Thursday 23 February 2012

Chinese Bamboo Partridge

Inspired by my little discovery of blooming ground orchids in the forest floor near Beppu Ropeway station during the spring of 2010. After a bit of research, I found that the orchid is called Japanese Hardy Orchid (Calanthe discolor) or Ebine (エビネ) in Japanese. It's a widespread ground orchid which can be found from Hokkaido to Okinawa. Although it is widespread in Japan, it is listed as Near Threatened in the Red Data List. I decided to put a Chinese Bamboo Partridge (Bambusicola thoracius) which I still haven't seen for myself here in Japan, but have seen once in Taiwan, to make the picture more complete. I've seen photos of the bird from Furuso-san once though. At least, I'm sure that it exists somewhere in Beppu. The Chinese Bamboo Partridge is also one of the birds that was introduced from mainland China to Japan during historical period along with Red-billed Leiothrix and Hwamei. The subspecies that is widespread in Japan is the nominate race B.t.thoracius  which is different from the subspecies I've seen in Taiwan.


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