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Masked Woodswallow
Masked woodswallow (''Artamus personatus'') is a species of bird in the Artamidae family. Description ''A.personatus'' is a common, gregarious and highly nomadic species, appearing in large flocks usually with white-browed woodswallow ''(Artamus superciliosus''). Among the few passerines that have powder down through their plumage. Listed as least concern on the IUCN Red List. Field identification Ranging from 18–20 cm in length with a wingspan of 32–34 cm, weighing approximately 37 grams, the masked woodswallow is similar in size to the white-browed woodswallow. Sexes differ markedly in colour and also in immature plumage. This difference between sexes is unique only to the masked woodswallow and white-browed woodswallow. Adult males have a sharply defined black face mask with a pale edge. This mask covers the lores, ear coverts, chin and throat. Upperparts are dark blue grey with a prominent white tip on the tail. The underbody is pale grey, fading to greyish w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Gould
John Gould (; 14 September 1804 – 3 February 1881) was an English ornithologist. He published a number of monographs on birds, illustrated by plates produced by his wife, Elizabeth Gould, and several other artists, including Edward Lear, Henry Constantine Richter, Joseph Wolf and William Matthew Hart. He has been considered the father of bird study in Australia and the Gould League in Australia is named after him. His identification of the birds now nicknamed "Darwin's finches" played a role in the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. Gould's work is referenced in Charles Darwin's book, ''On the Origin of Species''. Early life Gould was born in Lyme Regis, the first son of a gardener. Both father and son probably had little education. After working on Dowager Lady Poulett's glass house, his father obtained a position on an estate near Guildford, Surrey, and then in 1818, Gould Snr became foreman in the Royal Gardens of Windsor. Gould then be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight skeleton. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the bee hummingbird to the ostrich. There are about ten thousand living species, more than half of which are passerine, or "perching" birds. Birds have whose development varies according to species; the only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds. Wings, which are modified forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the loss of flight in some birds, including ratites, penguins, and diverse endemic island species. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds, have further evolved for swimming. B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Artamidae
Artamidae is a family of passerine birds found in Australia, the Indo-Pacific region, and Southern Asia. It includes 24 extant species in six genera and three subfamilies: Peltopsinae (with one genus, ''Peltops''), Artaminae (with one genus containing the woodswallows) and Cracticinae (currawongs, butcherbirds and the Australian magpie). Artamids used to be monotypic, containing only the woodswallows, but it was expanded to include the family Cracticidae in 1994. Some authors, however, still treat the two as separate families. Some species in this family are known for their beautiful song. Their feeding habits vary from nectar sucking (woodswallows) to predation on small birds (pied currawong). Taxonomy and systematics The family Artamidae was introduced by the Irish zoologist Nicholas Aylward Vigors in 1825. The artamids are part of the superfamily Malaconotoidea, a lineage which is widespread through Australasia and consists of a vast diversity of omnivorous and carnivorous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
White-browed Woodswallow
The white-browed woodswallow (''Artamus superciliosus'') is a medium-sized (~19 cm) passerine bird endemic to Australia. The white-browed woodswallow has very distinctive plumage consisting of white brow over a black head with the upper body being a deep blue-grey and with a chestnut under body. The females are paler then the males. The white-browed woodswallow has a bifurcated (divided) tongue like most woodswallows. White-browed woodswallows are highly nomadic travelling in pairs to flocks from hundred to thousands of birds. They often wander irregularly around inland Australia, usually heading north for winter in the Northern Territory and central Queensland, and south in spring for nesting. White-browed woodswallows regularly associate with flocks of the masked woodswallow '' Artamus personatus''. Distribution The white-browed wood-swallow is found throughout Australia with higher concentrations in central New South Wales. According to the IUCN Redlist, wood-swallow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Passerine
A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by the arrangement of their toes (three pointing forward and one back), which facilitates perching. With more than 140 families and some 6,500 identified species, Passeriformes is the largest clade of birds and among the most diverse clades of terrestrial vertebrates, representing 60% of birds.Ericson, P.G.P. et al. (2003Evolution, biogeography, and patterns of diversification in passerine birds ''J. Avian Biol'', 34:3–15.Selvatti, A.P. et al. (2015"A Paleogene origin for crown passerines and the diversification of the Oscines in the New World" ''Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution'', 88:1–15. Passerines are divided into three clades: Acanthisitti (New Zealand wrens), Tyranni (suboscines), and Passeri (oscines or songbirds). The passeri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IUCN Red List
