Red Browed

Normal and lesser Red Browed.
Includes Species Profile.
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Tiaris
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Lesser is goegraphically isolated from temporalis by about 200km.
I don't believe Macgillivrayi as we now "know" it exists in the wild at all. Some temporalis near the top of their range do have slightly golder backs compared to southern populations but there is no intergrade wild population in the overlap zone as there is no overlap or adjoining of territories.
The original Macgillivrayi specimen upon which the race was originally proposed by Gregory Matthews was collected from the Claudie River which is far further north than the bottom of the Lesser's range and this specimen had exagerated Lesser features not intergrade features. The term Macgillivrayi has been totally bastardised by some in aviculture to market what were originally captive bred intergrades.
Not sure of the extent of any overlap/intergrading with loftyi.
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mattymeischke
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macgillvrayi is not regarded as a valid subspecies, and loftyi is recognised by some authors but not others.
HANZAB recognises only temporalis and minor. In the text they have minor on Cape York north of Cooktown and temporalis south of Atherton and extending around SE Australia, but in the map there appears to be overlap.
Morecombe has temporalis, minor and loftyi; in his map all of the ranges seem to overlap.
Avid amateur aviculturalist; I keep mostly australian and foreign finches.
The art is long, the life so short; the critical moment is fleeting and experience can be misleading, crisis is difficult....... (Hippocrates)
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Tiaris
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Macgillivrayi was never really accepted as a subspecies but Matthews ( a noted divider) proposed it and other local variants as sub-species. My point is that the current captive birds passed off as macgillivrayi in no way resemble birds which were originally proposed as that form at all.
Speaking to a couple FNQ local finchos & a more southern native finch subspecies authority whose knwledge I trust, they tell me (& I believe them) there is a clear geographic separation between minor & temporalis and the no mans land between is nowhere near Claudie River which is toward the north eastern end of minor's natural range.
No recent or current texts or taxonomists will contain previously recommended subspecies or even localised racial variants as separate forms at all as recent taxonomic trendy thought is to lump em all together. This does no favours to anyone wishing to identify or seek factual evidence of differing natural forms of any bird species. To find this you need to delve into historic literature such as Matthews' work from about a century ago.
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Craig52
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mattymeischke wrote:macgillvrayi is not regarded as a valid subspecies, and loftyi is recognised by some authors but not others.
HANZAB recognises only temporalis and minor. In the text they have minor on Cape York north of Cooktown and temporalis south of Atherton and extending around SE Australia, but in the map there appears to be overlap.
Morecombe has temporalis, minor and loftyi; in his map all of the ranges seem to overlap.
Tiaris wrote:Macgillivrayi was never really accepted as a subspecies but Matthews ( a noted divider) proposed it and other local variants as sub-species. My point is that the current captive birds passed off as macgillivrayi in no way resemble birds which were originally proposed as that form at all.
Speaking to a couple FNQ local finchos & a more southern native finch subspecies authority whose knwledge I trust, they tell me (& I believe them) there is a clear geographic separation between minor & temporalis and the no mans land between is nowhere near Claudie River which is toward the north eastern end of minor's natural range.
