|
Red-backed Fairywren
The red-backed fairywren (''Malurus melanocephalus'') is a species of passerine bird in the Australasian wren family, Maluridae. It is endemic to Australia and can be found near rivers and coastal areas along the northern and eastern coastlines from the Kimberley in the northwest to the Hunter Region in New South Wales. The male adopts a striking breeding plumage, with a black head, upperparts and tail, and a brightly coloured red back and brown wings. The female has brownish upperparts and paler underparts. The male in eclipse plumage and the juvenile resemble the female. Some males remain in non-breeding plumage while breeding. Two subspecies are recognised; the nominate ''M. m.'' ''melanocephalus'' of eastern Australia has a longer tail and orange back, and the short-tailed ''M. m. cruentatus'' from northern Australia has a redder back. The red-backed fairywren mainly eats insects, and supplements its diet with seed and small fruit. The preferred habitat is heathland and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Latham (ornithologist)
John Latham (27 June 1740 – 4 February 1837) was an English physician, naturalist and author. His main works were ''A General Synopsis of Birds'' (1781–1801) and ''General History of Birds'' (1821–1828). He was able to examine specimens of Australian birds which reached England in the last twenty years of the 18th century, and was responsible for providing English names for many of them. He named some of Australia's most famous birds, including the emu, sulphur-crested cockatoo, wedge-tailed eagle, superb lyrebird, Australian magpie, magpie-lark and pheasant coucal. He was also the first to describe the hyacinth macaw. Latham has been called the "grandfather" of Australian ornithology. Biography John Latham was born on 27 June 1740 at Eltham in northwest Kent. He was the eldest son of John Latham (died 1788), a surgeon, and his mother, who was a descendant of the Sothebys, in Yorkshire. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and then studied anatomy under William Hu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Port Stephens (New South Wales)
Port Stephens, an open youthful tide-dominated drowned-valley estuary, is a large natural harbour of approximately located in the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia. Port Stephens lies within the Port Stephens-Great Lakes Marine Park and is situated about north-east of Sydney. The harbour lies wholly within the local government area of Port Stephens; although its northern shoreline forms the boundary between the Port Stephens and Mid-Coast local government areas. According to the 2006 census, more than people lived within of its long shoreline and more than lived within .Consolidated population figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006 census Geography Port Stephens is formed through the confluence of the Myall and Karuah rivers, Tilligerry Creek, and the Tasman Sea of the South Pacific Ocean. The lower port has a predominantly marine ecology and the upper port an estuarine ecology. The area to the east of Port Stephens comprises the Tomago/To ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union
The Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (RAOU), now part of BirdLife Australia, was Australia's largest non-government, non-profit, bird conservation organisation. It was founded in 1901 to promote the study and bird conservation, conservation of the native bird species of Australia and adjacent regions, making it Australia's oldest national birding association. In 1996, the organisation adopted the trading name of Birds Australia for most public purposes, while retaining its original name for legal purposes and as the publisher of its journal, the ''Emu (journal), Emu''. In 2012, the RAOU merged with Bird Observation & Conservation Australia to form BirdLife Australia. The RAOU was the instigator of the Atlas of Australian Birds project. It also published (in association with Oxford University Press) the encyclopaedic ''Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds''. Its quarterly colour membership magazine was ''Wingspan (magazine), Wingspan''. The RAOU is the Au ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sylviidae
Sylviidae is a family of passerine birds that includes the typical warblers and a number of babblers formerly placed within the Old World babbler family. They are found in Eurasia and Africa. Taxonomy and systematics The scientific name Sylviidae was introduced by the English zoologist William Elford Leach (as Sylviadæ) in a guide to the contents of the British Museum published in 1820. The family became part of an assemblage known as the Old World warblers and was a wastebin taxon with over 400 species of bird in over 70 genera. Advances in classification, particularly helped with molecular data, have led to the splitting out of several new families from within this group. There is now evidence that these ''Sylvia'' "warblers" are more closely related to the Old World babblers than the warblers and thus these birds are better referred to as Sylvia babblers, or just sylviids. A molecular phylogenetic study using mitochondrial DNA sequence data published in 2011 found that the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old World Flycatcher
The Old World flycatchers are a large family, the Muscicapidae, of small passerine birds restricted to the Old World (Europe, Africa and Asia), with the exception of several vagrants and two species, Bluethroat (''Luscinia svecica)'' and Northern Wheatear (''Oenanthe oenanthe''), found also in North America. These are mainly small arboreal insectivores, many of which, as the name implies, take their prey on the wing. The family includes 344 species and is divided into 51 genera. Taxonomy The name Muscicapa for the family was introduced by the Scottish naturalist John Fleming in 1822. The word had earlier been used for the genus ''Muscicapa'' by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760. Muscicapa comes from the Latin ''musca'' meaning a fly and '' capere'' to catch. In 1910 the German ornithologist Ernst Hartert found it impossible to define boundaries between the three families Muscicapidae, Sylviidae (Old World warblers) and Turdidae (thrushes). He therefore treat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wren
