Pied Myna - Sturnus contra
One of the first birds that I saw when I moved to Dubai - on this occasion feeding on lawn at the Greens where my serviced apartment was. The family were still in the UK and one amusement was to walk around with my bins, somewhat aimlessly, marvelling at life ticks from garden birds.
I have since learned that this is an Indian bird which has shown up in the UAE, either by way of escapes and subsequent breeding or under its own steam. In the UK there are many "C" list ticks. Those are non-endemic birds that are now breeding under their own steam in the wild. Rose Ringed Parakete, Canada Goose, Pheasant, Egyptian Goose, Mandarin - you get the idea. However they have come to Dubai they are definately here to stay.
This bird C list ? Maybe. I prefer them to the Common Mynas plumage wise though and they are far far rarer. I see 1 of these for every 100 Common Myna and they are definately less "off the boat''.
15 more ticks and we hit the 1% mark. 1% of the world's bird collected on my site with a bad camera (now replaced). I was wondering what I should do to celebrate. I think an especially good picture or an especially decent bird will be needed. Perhaps an alltime top 100 to fit its 100th bird status. I need put to my mind to it. The first "centenary bird". A bird that will stand the test of all the other world's birds. Sorry Pied Myna its not going to be you or any other Myna. Plans will need to be made. Perhaps I will skip the significance of each centenary bird and just start my Top of the Pops list - a top ten all time from the site ?
Pied Myna is still not going to make the cut on that. I feel that it may be a little early to begin a nostalgic list on this particular outing however I do manage to keep a top 20 on my Ipod that changes every so often (5 star songs - I could listen to them all forever - and there can be only 20). I think I will crown a Top 100 at some point. To start that off I will arrange my first top 10 on the site. That will be fun - just in time for Tanzania to throw an almighy spanner in the works. I started this blog applying marks out of 100 and that soon went as a tool. I think a loose top 10 at least until we are over the 1000 mark should work well then I can think about increasing it to a Top 20. 1000 ?? I think I will feel that this is really going to happen in some monumental form when I hit the 1000. And here I am just dreaming about hitting 100. Interesting though that out of those first 100 many are birds I have never seen before. The discipline - if you can call it a discipline is driving me out to find new birds. This site is like a hungry monster in the back of my mind - "Feed me birds". Well all right then on to bird number 86....
Birds of East Africa waits for me upstairs. Lots of preperation needed.
Pied Myna, Sturnus Contra
Al Barsha Park
March 2012
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