Feeding Frenzy

Finally finished processing the pics from Wednesday morning at Beppu Koen. Lots and lots of thrushes that day, especially the Dusky Thrush (Turdus (naumanni) eunomus). A flock of about 30 birds was moving around in circle between the pine trees and a small pond in front of the park. They were mainly sunbathing on the top of the trees when I first got there, but after a while they started to come down to the pond and drink water. Around 10.00 all the birds started to move into one fruiting tree on the other side of the park. It's not a large tree but for some reason very popular among these thrushes. There are more trees which produced the same kind of purplish fruits like this tree all around the park, but I saw no bird coming to eat the fruits from them, didn't know why, location might be the best answer.

Watching the birds flying in and out the fruiting tree, eating berries altogether was really fantastic. I've actually never seen the Dusky Thrush being this gregarious before. I'm thinking of going up to Mt.Tsurumi someday after finishing the exam. There must be more fruiting trees, I guess. There was a female Naumann's Thrush (Turdus (naumanni) naumanni) mixing in the large flock of Dusky also, the first time for me to see this form. Unfortunately, I couldn't get much of a decent shot of her. The Pale Thrushes (Turdus pallidus) were also in a good number. They look very different from those Dusky/Naumann's in flight. The wings and tail are much longer and the shape looks really different.

The best I could get from this female Naumann's Thrush

And this one seems to be an integration of eunomus x naumanni

Pale Thrush (left), Dusky Thrush (right)

The pattern of these Dusky Thrushes is very variable.

Another shot of the Naumann's Thrush visiting the fruiting tree

What about other birds other than the thrush, a single female Hawfinch, a pair of Daurian Redstart, of course, male and female, Oriental Turtle-Dove, Brown-eared Bulbul, White-cheeked Starling, few Grey-capped Greenfinches, pigeons and crows and surprisingly a female White-bellied Green Pigeon, which I saw flying out of another fruiting tree. I've got some shots of the birds that came down to the small stream to drink water, mainly thrushes and bulbuls.

The male Daurian Redstart was still doing well there.

A male Pale Thrush

A record shot of the female Hawfinch

These Brown-eared Bulbuls were more wary than the thrushes.

A male Pale Thrush (right) with another Dusky Thrush (left)

Another shot of the Brown-eared Bulbul

Ahh...only 3 days left and my spring vacation is going to be started. Actually I feel like time flies so fast these days, much faster than before. I'm still feeling like I've just spent my New Year eve in my hometown and now January is almost over, pretty soon I'm gonna go traveling to Hokkaido too, and when the spring break is over, I'm gonna be a 3rd year student and that's even a harder thing to believe how fast time has passed by living here in Japan.

T.ruficollis or T.naumanni?

This morning I went to Beppu Koen to check if there's anything new and found this thrush among a large group of Dusky.I don't know why there were so many Dusky Thrush today, more than usual. I think there were about 30-40 birds flying, sunbathing, drinking, jumping all over the park. There's one fruiting tree which all these thrushes liked to visit and it was very exciting when they all went feeding frenzy, like all the birds flew up at once and in close range, gave me a bit of goosebump. I wish I were skillfull enough to capture those moments. Anyway, the point about this entry is I am not really sure about what this bird should be. See the one with reddish breast and plain greyish upperparts.

It has faint but notable rufous breast and a small part around malar stripes,
but not in any shape of streak or scale and does not extend to its flank and belly.

This is the only flight shot I got; note rufous tail and underwing coverts,
but no rufous on flank, belly and undertail coverts.

I followed the bird to its perch on a high dead tree. Though the bird appears to have distinct greyish streaking on its underparts when it was drinking water, its underparts actually look whitish from this angle. I notice that it has no rufous on undertail coverts and flanks at all, which led me to think that it's more of a T.ruficollis or Red-throated Thrush (or Dark-throated Thrush T.r.ruficollis) than a Naumann's Thrush (T.naumanni or Dusky Thrush T.n.naumanni). However, it also doesn't look exactly like the Red-throated Thrush and I later found at least 1 or 2 Naumann's Thrushes along with the flock of Dusky. The bird later flew out of the tree before I could get any more shots and flew out of the park area to somewhere afar.