Friday, June 11, 2010

A Rock Thrush Family

I found this family of Blue Rock Thrush (Monticola solitarius) at Furui-chi last Saturday. At first I found one fledgling hopping on the ground then followed by its mom. I later found 2 more fledglings flying and perching around all over the area. The male bird was the one that mainly brought food back for the youngs. Two chicks seemed to be male birds because they already had some bluish feathers on their wings and tails. Subspecies M.s.philippensis is the main subspecies in Japan. Unlike other subspecies, male bird of M.s.philippensis has bright chestnut belly and undertail coverts. It's a common species which can be found year-round around here.
A male bird feeding a young with a caterpillar (maybe Polyura sp.)

This one is the first fledgling I found. Note its bluish wings and tail.

Male M.s.philippensis has rich chestnut belly.

Another fledgling (female)

Here's the last fledgling. This one is also a male bird.
It still has a downy ear tuft on its left ear covert.

I almost got some great captures of the beautiful male bird once when the bird flew down to the ground close to me to catch a lizard, but unfortunately the sun was almost right behind the bird. I just couldn't move because the bird would definitely fly away as soon as I change my position, so I could only get this photo showing a beautiful male bird with its prey prey in a very ugly lighting condition.

3 comments:

Phil Slade said...

Very nice pictures of all the individuals. It is interesting to see how the male is so coloured in comparison to the overall blue ones I saw recently in Menorca, but the young ones look just like the Med ones.

Stuart Price said...

Nice shots especially the last one, this attractive bird is common up here too......

Ayuwat Jearwattanakanok said...

Thanks a lot Phil and Stu!
The nominate subspecies I normally see in Thailand also has overall blue plumage....though sometimes we see the M.s.philippensis as well.