video.

In case you are the fourth or fifth youngster of your dad and mom, chances are you’ll name your self fortunate to not be a Purple Heron. In a brood, these chicks often don’t survive as a consequence of sibling rivalry, i.e., they starve (source).

Their migration is kind of quick in comparison with many different bigger birds – in one study, a number of birds flew 4000 km inside 5–7 days whereas one particular person even flew 5600 km continuous.

That implies that earlier than beginning the migration, the birds spend 15-18 hours per day feeding and fattening up and even transferring their sleeping places near the meals supply to avoid wasting time (source), equal to a Tour de France bicycle owner locking himself right into a McDonald’s restaurant for a number of days earlier than beginning the race.

Within the barely frighteningly named journal “Science of The Complete Setting”, there may be a paper on organochlorine compounds in Purple Heron eggs nesting in websites positioned round a chloralkali plant (Ebro River). Abstract consequence: related chemical substances emitted by the plant might be discovered within the eggs.

Two different heron species are a lot simpler to see in Shanghai – the Chinese language Pond Heron …

… (a fowl that additionally bioaccumulates sure chemical substances corresponding to heavy metals, as described here) …

… and the Black-crowned Night time Heron.

Additionally as video.

What to do once you need to develop a container terminal on the location of a big colony of Black-crowed Night time Herons? Straightforward: You simply transfer the colony (source).

In case you are a younger (second-year) attractive male or feminine Black-crowned Night time Heron on the lookout for an skilled associate to breed, you might be in all probability out of luck. It appears the older herons choose to mate with one another, a phenomenon that within the non-pornographic language of ornithologists is known as Age-assortative Mating (source).

And what if an evening heron is hungry? One possibility is to raid a colony of Widespread Terns and eat their chicks, as described here.

Whereas my recent experimentation with ChatGPT confirmed that ChatGPT thinks the Gray-headed Lapwing might be present in Shanghai’s Century Park, Chongming is a much better place (video).

That features breeding birds, as indicated by the presence of some quite cute chicks (video).

The benefit of sure components of Shanghai is that it’s virtually all the time attainable to search out some Reed Parrotbills (despite the fact that many of the websites I uncover for the species are being destroyed inside a number of months).

So, I can all the time present some pictures of the species, even when I’ve nothing new to say about them.

Cattle Egrets are totally fashionable birds – they had been among the many first species to ditch mailed letters for faxes, then switched to e-mail early, and now (no less than in China) principally talk by WeChat. They’re additionally early adopters with regard to their foraging – these days principally following tractors quite than cattle.

It typically seems a bit dangerous although.

Additionally out there as incompetently taken video 1 and video 2.

As administration consultants would phrase it, feminine Pheasant-tailed Jacanas deal with their core competency – laying eggs – and outsource the following steps corresponding to incubating and feeding the chicks to the males. Environment friendly, nevertheless it additionally implies that the feminine chicks lack appropriate function fashions of their adolescence.

The females are larger and – when nests or chicks are attacked – deal with defending in opposition to aerial predators and conspecific females whereas the males deal with different males (source).

Here’s one of many common of my movies displaying a Pheasant-tailed Jacana not doing a lot.

Breeding of Black-tailed Godwits appears to be barely negatively affected by highway lighting, as a Dutch study discovered – not an issue on Chongming Island, although.

The species is classed as Close to Threatened – specifically, numbers within the Netherlands have decreased considerably, and the chicks are negatively affected by intensified agriculture (HBW).

A paper inspecting the destructive results of flooding on the breeding success of Black-tailed Godwits is titled “Sink or Swim? Viability of a Black-Tailed Godwit Inhabitants in Relation to Flooding”. It appears the will to create semi-witty titles for scientific papers typically is stronger than advisable.

Anyway, a number of movies present Black-tailed Godwits undoubtedly not sinking: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Azure-winged Magpies are fairly happy with their look …

… and typically intentionally pose subsequent to objects that match their very own shade.

The Black-naped Oriole is likely one of the most engaging summer season breeders in Shanghai.

With 20 subspecies acknowledged, this species clearly requires a advisor to rationalize the subspecies and scale back them to a extra manageable quantity. I’ll take over this job as soon as I’m carried out with eliminating a few of the underutilized components from the periodic desk.

Subspecies of Black-naped Orioles can be recognized by their completely different vocalizations, as described in an in any other case frustratingly imprecise paper with statements corresponding to “The outcomes present {that a} forensic strategy to birdsong evaluation, impressed by speech processing, could provide invaluable insights into cryptic species range in addition to tune identification on the subspecies stage.”

Very seemingly Black Drongos breed in Shanghai as effectively.

Whereas there appear to be fewer Lesser Coucals at Nanhui this 12 months, they nonetheless have a powerful presence at Fengxian. Sadly, that space can also be at present being destroyed.

Bye, bye, Lesser Coucal.

Some researchers did an experiment that amongst people is just carried out not often and solely through errors made in maternity hospitals. They switched eggs between Crimson-rumped Swallows and Barn Swallows. Just like the uncommon human experiment, the outcomes had been typically acceptable, although after all that doesn’t account for any potential psychological injury attributable to the swap in dad and mom.

Sometimes, second-hand nests of Crimson-rumped Swallows flip up in native actual property markets. Whereas the demand typically is pretty low, some home sparrows typically use this chance to get onto what’s presumably the bottom stage of the property ladder (source).

As a toddler, I as soon as had an aquarium with a number of black mollies. Thus, it was a bit disappointing that the total textual content of a paper titled “Escape Response of Black Mollies (Poecilia sphenops) to Predatory Dives of a Pied Kingfisher (Ceryle rudis)” is just not freely out there on-line.

One other paper additionally seems on the interplay between Pied Kingfishers and fish: “Results of Nile perch (Lates niloticus) introduction into Lake Victoria, East Africa, on the weight loss plan of Pied Kingfishers (Ceryle rudis)”. In essence, the introduction of the Nile perch diminished the fish species ideally eaten by the kingfishers, forcing them to eat extra of a smaller fish species. Extra work, much less enjoyable, all as a result of people launched some silly fish into kingfisher habitat. People are in all probability not highly regarded amongst these kingfishers.

Widespread Kingfishers are a superb match with my restricted video expertise, as they ceaselessly simply sit round ready for one thing to occur (not “Waiting around to die“, however it’s all the time good to call a Townes van Zandt tune).

That’s in distinction to Black-winged Stilts, which appear very eager on showing off their (admittedly spectacular) legs.

Whiskered Terns look very very like they use lipstick. Unusual.

One study discovered that in Whiskered Terns, “Females make investments a lot much less in parental care than males, offering much less meals [to the chicks] and deserting [the chicks] extra ceaselessly”. I suppose the females simply attempt to keep away from typical feminine cliches.

Gray Treepies are comparatively uncommon in Shanghai – distribution maps point out that that is just about the Northern border of their vary, and even barely past that.

In response to wordsense, the “pie” within the treepie (and likewise in magpie) is identical because the one in “having your pie and consuming it too”. The web site claims that pie originates from Center English pie (pye), which in flip in all probability comes from Latin pica (“magpie, jay”) – with the concept the numerous elements put into pies are comparable with the truth that magpies will eat virtually something. Sounds a bit made-up to me, however after all, it might take me a while to provide you with a greater made-up clarification, so let’s simply take this one.

And eventually, round this time of the 12 months, grownup Crimson-billed Starlings are continuously harassed by their hungry chicks, serving as a useful warning to people to make use of contraception.