Best of 2011

One more year has finally come to an end. 2011 has been another fruitful year for birding, although not specifically for Beppu.This year saw me changing my camera body twice. The first time from an old Canon EOS 350D, which I'd been using for over 5 years, to a new EOS 550D in March. This new 550D unfortunately dropped into the mud at Sekinoe in May, and I was left birding without any camera for roughly 4 months before I got another 550D to replace the former one. It was the biggest tragedy that happened for me in 2011. At least it made me become much more conscious about the safety of my equipment.

The highlight of January was the 2 Black-necked Grebes (Podiceps nigricollis) that showed up in a small port behind my dorm. Both of them were in their non-breeding plumage with one of the birds having strangely deformed upper mandible. Photos and stories of the first individual can be seen here, and here for the second individual.

I also discovered another great birding place in Oita where over 100 Mandarin Ducks (Aix galericulata) gathered along with a few other species of ducks. It was a quiet curve of Oita River sheltered by large oak trees near Taromaru. Even though I couldn't get close to the birds, it was an absolutely wonderful experience observing them performing courtship display and relaxing in the afternoon light. More photos can be seen here.

The pair of Bean Geese (Anser fabalis) that was staying at Sekinoe since late October 2010 was still presenting well until early March. It was sad that I couldn't observe them until they left because I had to go back to Thailand during the spring vacation starting from February. The above photo was taken on January 15, showing the smaller Tundra Bean Goose (Anser fabalis serrirostris) on the left and the Taiga Bean Goose (Anser fabalis middendorffi) on the right. More photos taken on that day can be seen here.

February kicked in with a great surprise at the top of Mt. Tsurumi. A flock of Asian Rosy Finches (Leucosticte arctoa brunneonucha) was found feeding on the small lawn next to the cable car station. I first found them on February 2, but the weather was not good for photography. I decided to visit the place again on Febrary 3, only one day before I flew back to Thailand, and finally got a great bunch of decent shots of both male and female birds. More photos and stories can be viewed here.

Shortly fter arriving in Thailand, I visited Nam Kham Nature Reserve in Chiang Rai to look for the rare Chestnut-crowned Bush-Warbler (Cettia major) and the White-tailed Rubythroat (Luscinia pectoralis tschebaiewi), which had been seen visiting the water hole by other birders. The trip was half successful since I only saw the bush-warbler but not the rubythroat. However, it's always a nice experience visiting Nam Kham because you'd get to see many secretive species that normally wouldn't come out into the open. More photos from that visit can be watched here.

I also visited Chiang Dao during mid February to see the tiny but extremely colourful Pin-tailed Parrotfinch (Erythrura prasina). A large flock of these wonderful little birds came to the salt lick every morning to get sodium. I was lucky to get photos of them up close in the morning before they flew back to feed in the forest. Only about a month later, the number of the birds decreased and they became more difficult to see and photograph. More photos of them can be seen here.

Whose Pipits?

Once in a while I get worried about all those images I took and still haven't put up in this blog. So here I am writing about photos of birds I took back in March this year. I barely updated my blog during March, only 5 posts to be exact, but I birded almost everyday and that made my hard disk full of photos I still haven't given a second look. Anyway, I've been trying to finish up all those images and today I've chosen to write about a particular set of photos I took from Mae Hia Agricultural College, a famous place for grassland birding in Chiang Mai. These photos are of the 2 very similar species of pipits, the Richard's and Paddyfield Pipit, which gave me headaches trying to figure out which is which. They even made me a pipit-person for a month before I came back to Japan where pipits are not nearly as easy to find as in Thailand.

Richard's Pipit (Anthus richardi)

I'll start off with the more interesting one, at least for me, the Richard's Pipit (Anthus richardi). Craig Robson described it in his Field Guide to the Birds of Thailand and South-East Asia as being "larger than Paddyfield; longer bill and tail, heavier breast-streaking" which, to be honest, none of which can actually be used to identify when you're birding in the field. Features like postures and voice are much more useful in my opinion, especially the latter. Richard's Pipit might normally have longer bill and tail with heavier breast-streaking like what Robson wrote in his book, but who would be able to know what exactly is longer or heavier. In fact, I've seen a few Richard's Pipits that have shortish bill and some Paddyfields that actually have a pretty long bill. So the main criteria that I choose to believe in is the voice.

Richard's Pipit (Anthus richardi)

The Richard's Pipit you're seeing here in this blog was identified by its flight call, which is much different from the Paddyfield's. I downloaded the call of both species and put them into my iPod, so whenever the bird flushed up and called, I quickly compared it to the mp3 files I have. The call of Richard's is much stronger and louder than Paddyfield's. It was actually not that difficult once you are familiar with their calls. However, it's extremely tricky and almost impossible to identify the two when they're on the ground, not calling, since the Richard's Pipit that I found actually looked more like a typical Paddyfield, with a quite shortish bill and the Paddyfield Pipit that I photographed below actually looked more like that typical, guidebook-type Richard's, with that striking long bill.

