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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Complete families (1 Viewer)

Welsh Peregrine

Well-known member
What is the largest bird family that any member here has seen all the members of? Pathetically, I can, at present offer Divers as my contribution, but 5 is a horribly small number! I am one short of Pelicans (Spot-billed) and one short of Gannets (Abbot's Booby).
 
The most expensive families to clear up on are the Tubenoses families - I'm fairly sure Hadoram Shirahi has done this.

cheers, alan
 
Pretty sure I haven't cleaned up on any family that contains more than one species. Recently thought I'd bagged all the dippers with Brown in Japan, until I realized there was a fifth species I hadn't heard of (Rufous-throated).
 
or perhaps rails. Wouldn't that be a feat!

Very difficult to visit get access for Auckland Island Rail and Nicobar Crake sp nov.. Other than that I think most are in theory possible - the hardest probably Zapata Rail (if extant), Red-winged Wood-rail and I suspect several of the Solomons birds. Some, eg Makira Moorhen, must be extinct.

cheers, alan
 
This is a good question, and this is what springs to mind for me:
Emu
+
Australian Magpie Goose
+
Australian mudnesters (Apostlebird & White-winged Chough)
+
Owlet-nightjars
+
Lyrebirds
+
Sitella
+
Osprey (split or no split)
+
Bearded Reedling
+
Limpkin
+
Hoatzin (Not only a whole family, but a whole order ;)
 
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All the Owlet-nightjars? Including the New Caledonian one? Really? Any better ideas for my other question (smallest family that no-one has completed), if this is true?
 
Any better ideas for my other question (smallest family that no-one has completed), if this is true?

That's a more interesting one.:smoke:Maybe it depends on what you believe is extinct and how you split families. If South Island Kokako or Bush Wren exist you might have winners there.

I bet Alan can work out a good answer to that one, based on known extant species only.
 
The birdlife report says "Surveys in southern and central Itombwe in 1996 recorded the species on multiple occasions". As these surveys are done by birders, one can conclude that some birders have seen it :t:

I said "world birders"; since these are the only group likely to have made any effort in relation to the others in the family, notably eg Gabela HS or Grey-crested HS. I think it is unlikely that the surveyors in 1996 were well travelled in the rest of Africa but it is of course possible.

I suppose it is also possible that there is some "HS researcher" who has seen them all but I doubt it. I have since realised that it is possible that PK has seen them all, as he spend a long time in "Zaire" a few decades, when there was a window in this region.

I think it also very difficult to see all of the Owlet-nightjars using current taxonomy, even excluding the NCON, so am surprised by the claim above.

cheers, alan
 
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I wonder is anyone has seen all the Flufftails or Buttonquails? No terminal blockers, but both pretty tough.
 
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