Birders: Do you think this is a common mynah? Kabul, Afghanistan.

January 10, 2013 10:16 AM

Birders: I can't decide if this is a common mynah. What do you think?

Spotted resting comfortably behind concertina wire in Kabul, Afghanistan.

posted by Alaska Jack to Pets & Animals (8 answers total)

Best answer: Sure looks like one, and it's within its native range (and apparently it's an easily introduced species - they're members of the same family as starlings). Apparently, it's similar to a bird called the Noisy Miner, but that's an Australian native you're unlikely to see where you are! So I bet yes. Nice photo, too.
posted by rtha at 10:31 AM on January 10, 2013

Best answer: Mynas are endemic here in New Zealand having been introduced around 1870. I've seen a ton in my lifetime. Your photos certainly look like mynas to me. Puffed up against the cold a bit, I suspect.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 11:29 AM on January 10, 2013

Best answer: Definitely a mynah, and certainly looks like that species. Mynahs, like Starlings, where living outside their native range are actually more likely to be in urban areas than rural ones. They are widespread across that hemisphere in that capacity

(i_am_joe's_spleen, sorry to be nitpicky but that is not the correct definition of endemic. endemic means they are only found in that geographic region)
posted by mcstayinskool at 11:34 AM on January 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Yep, definitely a common mynah in my eye, too.
posted by smoke at 2:16 PM on January 10, 2013

Best answer: Yes. Or at least that's what we call a mynah in next-door Pakistan, and English probably got the word from one of our languages.
posted by tavegyl at 3:01 PM on January 10, 2013

Best answer: Yes, and they've been extending their range through Central Asia and the Middle East.
posted by scrambles at 3:40 PM on January 10, 2013

Response by poster: Thank you everyone! - aj
posted by Alaska Jack at 3:49 AM on January 11, 2013

In fairness to i_am_joe's_spleen, he is using 'endemic' to mean what 'endemic' indeed means in epidemiology.

As mcstayinskool rightly recognizes, such usage is incorrect in the context of birding insofar as the ecological definition naturally applies. However, we might also consider i_am_joe's_spleen to be troping New Zealand's mynahs as a disease. Such cultural logic seems likely, given Alaska Jack's second link: the mynahs next door have (repeatedly) won the the Pest of Australia Award.
posted by feral_goldfish at 9:51 AM on January 12, 2013