No recent or current texts or taxonomists will contain previously recommended subspecies or even localised racial variants as separate forms at all as recent taxonomic trendy thought is to lump em all together. This does no favours to anyone wishing to identify or seek factual evidence of differing natural forms of any bird species. To find this you need to delve into historic literature such as Matthews' work from about a century ago.
This is very interesting so here are some of my thoughts,minor,comes from tropical far Nth Aust and gone its own way in regards to colour/size ect,has very lightgrey to white body colour and full chrome yellow back and wings.I believe this bird has adapted to the constant heat in having these lighter colours to reflect it as i will come to with lofty.
Macgillivrayi,i don't believe this to be a subspecie but a deliberate cross with temporalis and minor by aviculturists.I have seen these in a Northern NSW aviary and they are little bit brighter in colour but still had the chrome yellow collar as temporalis and roughly the same size body.
Sydney area red brows are slightly lighter in colour to the ones in southern Vic,my area.
Loftyi,Southern SA,are dark olive birds and slightly larger in size with a deeper yellow collar so darker colours absorb more heat in colder climates,imo
So i believe,nature has changed temporalis from its Northern aspect to its South East/western distribution.
Minor has no overlaps,so has gone its own way in regards colour/visual sexing and size.IMO and my thoughts only. The further North lighter and further South darker in colour differance, Craig
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Tiaris
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The colour & size difference as applies to redbrows pointed out by Craig also applies to other species with widespread distributions from tropical to temperate zones. This and many other differences within species can only aid understanding of many bird species, hence my dislike of taxonomic lumping which turns a blind eye to interesting natural variations. This has the effect over time in avian literature of deliberately covering up existing known bird facts. Just try to obtain some of Matthews detailed early literature on finches & see how ground-breakingly interesting this very old bird info is if you can get hold of it.
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Craig52
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Thats very interesting Graham,i would love to get hold of that book by Mathews,does he also mention crimsons as i have read there is subspecies again of WBs around the Gulf of Carpenteria? which are grey on the belly,(on land i mean :wtf: ) Craig
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mattymeischke
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Tiaris wrote:Just try to obtain some of Matthews detailed early literature on finches & see how ground-breakingly interesting this very old bird info is if you can get hold of it.
Have just spent a few hours trying to track down some copies. Looks like I'll have to go to a real library with actual, physical books in it...
Articles and papers are relatively easy to get online these days, but books are a different fettle of kish.
Many citations of Mathew's work, but none of his actual work. He was an interesting character.
It seems he was a lumper at the beginning and end of his career, but a dedicated splitter while composing his 'Birds of Australia'. As well as macgillvrayii (which Keast (1958, EMU 58:219-246) lumped with minor, where it has since remained), Mathews erected Estrilda (now Neochmia) temporalis tregellasi (Mathews, 1912) and E. t. ashbyi (Mathews, 1923). Neither of these putative subspecies has been recognised by anyone else, so far as I can tell. Keast studied the type specimen of macgillvrayii (at the American Museum of Natural History) as well as the specimens at the Australian Museum in Sydney where he was based.
crocnshas wrote:i would love to get hold of that book by Mathews

