Mrs Treeswift

I, again, did some shots of the Crested Treeswift in front of my dad's work place. This time there were just a few male birds, only 2-3 maybe, and all of them perched quite far away from the flyover, so if you want to see the males just visit here. Several females were contrastingly perching very close to the flyover. I could even use fill flash with them, since the direction of light was not perfect. These females have plain slaty cheek unlike the males.

These photos are of the same individual from different angle.

Here's another individual stretching

Apart from the treeswifts, there were quite many birds visiting the fruiting tree nearby, including Sooty-headed, Streak-eared and Red-whiskered Bulbuls, Common and White-vented Myna, Black-collared Starlings, Eurasian Tree-Sparrows and Zebra Doves. Below are some photos of the few species mentioned.

Sooty-headed Bulbul (Pycnonotus aurigaster klossi)

White-vented Mynas (Acridotheres grandis) with their cool hair styles.

Home

The first post with new materials from home in Thailand! It's much cooler here than in Japan at the moment because of the rain. All the grasses and the trees look so fresh and green. Lots of birds are flying around all day. A pair of Common Myna (Acridotheres tristis) is now building a nest under my roof and the parents are very noisy when they make the territorial call. Few Spotted Doves (Streptopelia chinensis) come down to the playground every morning and afternoon as usual. Common Tailorbirds (Orthotomus sutorius) hop along the vegetation and the sunbirds and flowerpeckers hover among the canopy.

Spotted Dove (Streptopelia chinensis)

A family of the Black-collared Starling (Starling Sturnus) often comes around my yard looking for food. These birds can be very noisy and really difficult to approach. The adult bird has thick black collar on its neck and bright yellow facial skin. The juvenile is duller with no distinct collar.

The bird that got me interested was this Sooty-headed Bulbul (Pycnonotus aurigaster) that came to my house shortly after the rain this morning. Normally, the northern subspecies of this bulbul has distinct red vent, but this bird strangely has yellow like to the subspecies found in lower parts of the country. However, the bird still seemed to be a juvenile bird, so I'm not really sure if it's another subspecies or a variant young bird that hasn't developed the colouration of its undertail coverts.

The last species for this post is this black and white Oriental Magpie-Robin (Copsychus saularis). A family of 4 fledglings and 1 father sticks around the playground all day looking for worms that dug themselves up from the ground after the rain. A bit strange that I didn't see the mother bird at all. The father looks really worn out and the chicks all look ugly with their scaly breasts. They can sometimes be really shy but once I sit still enough for a while they come around really close, like the above photos.

A Bulbuls Day

I still have some more photos from my new year vacation in Thailand that haven't been put it into this blog. These photos are from a one-day trip to Doi Angkang with my father. The weather was fine but temperature was not as low as I thought. Most people had left the mountain since the holiday was already over. Not so many birds actually, but I did managed to get some nice shots of my all time favorite bird of Doi Angkang, the Crested Finchbill (Spizixos canifrons), and the commoner yet difficult to get good pics, Brown-breasted Bulbul (Pycnonotus xanthorrhous).

Brown-breasted Bulbuls feeding on a fruiting tree

The birds were enjoying these yellowish fruits on the fruiting tree just on the roadside. The Brown-breasted was the most numerous with 2 Crested Finchbills, several Red-whiskered and Flavescent and a Sooty-headed Bulbul. I also found a pair of Mountain Bamboo-Partridge (Bambusicola fytchii) nearby but wasn't able to capture their photo.

I was so happy to photograph these two Crested Finchbills closely.

Then came a Sooty-headed Bulbul.

Along the road were countless blossoming Pink Cassia attracting lots of Chestnut-flanked, Japanese and Oriental White-eye. I spent few minutes chasing a male Orange-bellied Leafbird (Chloropsis hardwickii) which came to feed on the cassia's nectar. I was super surprised to witness the bird mimicing the call of the Oriental Magpie Robin and Sooty-headed Bulbul. It's the first time for me to know that this leafbird can also mock other birds' voices. Before going back, I stopped at the fruiting tree again to see if there's any visitors and finally got a very shy White-browed Laughingthrush (Garrulax sannio), a bird once so common but rarely seen nowadays.

A male Orange-bellied Leafbird

A secretive Green-billed Malkoha

A male Grey Bushchat in its full breeding plumage

And the very wary White-browed Laughingthrush

And some sceneric shots to finish off with.

Bath & Breakfast

Finally got back to the small town of Beppu once again. During the week before leaving Thailand, I put out a pot of water and bananas for birds in my front yard. Lots of them came and used all the survice I provided. The main customer was a gang of Sooty-headed Bulbul. They are very noisy and hyper-active. The Streak-eared Bulbul is a bit more secretive than those guys. Sometimes a pair of Common Mynas also come to eat bananas, but they are so shy that everytime I pan my lenses towards them, they just fly away.

Here's a little heaven for my front yard birds

The noisy Sooty-headed Bulbuls

And the more humble Streak-eared Bulbul

Oriental Magpie-Robins usually come at dusk

A pair of Spotted Doves always feeding on the grass nearby but I've never seen them come to bath like other birds. Before sunset is the time for Oriental Magpie-Robins, both males and females. They are quite fast and shy so they only appear at dusk. However, they always seem to enjoy bathing so much more than any other birds here. Another good new is 2 pairs of White-rumped Munias are now building their nests in my backyard. These tiny birds are very active in finding nesting materials. Maybe I should be more active in studying just like them!