Big bugs - Zimbabwe Edition






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Birds of Zambia – a comprehensive review and development of a novel digital identification tool

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Background Ok, you can forget about all the fancy books concerning birds of Southern Africa. Yes, including Roberts Birds of Southern Africa , which while it claims to be the ‘most comprehensive single volume handbook on the African continent’ is…well…a little too comprehensive and doesn’t adequately explore the birds of Zambia. Aspinwall and Beel have admirably dedicated a book solely to Zambian birds in ‘ A Field Guide to Zambian Birds not found in southern Africa ’. However, their illustrations leave much to the imagination and don’t provide readers with quick, accessible tool to identify birds. For years ornithologists have therefore been desperately calling out for not only a definitive text on Zambian birds but for a modern method to rapidly identify birds of Zambia. In this prospective, observational study, we set out to characterise birds in the landlocked African country of Zambia and develop a robust digital pipeline for rapid and accurate bird identification. ...
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'Tis the season!

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A close friend from Melbourne informed me of big purchase he recently made. I won’t mention the actual figures, but the words ‘extend’ and ‘mortgage’ were used and the price tag made me gasp. Keep in mind though, he made this purchase for his daughter, and it is almost Xmas, so we shouldn’t be too judgmental. He of course bought a mango. Inner city Melbourne has its boutique organic green grocers, home delivered vegie boxes and the mandatory big supermarket chains stocking fruit with plenty of food miles. Lusaka is actually not too dissimilar…except for the mango prices….but we’ll get to that later. It seems that having ‘a farm’ is pretty common here. Whether that be a small plot big enough for some vegetables (usually at least maize), a bigger enterprise employing farmhands (usually including maize) or a hobby farm on the outskirts of Lusaka for those with the kwatcha, again often with maize. I have the impression that many people rely quite heavily on a good maize crop....
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Triangulation

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The pig from 'Peg + Cat' - a Canadian animated kids show with frequent geometric themes - may have missed his true calling as a road traffic policeman in Mugabe-era Zimbabwe (it's nice to be able to write that last bit with a hint of the past tense). At least he would have brought a little operatic enthusiasm to the role. One of the catchphrases that echoes through our house at high volume: 'I love triangllllles!!' Our preparation for our Christmas road trip to Bulawayo involved getting familiar with a dizzying schedule of fines ('No Driver's Licence: $20'; 'Headlights causing dazzle: $15'; 'Spit in or from vehicle: $5' - bargain!), and ensuring we had adequate fire extinguishers, safety vests, car jacks and matching tyres to satisfy the pernickety fine collectors that have been a fixture of car travel in the country. Fines in Zim are big business. One news report I read earlier last year, indicated a projected 60 million USD of rev...
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