So would I, though he wrote a few. Tiaris, which would you recommend we try to track down?
The big one is his Birds of Australia, which is where the less-accepted subspecies seem to have originated from. It is a 12 volume monster, seen as one of the "big three" illustrated, encyclopaedic works on Australian Birds (The others being John Gould's 'Birds of Australia' and HANZAB). I was idly searching the antiquarian sites thinking I might find copies for sale when this dashed my hopes: "The Birds of Australia 1910-28 by Gregory Mathews is a monumental work which took over 18 years to produce, comprising over 630 superb original hand coloured lithographs, drawn by J. Keulemans, R. Green and H. Gronvold. Rarer than John Gould’s work on Australian birds, with only 225 sets ever produced, most of which are in institutional collections and the last record of the complete individual lithographs being offered for sale in Australia was over 20 years ago" (from http://www.antiqueprintroom.com/catalog ... 1e10753ff1)
crocnshas wrote:does he also mention crimsons as i have read there is subspecies again of WBs around the Gulf of Carpenteria? which are grey on the belly,

I'll have a look for you when I get to a real library and can have a read, but I could find no reference to this grey-bellied white-bellied crimson. I think it may have been another of Mathew's less-supported subspecies.
Tiaris wrote:No recent or current texts or taxonomists will contain previously recommended subspecies or even localised racial variants as separate forms at all as recent taxonomic trendy thought is to lump em all together
This is partially because lots of previously described subspecies have been inadequately described or based on an insufficient number of specimens. The recent trend had been to lump, but the wave of descriptions of numerous cryptic species over the last ten or fifteen years hinted at unsuspected diversity within groups of outwardly similar birds, and the rise and rise of molecular methods and cladistics have seen species numbers tending upwards again to the point where I reckon the splitters far exceed the lumpers in the halls of academic ornithology today.
Tiaris wrote:This does no favours to anyone wishing to identify or seek factual evidence of differing natural forms of any bird species.
Couldn't agree more. It requires numerous hours of reading through original descriptions and subsequent literature to get a handle on a single species and its intraspecific variation. Even so, often one gets unresolvable conflicts in the literature, or the literature is plainly inadequate.
Tiaris wrote:Speaking to a couple FNQ local finchos & a more southern native finch subspecies authority whose knwledge I trust, they tell me (& I believe them) there is a clear geographic separation between minor & temporalis and the no mans land between is nowhere near Claudie River which is toward the north eastern end of minor's natural range.
This kind of local knowledge is clearly more valuable in many ways than Mathew's work; writing as he was from England with an academic agenda which clearly influenced his taxonomic decisions. However it is impossible for most people to obtain, and not recognised by the scientific commmunity (Shame, their loss).
crocnshas wrote: This is very interesting so here are some of my thoughts,minor,comes from tropical far Nth Aust and gone its own way in regards to colour/size ect,has very lightgrey to white body colour and full chrome yellow back and wings.I believe this bird has adapted to the constant heat in having these lighter colours to reflect it as i will come to with lofty...
... The further North lighter and further South darker in colour differance, Craig
It is very interesting stuff, and i like your theory, Croc. Testable, too (the best kind of theory).
Only problem is then you've gotta ask why Australian swans and cockatoos tend to be black.
Avid amateur aviculturalist; I keep mostly australian and foreign finches.
The art is long, the life so short; the critical moment is fleeting and experience can be misleading, crisis is difficult....... (Hippocrates)
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Tiaris
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The multi-volume Matthews book which is the most difficult & expensive to obtain is the one where he goes into great detail describing the many localised variations of many bird species including finches. A large library is the best bet as is is worth many thousands of $.
The size & brightness of more tropical forms can be seen in examples such as Sulfur-crested Cockatoo, Galah, Superb Fairy-wren, Red-backed Fairy-wren, Grey Fantail, Eastern Yellow Robin, Willie Wagtail, King Parrot, Crimson Rosella and many other species including Redbrows, Crimsons, & Zebras (Timor) in finches which have smaller & in most cases brighter northern forms. With our exotic finches too examples such as Orangebreasts, Singers, and Saint Helenas spring to mind as exhibiting the same north-south intra-specific differences in size & colour. I've read somewhere (& can't argue with) that the larger body mass of southern populations is an adaptation to cooler climates where greater body mass assists maintaining adequate body temperature in adverse cold weather.
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mattymeischke
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That'd be Bergmann's rule, which applies to all warm-blooded animals.

These sort of gradual variations in size, colour and form are very vexing to taxonomists, who feel they need to divide everything into neat categories, so they tend to ignore them. (the lumping tendency?)
The same variations, though, are the raw material of aviculture and of great interest to nontaxonomist birdos like twitchers, aviculturalists, or naturalists, so they tend to notice them more. (the splitting tendency?)

I'm now excited to try to find a copy of the 12 volume Mathew's now; there are some advantages in living so close to Canberra after all!
Avid amateur aviculturalist; I keep mostly australian and foreign finches.
The art is long, the life so short; the critical moment is fleeting and experience can be misleading, crisis is difficult....... (Hippocrates)
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Craig52
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More to this subject which contradicts me regarding masks finches,the nominate form ranges right accross the north,being a more fawnish brown all over with a yellow beak,whereas the whiteared subspecies lives in the North,but only Cape York Peninsula.White ears are much lighter in body/facial colour than the nominate form but live in the same hemisphere.
Myers,recognizes two subspecies of the WE,a far North white fronted one and south of them a darker fronted bird which makes the white ears stand out more significatly,but i would think these would have been well inter breed in aviaries by now.
I did see this in my own birds quite a few years ago when i kept and bred them.
Matty,your comment regarding swans and black cockatoo's is irrelevant as they can travel many hundreds of kilometers in land and back to coastal areas to find food and water and cooler temperatures N.S.E.W,where as finches being so small are virtually stuck in the one place and have to adapt.
Looking forward to infomation from Mathews Work if you can find it. Cheers Craig
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