The Grandala – 10,000 Birds

Balangshan – barely under the move at 4500 meters – appears to be place to see Grandalas, at the very least in summer season. And they’re a species nicely price seeing, at the very least (sexism alert) the males.

Richard Wagner – of “The Ring” and silly antisemitism fame – apparently known as Beethoven’s seventh symphony (my private favourite) the “apotheosis of the dance”. That sounds way more educated than “the perfect or most excessive instance of the dance”, though that’s what apotheosis means.

With that – so far as the Grandala is worried – largely irrelevant data, I wish to introduce the male Grandala because the apotheosis of blue.

Different reviewers usually agree. eBird states that the species is “not like every other. Grownup male is a deep, nearly eye-searing blue with jet-black wings”.

An internet site with the considerably puzzling title “roundglass maintain” calls it “a gem of a hen” and expands this to “dazzling blue gem-like birds”. And on Fb, self-declared “Britt the Hen Knowledgeable” describes the Grandala as “a stunningly stunning hen from the Himalayas”.

Solely Wikipedia manages to explain the species with out even a slight trace of enthusiasm. Perhaps they centered on the feminine, which is described as “brownish” (certainly not a ringing endorsement).

In actual fact, some male Grandalas complained to me that they’re uninterested in seeing their brownish wives all day – they assume that evolution is considerably sexist, offering solely the females with fixed enticing sights. However then, males at all times prefer to complain anyway.

I requested my Tibetan hen information, Philip from Alpinebirding, whether or not the Grandala has any particular symbolic that means or related mythology in Tibetan tradition – surprisingly, it doesn’t. A wasted alternative, in case you ask me – or an opportunity to make one thing up in a future submit that includes the Grandala.

Because the Grandala is the one species in its genus, each the genus title Grandala (that means one thing like “massive wings”) and the species title coelicolor (heaven coloured – once more referring to the male, except the climate could be very unhealthy, through which the brownish feminine can also function a namesake) are price explaining.

In contrast to me however like most Chinese language, it is a very social hen – gregarious being the marginally extra high-brow time period utilized by the HBW. In winter, they’re typically present in enormous flocks, one thing that my pictures completely fail to show. Nicely, they had been taken in summer season.

If all that is too constructive for you, why not research a paper titled “Debilitating Cutaneous Poxvirus An infection in a […] Grandala”? In case you are a critical hypochondriac, perhaps you could find a few of the signs described for the contaminated hen on your self.

The Grandala is a high-altitude specialist, with the very best breeding recorded at 6600 meters (source). Apparently, the people breeding on the highest altitudes are usually not younger or inferior people which were excluded from higher-quality low-elevation habitats – at the very least primarily based on research on different species.

Being a high-altitude specialist signifies that the Grandala may be affected by climate change, which can possible shift its decrease elevation restrict upwards. As a consequence, a few of the much less clever Grandalas help Donald Trump as he tells them what they need to hear – that local weather change isn’t a giant risk (source).

After which there are studies that present that hen species such because the Grandala are well-adapted to their particular environments. Shock. However then, that is what at the very least 90% of all pure science is about – proving that the apparent is true.

Lastly, there are some amateurish movies here and here.