Birding

Two Monarchs of Raja Ampat, West Papua

November 9, 2026 by Kai Pflug No Comments

Anyone thinking about coming up with a joke about the scientific name of the Frilled Monarch, Arses telescopthalmus: Please don’t.

If you do not follow this advice, somebody will certainly add a snotty comment pointing out that Arses was the personal name of two ancient kings of Persia, rather than being derived from what you might have thought.

(The telescopthalmus is derived from teleskopos, conspicuous, and ophthalmos, eye, and indeed, the bird seems to be inordinately proud of its eyes).

Interestingly, male and female Frilled Monarch practice something called resource partitioning – focusing on different resources. The male mainly stays in the lower understorey and forages substantially on bare substrates, particularly vertical ones such as trunks and hanging vines. In contrast, the female occurs mainly higher in the subcanopy, goes after aerial insects, and forages mainly off leafy substrates (source).

It probably means a much lower chance of food fights.

And I wonder whether there is a connection between the different foraging areas and the colors (the male is black-and-white only).

Thomas Carter (1863–1931), an English ornithologist active in Australia, must be rather proud of having a whole genus of birds named after him. Well, he is dead now, so maybe it does not matter too much, but still:

The Golden Monarch (Carterornis chrysomela)

Not much to write about this bird, though, despite its beauty. Well: According to the HBW, the song is a pleasant, loud, musical rolling warble, “ditoweet duweet duweer teerteerteer”. Thank god for sound recordings.

Written by Kai Pflug
Kai has lived in Shanghai for 22 years. He only started birding after moving to China, so he is far more familiar with Chinese birds than the ones back in his native Germany. As a birder, he considers himself strictly average and tries to make up for it with photography, which he shares on a separate website. Alas, most of the photos are pretty average as well. He hopes that few clients of his consulting firm—focused on China’s chemical industry—ever find this blog, as it might raise questions about his professional priorities. Much of his time is spent either editing posts for 10,000 Birds or cleaning the litter boxes of his numerous indoor cats. He occasionally considers writing a piece comparing the two activities.