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. It uses a set of precise criteria to evaluate the extinction risk of thousands of species and subspecies. These criteria are relevant to all species and all regions of the world. With its strong scientific base, the IUCN Red List is recognized as the most authoritative guide to the status of biological diversity. A series of Regional Red Lists are produced by countries or organizations, which assess the risk of extinction to species within a political management unit. The aim of the IUCN Red List is to convey the urgency of conservation issues to the public and policy makers, as well as help the international community to reduce species extinction. According to IUCN the formally stated goals of the Red List are to provi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norfolk Island
Norfolk Island (, ; Norfuk: ''Norf'k Ailen'') is an external territory of Australia located in the Pacific Ocean between New Zealand and New Caledonia, directly east of Australia's Evans Head and about from Lord Howe Island. Together with the neighbouring Phillip Island and Nepean Island, the three islands collectively form the Territory of Norfolk Island. At the 2021 census, it had inhabitants living on a total area of about . Its capital is Kingston. The first known settlers in Norfolk Island were East Polynesians but they had already departed when Great Britain settled it as part of its 1788 settlement of Australia. The island served as a convict penal settlement from 6 March 1788 until 5 May 1855, except for an 11-year hiatus between 15 February 1814 and 6 June 1825, when it lay abandoned. On 8 June 1856, permanent civilian residence on the island began when descendants of the ''Bounty'' mutineers were relocated from Pitcairn Island. In 1914 the UK handed Norfo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lord Howe Island
Lord Howe Island (; formerly Lord Howe's Island) is an irregularly crescent-shaped volcanic remnant in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, part of the Australian state of New South Wales. It lies directly east of mainland Port Macquarie, northeast of Sydney, and about southwest of Norfolk Island. It is about long and between wide with an area of , though just of that comprise the low-lying developed part of the island. Along the west coast is a sandy semi-enclosed sheltered coral reef lagoon. Most of the population lives in the north, while the south is dominated by forested hills rising to the highest point on the island, Mount Gower (). The Lord Howe Island Group comprises 28 islands, islets, and rocks. Apart from Lord Howe Island itself, the most notable of these is the volcanic and uninhabited Ball's Pyramid about to the southeast of Howe. To the north lies a cluster of seven small uninhabited islands called the Admiralty Group. The first repo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masked Woodswallow Carpet95
A mask is an object normally worn on the face, typically for protection, disguise, performance, or entertainment and often they have been employed for rituals and rights. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremonial and practical purposes, as well as in the performing arts and for entertainment. They are usually worn on the face, although they may also be positioned for effect elsewhere on the wearer's body. More generally in art history, especially sculpture, "mask" is the term for a face without a body that is not modelled in the round (which would make it a "head"), but for example appears in low relief. Etymology The word "mask" appeared in English in the 1530s, from Middle French ''masque'' "covering to hide or guard the face", derived in turn from Italian ''maschera'', from Medieval Latin ''masca'' "mask, specter, nightmare". This word is of uncertain origin, perhaps from Arabic ''maskharah'' مَسْخَرَۃٌ "buffoon", from the verb ''sakhira'' "t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Artamus
Woodswallows are soft-plumaged, somber-coloured passerine birds in the genus ''Artamus''. The woodswallows are either treated as a subfamily, Artaminae, in an expanded family Artamidae (also including the subfamily Cracticinae), or as the only genus in that family (with the butcherbirds, currawongs, and allies placed in a separate family, Cracticidae). The generic name, which in turn gives rise to the family name, is derived from the Ancient Greek ''artamos'', meaning butcher or murder. The name was given due to their perceived similarity to shrikes. A former common name for the group was "swallow-starlings". The woodswallows have an Australasian distribution, with most species occurring in Australia and New Guinea. The ashy woodswallow has an exclusively Asian distribution, ranging from India and Sri Lanka through South East Asia to China, and the most widespread species is the white-breasted woodswallow, which ranges from Peninsular Malaysia through to Australia in the south and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endemic Birds Of Australia
This article is one of a series providing information about endemism among birds in the world's various zoogeographic zones. For an overview of this subject see Endemism in birds. Patterns of endemism Family-level endemism is prominent in Australia. The Australasian biogeographic region has the highest number of endemic families of any zoogeographic region except the Neotropics, and many of these families are endemic to Australia itself — the country therefore stakes a strong claim to be the world's greatest hotspot of bird endemism. Australian endemic and near-endemic families The Australian endemic families are: * Emu (Dromaiidae), a well-known monotypic family; the emu is found in rural areas throughout the continent * Plains-wanderer (Pedionomidae), a monotypic family; plains-wanderer is restricted to arid inland areas in the southeast of Australia * Lyrebirds (Menuridae), two forest-dwelling species of southeast Australia * Scrub-birds (Atrichornithidae), two fore ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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