Blogoversary

Today marks my first blogoversary. I am quite happy that I lasted a year in the blogsphere! I’d like to take this opportunity to say a Big Thank You to all my dear readers and commenters who have been a big force behind this blog through its short journey.

Since I started this blog, I have been asked by several people as to what my blog-name: Gallicissa means. And I think this a good occasion to answer this burning question.

Gallicissa is the name of a "mythical' bird" that I created as part of the logo of this blog. (edit: it has been replaced with what you see now.) It was fusing a images of several endemic birds found in the endemic hotspot that is Sri Lanka. The two central birds that I used for this fusion were Sri Lanka Junglefowl Gallus lafayetti and Sri Lanka Blue Magpie Urocissa ornata, the latter which was formerly known as Cissa ornata—the name that existed in the days that I started birding in 1989. So, I used their generic names, gallus—the plural of which is galli; and cissa to coin the generic name: Gallicissa for my photoshopped bird.

Gosh! I just can't understand why so many people cannot figure this out!

Anyway, apart from the aforementioned two parent birds, I used plumage features of three more endemics to add to the gaudiness of my creation. They were the throat streaks of the Red-faced Malkoha, facial pattern below the eye, pattern in the belly, the ‘spot-wing’ of the Spot-winged Thrush (I used two photographs for this purpose), and the ‘yellow ear’ of the montane endemic Yellow-eared Bulbul.

There you have it.

As far as it is known, Gallicissa Salgado, 2007 is a monotypic genus that is endemic to Sri Lanka.