Paddyfield Pipit (Anthus rufulus)

Quite luckily there was one more thing that I could use to help identify the birds, the courtship song. Since most resident birds in Thailand starts pairing up around March and the Paddyfield Pipit is a very common resident bird, while the Richard's is a scarcer winter visitor, so I can be pretty sure when I see a pair of pipits following each other around with one of them constantly sings its sweet song that they are Paddyfields. The one in the photo above was also singing as well. It was actually taken at my local patch in Mae Taeng. There were several pairs at Mae Hia too, but they were all too shy. Luckily, the other similar species, the Blyth's Pipit, is so rare in Thailand, that I can almost eliminate it from the possible candidates for the identification, though I really wish that it will actually pop up someday. Dave Bakewell of Dig Deep once found and nicely photographed one in Malaysia last year! I'm pretty sure that I'll be able to tell once I find it. I'm well-prepared!

Doi Inthanon: September 18

It was a cloudy early morning as me and my dad were going up hill heading to Doi Inthanon with our birding friend, Mam, sitting in the back. We made a stop at the second checkpoint and were surprised to find 4 more birding colleagues having coffee and breakfast in the back of their cars. We greeted and slowly started our birding around the checkpoint. There were not so many birds as there were very few moths around the checkpoint unlike how it used to be in the past, but we enjoyed killing time by talking and following some common birds. There was a pair of Flavescent Bulbuls (Pycnonotus flavescens vividus) perching in the hill near the checkpoint as usual. After a while, a small flock of Spectacled Barwings (Actinodura ramsayi) also came up to dry themselves on the same perch.

Spectacled Barwing (Actinodura ramsayi)

Flavescent Bulbuls (Pycnonotus flavescens vividus)

Male Short-billed Minivet (Pericrocotus brevirostris neglectus)

And the equally colourful female

I spent a lot of time trying to get a decent shot of the Mountain Tailorbird you see in the earlier post, but I still couldn't get the shot that I wanted. There were many swifts flying above our head in the morning. After roughly scanning through all of them, I identified the migratory Apus pacificus pacificus race of the Fork-tailed Swift, the much smaller Himalayan Swiftlets, the House Swifts and the migratory Asian House-Martins. Unfortunately all of them were flying too high up in the sky and it was also too cloudy, not a good condition for BIF shots, so I concentrated on birding along the road. There was a pair of the striking Short-billed Minivets (Pericrocotus brevirostris neglectus) coming down to the lower branches on the roadside. It is never easy for me to get a good photo of the minivets, as they normally stay up in the canopy, so I was very happy to finally get some good shots of them.

Dark-sided Flycatcher (Muscicapa sibirica rothschildi)

Sunbathing White-throated Fantail (Rhipidura albicollis celsa)

A Crested Goshawk (Accipiter trivirgatus indicus) doing courtship display

You can see its fluffy undertail feathers as one of the courtship features.

I expected to see some migrants and was happy to find 2 Dark-sided Flycatchers (Muscicapa sibirica rothschildi) staying close to each other. Unfortunately both of them were occupying a very high perch, so I couldn't get any decent shot of them. Instead, I got quite a nice birdscaping shot of it. Other birds we found along the way include a flock of Grey-cheeked Fulvettas, White-throated Fantails, Davison's (White-tailed) Leaf-Warblers and a Crested Goshawk (Accipiter trivirgatus indicus) perching in the distance performing a courtship display. We assumed that there must be another bird perching somewhere behind the tree.

My dad later came and told us that he found a big flock of Doi Inthanon's star bird, the Green Cochoa (Cochoa viridis), on the side of the road to Mae Jam. He also saw a male Red-headed Trogon and several Slaty-bellied Tesias as well. He always the one who finds the good birds it seems. So we went there as found at least 4 Green Cochoas perching and flying deep in the forest on the roadside. These birds are so difficult to find because they sit very still among the leaves and rarely come out to the open. I assumed that it was a family group, as I only saw 1 adult male bird but several immatures. Immature birds have white stripes on the sides of the throat with brownish scales. I even luckily came across a very young juvenile bird sitting on a low branch just a few metres from the road on my back to the checkpoint. It turned out that its right wing was broken. There's a very small chance that it will be able to survive at this very young age, but I really hope it will.

