Best of 2010 & Merry Christmas

The end of the year is drawing near and it's quite the time for me to reflect on what I have photographed so far throughout the year 2010. For me, it has been very productive year in terms of bird photography as well as bird watching. I've been more active in birding than the past 2 years living in Japan, and have discovered many more interesting places and species. I've also become much closer to the city I've been living in for more than 3 years, Beppu. I learned a lot about many other birding spots from Furuso-san, whom I've become much more familiar with towards the end of the year. So here we go, starting from January 2010!

January 1, 2010 saw me enjoying this tamest Siberian Rubythroat (Luscinia calliope) at Nam Kham Nature Reserve in Chiang Rai, Thailand. I went back home for New Year and had a real good time with family and friends. A short visit to Nam Kham was really productive and I got my first Chestnut-crowned Bush-Warbler (Cettia major) there, although only in hand while ringing. More detail about the trip can be seen here and here.

After coming back to Beppu, January still treated me with a nice number of Red-breasted Mergansers (Mergus serrator) in Rokushou-en and Spa Beach in front of my dorm. It's the first time for me to see these beautiful ducks and I've also got quite many photos of them in the evening light. More photos and story can be seen in this post.

Then February saw me packing my bags for the most highly anticipated trip to Eastern Hokkaido for the total length of 2 weeks. I visited Kushiro to see the Red-crowned Cranes (Grus japonensis) first. The cranes have always been one of my dreams since before coming to Japan. I've actually never thought about seeing them with my own eyes. These birds are just amazing and I love every single moment I spent over there. More photos and story of the cranes can be seen here.

After visiting Kushiro, I went further north to the very famous eagle-watching village, Rausu. I spent two and a half days there and it was just fantastic! I've got a chance to go out into the sea twice and it was the day I fired the most shots in my life. The Steller's Sea-Eagles (Haliaeetus pelagicus) were just magnificent, as well as the smaller White-tailed Eagles. It is one of those experiences I won't be able to forget. More about this can be seen here in this post.
Then March came pretty fast and I'm back again to Thailand. One good thing about coming from Thailand is that it's not too far away from Japan, so I can go back and forth pretty often. My family made a trip to Phuket, a province in southern Thailand. I could do a little bit of birding around the resort and surprisingly found that it was actually very good. Above is a colourful male Pink-necked Green-Pigeon (Treron vernans), a species of doves which doesn't exist in northern Thailand where I live. There was a fairly large flock of this bird coming to the fruiting fig tree in front of the resort, so I could go out and take photos of them quite easily. More photos can be seen in this post.

Final Phuket

To wrap things up, here's a series of photos taken during the trip to Phuket with my family. I've been back to Beppu for 2 days now, and feel so strange once again about the shift in temperature degrees. It feels so cold here, guess that's because I've gotten used to the 30+ degrees in Thailand. Sakuras are blossoming everywhere and the city looks really colourful. A bit shame that the wind was too strong yesterday, the flower petals fell out of the trees too much in some area.

Muslim students waiting to see sunset at Phromthep Cape

The Phromthep Cape is one of the most famous places to watch sunset in Thailand, maybe the most popular one, because it is located at the westernmost part of the country. Everyday hundreds and hundreds of people flock together before sunset at the top of the hill. It's kinda unbelievable.

A few more shots

We stayed in a resort called Allamanda. It was nice and beautiful.

Though Phuket, the province, is extremely famous for its beautiful beaches,
the Phuket city is also famous for its old and beautifully designed buildings.

I found several House Swift's nesting colony under these old buildings' ceilings.

Such as this.

Southern people love to have birds in their cages, I don't know why. I'm totally against this kind of things and I feel sorry for those wild birds to have been kept in cages. The most popular species is the Red-whiskered Bulbul which was once common throughout the country but finally disappeared from the south because of caging and now they're illegally trade them from the north. The bird in the upper photo is not the Red-whiskered Bulbul, but the also popular White-rumped Shama, a relative of robins.

Morning Buffet

The only place where I did spent time birding was around the resort area. There's a fruiting fig tree just near by the parking lot and lots of birds visited the tree every morning. The most numerous species being the abundant Common Myna and Yellow-vented Bulbul, then the local Asian Glossy Starling (Aplonis panayensis) and the sweet Pink-necked Green Pigeon (Treron vernans). The White-vented Myna was quite common too. Ten years ago the species was still scarce in the southern part of Thailand, but nowaday it has become common throughout the country. Several Coppersmith Barbets also joined the party, one of them was juvenile. An adult and a juvenile Black-naped Oriole (Oriolus chinensis) visited the tree briefly in early morning. In the sky were Germain's Swiftlets, Blue-tailed Bee-Eaters and Brahminy Kites. I walked along the road to the beach and saw a couple of Common Moorhen, a White-breasted Waterhen, Pacific Swallows, a Common Kingfisher, Brown-throated Sunbirds and a striking Slaty-breasted Rail (Gallirallus striatus) in a canal along the way. At the beach I unexpectedly came across a female Barred Buttonquail (Turnix suscitator), a species which I've always wanted to take photos. Unfortunately the male bird which was hiding well on the ground nearby flushed up before I could spot him. Here are lots of photos mainly taken from the fruiting fig tree, a truly morning buffet for the birds there.

A male Pink-necked Green Pigeon

And a female

White-vented Myna

An adult Yellow-vented Bulbul

And here's a juvenile

My favourite pic of Common Kingfisher

A female Barred Buttonquail; male bird lacks black patch on the throat

Asian Glossy Starling likes to perch on exposed electrical wire.

But it's a tough bird inside the fig tree.

Juvenile bird looks totally different, except for those red swollen eyes.

A bright adult Black-naped Oriole

And quite a tamer juvenile

Coppersmith Barbet

Southern Jungle Crow

More Yellow-vented Bulbuls

And another male Pink-necked Green Pigeon

And I'll finish the entry by this super tame Zebra Dove

Unfortunately I didn't bring my 300mm lens with me during the last day, so I didn't get any photos of the tame Forest Wagtails at one of the view points. I guess they're on migration because I don't usually see them in flock like this. I also missed a large flock of frigatebirds which came soaring above the Phromthep Cape in the late evening and a pale morph Booted Eagle on the way back to the airport. Damn it.