The Front Line Migrants

Though Common Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) can be seen year round in Japan, it's a winter visitor here in most part of Thailand. Only a very small population breeds along rivers and streams in deep evergreen forests. The first record of the migrating Common Kingfisher for this autumn passage in Thailand was reported on August 13, pretty fast. I found and photographed this young female on August 24 at the small exercising area in Huai Hang village. Last year I also managed to get quite a series of decent shots of another young female at the same spot. Most of the approachable ones are always juveniles, which is not surprising. It's never easy to get good shots of the kingfishers, so I'm quite happy to start the migrating season off with this set of photos.

Immature female Common Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis)

The number of this colourful little bird is gradually increasing, and right now I can them pretty much everywhere. By mid September, there should be more beautiful adults arriving and less juveniles, as they should be traveling further south. Below are some photos of the dragonflies I photographed along the paddy fields. They were extremely numerous in the fields. There were several species I could recognise. Lots of Barn Swallows and a few Wire-tailed Swallows were also seen busy swifting all over the fields catching small insects, which were flying low close to the ground.

Chalky Percher (Diplacodes trivialis); male with blue body

Male Orthetrum pruinosum neglectum

A Number of Small Things

This autumn seems to be wetter than the last one. Last year Beppu got its first snow since November 3, but this year, it's still relatively warm until now. I've been to Sekino-E very often during the week before the exam, and still got so many unprocessed shots in my hard disk. Here's a set of small butterflies and dragonflies I took around the area. The number of these beautiful insects seems to be decreasing as winter starts to approach. There weren't as many dragonflies as the month before. I could only find the brightly coloured Sympetrum eroticum eroticum, which is very common around here.

These small butterflies are very difficult to identify. I've no idea what are they...

This one is an Asian Comma (Polygonia c-aureum).

Sympetrum eroticum eroticum

Macro World

Just a series of photos I took around Sekino-e before the semester began. The rice fields looked very beautiful and were ready to be harvested. There were lots of tiny damsel and dragonflies flying around the fields, and here are some that I could manage to get some nice shots of. Thanks to my dragonfly colleagues again for identifying all of them. The turquoise-blue Ischnura senegalensis is my favourite!

Ischnura senegalensis

Sympetrum eroticum eroticum

Females Calopteryx atrata

Too bad I don't know much about flowers, anyone?

A kind of Skipper, not sure which one

And a kind of Lycaeninae

And a Fly

These days I've become quite busy with my study, thus I can't go out birding very often and I can't update the blog very often as well. The starlings flock is still roosting near my dorm as usual, but the number of the Chestnut-cheeked seems to have decreased a lot. There are still lots of images I took before I've gotten busy waiting to be posted. Hope November comes very soon, so I can have my 5-day quarter break.

Mae Kampong Village

I went to Mae Kampong village in the eastern part of Chiang Mai with Prof.Mark on September 20th. I've heard a lot about this village and I wanted to explore the birds over there. The village is well-known among foreigners as a popular home-stay village and a place of Thailand's "Flight of the Gibbon". The forest around the village's still looking really good and we saw more than 30 species of birds in just one day.

The most numerous species was definitely the small Oriental White-eye (Zosterops palpebrosus). We found several fast-moving flocks almost everywhere we stopped the car. We also enjoyed watching a young bird being fed by its parent while we were having lunch.

Black-crested Bulbul (Pycnonotus melanicterus)
Red-whiskered Bulbul (Pycnonotus jocosus)
Common Tailorbird (Orthotomus sutorius)
Speckled Piculet (Picumnus innominatus)

Most of the birds we found are general forest birds, but they were in quite a great number. The place should be much better in winter when there are many migrants. The stars of the day were surely the Scarlet Minivets in this post and the above tiny Speckled Piculet. Piculet is a tiny member of the woodpecker family. The bird is just roughly 10cm long. The bird stayed around in the wave for almost an hour.

Mae Kampong Village
Prof.Mark shooting photos of the Red-whiskered Bulbuls
A view from the top of the mountain