Wrens are a family of brown passerine birds in the predominantly New World family Troglodytidae. The family includes 88 species divided into 19 genera. Only the Eurasian wren occurs in the Old World, where, in Anglophone regions, it is commonly known simply as the "wren", as it is the originator of the name. The name ''wren'' has been applied to other, unrelated birds, particularly the New Zealand wrens (Acanthisittidae) and the Australian wrens (Maluridae). Most wrens are visually inconspicuous though they have loud and often complex songs. Exceptions include the relatively large members of the genus ''Campylorhynchus'', which can be quite bold in their behaviour. Wrens have short wings that are barred in most species, and they often hold their tails upright. Wrens are primarily insectivorous, eating insects, spiders and other small invertebrates, but many species also eat vegetable matter and some eat small frogs and lizards. Etymology and usage The English name "wren" deriv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tom Iredale
Tom Iredale (24 March 1880 – 12 April 1972) was an English-born ornithologist and malacologist who had a long association with Australia, where he lived for most of his life. He was an Autodidacticism, autodidact who never went to university and lacked formal training. This was reflected in his later work; he never revised his manuscripts and never used a typewriter. Early life Iredale was born at Stainburn, Workington in Cumberland, England. He was apprenticed to a pharmacist from 1899 to 1901, and used to go bird watching and egg collecting in the Lake District with fellow chemist William Carruthers Lawrie. New Zealand Iredale emigrated to New Zealand following medical advice, as he had health issues. He may possibly have had tuberculosis. According to a letter to Will Lawrie dated 25 January 1902, he arrived in Wellington, New Zealand in December 1901, and travelled at once on to Lyttelton, New Zealand, Lyttelton and Christchurch. On his second day in Christchurch, he dis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HMS Beagle
HMS ''Beagle'' was a 10-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy, one of more than 100 ships of this class. The vessel, constructed at a cost of £7,803 (roughly equivalent to £ in 2018), was launched on 11 May 1820 from the Woolwich Dockyard on the River Thames. Later reports say the ship took part in celebrations of the coronation of King George IV of the United Kingdom, passing through the old London Bridge, and was the first rigged man-of-war afloat upriver of the bridge. There was no immediate need for ''Beagle'' so she " lay in ordinary", moored afloat but without masts or rigging. She was then adapted as a survey barque and took part in three survey expeditions. The second voyage of HMS ''Beagle'' is notable for carrying the recently graduated naturalist Charles Darwin around the world. While the survey work was carried out, Darwin travelled and researched geology, natural history and ethnology onshore. He gained fame by publishing his diary journal, best known as ''The Voya ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benjamin Bynoe
Benjamin Bynoe (1803–1865) was surgeon on the voyages of HMS Beagle, HMS ''Beagle'' who made collections of plants and animals at the western and northern coasts of Australia. Born in Barbados in 1803, Benjamin Bynoe was accepted by the Royal College of Surgeons and Royal Navy in 1825. Bynoe sailed with Charles Darwin on the Second voyage of HMS Beagle, second voyage of the Beagle, nursing the young scientist back to health while ill in Chile. The surgeon accompanied Darwin during expeditions, and what would be the critical research at the Galápagos Islands, making field notes that were later consulted in Darwin's research for ''On the Origin of Species''. The collections of specimens made on these voyages were often unknown in Europe, becoming the basis of new scientific descriptions. Bynoe's name is commemorated in some of the common names and Specific name (zoology), epithets of several species, such as Bynoe's gecko (''Heteronotia binoei)''.species:Bo Beolens, Beolens, Bo; 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] |
Robert Brown (botanist, Born 1773)
Robert Brown (21 December 1773 – 10 June 1858) was a Scottish botanist and paleobotanist who made important contributions to botany largely through his pioneering use of the microscope. His contributions include one of the earliest detailed descriptions of the cell nucleus and cytoplasmic streaming; the observation of Brownian motion; early work on plant pollination and fertilisation, including being the first to recognise the fundamental difference between gymnosperms and angiosperms; and some of the earliest studies in palynology. He also made numerous contributions to plant taxonomy, notably erecting a number of plant families that are still accepted today; and numerous Australian plant genera and species, the fruit of his exploration of that continent with Matthew Flinders. Early life Robert Brown was born in Montrose on 21 December 1773, in a house that existed on the site where Montrose Library currently stands. He was the son of James Brown, a minister in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Horsfield
Thomas Horsfield (May 12, 1773 – July 24, 1859) was an American physician and natural history, naturalist who worked extensively in Indonesia, describing numerous species of plants and animals from the region. He was later a curator of the East India Company Museum in London. Early life Horsfield was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He was the grandson of Timothy Horsfield, Sr. (1708-1773), who was born in Liverpool and emigrated to New York in 1725. In New York, his brother Isaac and he ran a butcher shop. The Horsfield family converted from the Church of England to Moravianism, a Protestant denomination with a strong emphasis on education. In 1748, Horsfield, Sr. applied for permission to reside in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He, however, moved only his family to Bethlehem and joined them the next year. When Northampton County was created in 1752, he was made a justice of peace by Governor Hamilton. In 1763 he was commissio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Red-backed Fairywren")
_(8967632085).jpg "Click for more on -> John Latham (ornithologist)")
_female.jpg "Click for more on -> Old World Flycatcher")
_by_John_Gould.jpg "Click for more on -> John Gould")
.jpg "Click for more on -> Robert Brown (botanist, Born 1773)")