Juvenile Green Cochoa (Cochoa viridis) with a broken wing

An older immature bird

Pallas's Squirrel (Callosciurus erythraeus)

We stayed around the checkpoint until almost noon, then we headed up to Kew Mae Phan to have lunch at the restaurant in front of the entrance. In the back of the restaurant, we even found a first-winter Ferruginous Flycatcher (Muscicapa ferruginea), a species I haven't seen for a long time. After our meal, we went up to the highest summit to photograph some common species as well as the LBJs in the earlier post. Birds at the summit are extremely tame, this time especially the Silver-eared Laughingthrushes (Garrulax melanostigma ), which were hopping everywhere inside the coffee shop. They even stole some sugar from the box! Other Doi Inthanon's star birds like the endemic subspecies Aethopyga nipalensis ankanensis of the Green-tailed Sunbird, the Bar-throated Minla, the Ashy-throated Warbler and the Dark-backed Sibia were also showing well. I even came across a quite approachable male Mrs Gould's Sunbird (Aethopyga gouldiae dabryii) which was feeding on small flowers by the roadside. It's such a striking little bird that I can never get tired of watching.

Mrs Gould's Sunbird (Aethopyga gouldiae dabryii)

It's never easy to get the glossy feathers.

Another shot of the Pallas's Squirrel

Bar-throated Minla (Chrysominla strigula castanicauda)

Dark-backed Sibia (Heterophasia melanoleuca)

Silver-eared Laughingthrush (Trochalopteron melanostigma)

Little Brown Jobs

The LBJs are always fun to watch and very challenging to photograph! The whole afternoon of Sunday 18th saw me following flocks of LBJs all along the road near the summit of Doi Inthanon. The low vegetation along both sides of the road near the summit is the best place where you can encounter a handful of LBJ species, sometimes even some nice rarities. The party started with a huge flock of the tiny and restless Rufous-winged Fulvettas (Alcippe castaneceps). Not only do they hop around in the bush, they also spiral up and down the trees just like nuthatches to make us photographers feel dizzy as hell. I wasn't quite fond of following these tiny devils as they are quite common and widespread. The real thing started as a couple of Ashy-throated Warblers (Phylloscopus maculipennis) kicked in. This species of Phylloscopus warbler's distribution in Thailand is restricted to only the highest summit of Doi Inthanon. That reason alone easily made me decide to follow them instead of the fulvettas.

Ashy-throated Warblers (Phylloscopus maculipennis)

The Ashy-throated Warbler is even smaller than the Rufous-winged Fulvetta, only 9-9.5 cm in length and normally even harder to photograph! I've never been able to get any decent shot of this tiny warbler before. Didn't know why but the one you see in these photos was really obliging and posed for me so well. These small birds at the summit are not afraid of human at all since there has never been any human settlement in the past. It's very normal to watch them hopping around just before your eyes. However, being too close is surely not a good thing, so I had to constantly step back to get the whole body of the bird into the frame.

Ashy-throated Warblers (Phylloscopus maculipennis)

Rufous-winged Fulvetta (Alcippe castaneceps)

Taking care of the nuthatch's job

It was when I was enjoying shooting photos of the showy Ashy-throated Warbler that I saw 2 brownish birds flying into the bush in front of me. I was so happy to see that they were Yellow-browed Tits (Sylviparus modestus), a scarce montane forest resident. This species of tit always confuses new (or sometimes even senior) birders because it is so nondescriptive. Most people often mistaken it with warblers. However, if you look closely at its bill, you will see that it still has the tit's bill shape. Its yellow eyebrow is normally hidden by the olive-brown feathers but pronounced when displaying or alarmed. Shrubs around the summit of Doi Inthanon might be the easiest place in Thailand to see this northern montane specialty.

Yellow-browed Tit (Sylviparus modestus)

Bar-throated Minla (Chrysominla strigula castanicauda)

However, the most numerous LBJ of the highest summit of Doi Inthanon is the larger Bar-throated or Chestnut-tailed Minla (Chrysominla strigula castanicauda). It is also among the few Doi Inthanon's specialties. It can be found on a few high mountains in the west and northwestern parts of Thailand, but Doi Inthanon is the easiest place to find it. It has a nickname among Thai birders as the "Doi Inthanon's sparrow" comparing its abundance to the Eurasian Tree Sparrow which can be found literally everywhere in Thailand.

Mountain Tailorbird (Phyllergates cucullatus coronatus)

The last LBJ that I want to introduce in this post is the Mountain Tailorbird (Phyllergates cucullatus coronatus). Although it is not so drab and brown but its super skittish behaviour and its habitat fits nicely to the others. I can truly say that among all of the birds in this post, this one is the toughest to photograph. I found a pair singing and feeding in the same area for the whole morning near the 2nd checkpoint of Doi Inthanon and I spent the whole morning trying to get photos of them and the result was still not so satisfiable. This bird was extremely fast and always hid itself among the leaves and branches. Even when I tried using playback, it still didn't come out easily. I finally had to give up for lunch. Otherwise I'd be so damn angry bashing all the bushes around the checkpoint lol.