Lanius schach schach

Long-tailed Shrike (Lanius schach) is a common resident bird throughout Thailand but the two nominate races are the black-headed L.s.longicaudatus of central plain and L.s.tricolor of northern hills. The grey-headed L.s.schach seems to be first recorded just a few years ago during winter in Mae Hia, Chiang Mai. The individual showed up for 2-3 consecutive winters. I unexpectedly found this individual in the evening of September 19th. The bird was perching on a dead branch by Mae Taeng River. I had to observe it from the bridge which was quite far away from the bird. After I reported about it, another bird photographer from Chiang Rai also submitted a photograph showing a very beautiful male L.s.schach he photographed from Chiang Rai Airport earlier this year (23 February). The bird has much neater plumage with more black on forehead than the one I found here.

Long-tailed Shrike race Lanius schach schach

Apart from the L.s.schach above, there was also a juvenile L.s.tricolor calling on the other side of the river. L.s.tricolor is the nominate race of northern Thailand. It has distinct black head contrasting with white throat and rufous body. Its upper mantle is grey, unlike the nominate race of central Thailand, L.s.longicaudatus, which also has a much longer tail.

Juvenile L.s.tricolor; note black head, grey upper mantle

Lots of egrets fly back to their roost in the upper stream of the Mae Taeng River (above) every evening. The two main species being Little Egret (left) and Cattle Egret (right) with a lesser number of Intermediate Egret, Black-crowned Night-Heron and Great Egret. I also photographed a young Brown Shrike eating a big cricket at Muang Chum on the same evening. There were far more many Brown Shrikes than Long-tailed Shrikes at the moment, but they were really difficult to get a decent photo. Lots of Chinese Pond-Herons have arrived as well, not to mention about the Wood Sandpiper.

Juvenile Brown Shrike eating a big cricket
Non-breeding Chinese Pond-Heron

A pure flock of Wood Sandpiper

Wood Sandpiper

These shots are all taken around two weeks ago at Cho Lae. There's a nice flooded field next to the small dirty road inside the area. A flock of more than 20 Wood Sandpipers was feeding sparsely all over the field. Most of the birds were juveniles and others were adults moulting out of their worn breeding plumage. I waited to see if there's any other interesting species coming or not, but only the Wood Sandpipers showed up. Although these birds are very common, they are extremely difficult to approach unlike most waders I've photographed in Japan. I had to hide myself among tall grass waited for the birds to come closer, but they still left quite a distant away from me, so all I got was this set of birdscaping shots.

Most adult birds had very worn plumage.

Phalarope!?
Or Redshank? Some juveniles have much brighter orange-yellowish legs.

An Ordinary Day

A post compiling shots from an ordinary day at Cho Lae. Lots of migrants have already arrived, especially waders. Large flocks of Wood Sandpipers (Tringa glareola) can be found all over the place. Lots of snipes have already arrived as well, but they are just too shy to be seen in the open. Most of them are Pintail and Common Snipes. Several Stonechats are here as well. I'm getting sick by the split of this bird. It used to be just Stonechat (S. torquata), then Siberian Stonechat (S. maurus), and now the eastern race that winters in Thailand is called the Stejneger's Stonechat (S. stejnegeri). From reading through the discussions in Surfbird email archive, it seems that these newly split taxa are basically impossible to be distinguished in the field since they are all split purely on genetic evidences. In the future, I wonder if these new species will be grouped back into a single species like before or not....

The now so called Stejneger's Stonechat (S. stejnegeri)

A flock of Baya Weavers (Ploceus philippinus) was still occupying the same area around its nesting colony though all the chicks have already fledged and joined the flock their parents. Most male birds have already shed their bright golden head feathers and turning into a drab female-like non-breeding plumage.

A male Purple Sunbird (Cinnyris asiaticus) in eclipse plumage
Wood Sandpipers are abundant but very difficult to get close.

A fluffing adult Little Ringed Plover (Charadrius dubius); the bird is mainly a winter visitor to Thailand and this one is moulting into a non-breeding plumage.

A male Pied Bushchat (Saxicola caprata)

A lone non-breeding Brown Shrike (Lanius cristatus) was also found in the area. It's the subspecies L.c.cristatus, which is a different one from the more reddish superciliosus of Japan. I watched it fed on a very interesting prey, the colourful Long-tailed Lizard (Takydromus sexlineatus ocellatus) which it caught from a small dry field.

This female Pied Bushchat was much more obliging than the male above.

I was lucky to see this shy Slaty-breasted Rail (Gallirallus striatus) coming out to dry its wings after the rain in the late afternoon. It's bird that is not often seen in the open like most of the rail species.

A landing Pintail Snipe (Gallinago stenura); you can see the blurry 'pin' outer tail feathers

A new species to my photo library to end this entry, the Asian Koel (Eudynamys scolopaceus), a very common but super shy member of cuckoo family. This one is an immature male. Adult male lack buffish spots on wing coverts, while female has mottled brown plumage. The right image shows the bird with a Black-collared Starling.

My Place

I've been calling it 'my place' for many years now. Cho Lae is a small village located only about 15 minutes away from my house. It is a good birding place where I used to visit several times a week during my high school period. It holds a vast cultivatied area, mainly rice paddies, bordered with dry dipterocarp forest and Mae Ngat Dam. Lots of interesting species can be found here, especially in winter, where the first Red-headed Bunting (Emberiza bruniceps) of Thailand and South-East Asia was found by me and a group of Malaysian birders.

I've been back to Cho Lae again last week with A.Mark, a new and extremely keen bird photographer in Chiang Mai. There were not so many birds as we arrived there a bit too late. There were several fruiting trees including mistletoe and calabura tree. These attracted lots of small Scarlet-backed Flowerpeckers (Dicaeum cruentatum) to come and feed on the fruits. One young male was obliging enough for me to get some good photos at close range. The adult male is the one in the far right photo of the lower row. Other fruit-eating birds like Purple and Olive-backed Sunbirds, Sooty-headed and Streak-eared Bulbuls also visit these fruiting trees as well.

A large flock of about 100 Barn Swallows was also resting along the electrical wires on the roadside. Cho Lae is another place where these birds gather in large flock during winter. Barn Swallow is among the very first migrants that arrive Thailand along with the Grey Wagtail and waders. I spotted several juvenile birds perching on low wooden poles, so I walked in and grabbed few shots. These juveniles are much more obliging than the adults.

There were already lots of Wood Sandpipers (Tringa glareola) in the rice fields. These birds are super hard to photograph since they always hide within the rice fields and flush up before we even see or get close to them. I spotted a different wader which is smaller and has black line on its rump unlike the Wood Sandpiper, and I thought it was a Dunlin, which I've seen earlier many years ago around the area, but since it's a rare species in Thailand, I want to be more sure to say that. A single unidentifiable Swinhoe's/Pintail Snipe also flushed up from the rice field as I walked in as well. This might mark as the earliest record of the snipe for me.

The highlight of the day was the shy Greater Painted-Snipe (Rostratula benghalensis). We flushed 1 beautiful female and at least 3 male birds. These birds are even more difficult to get good pics than the waders. They know how to hide away from human eyes very well and I still need to get some decent shots of them. The bird in the photo is the female. Male bird is much duller with plain brown head and neck similar to phalaropes where females are much more beautiful.

Other decent birds that showed up that day included the migrant Blue-tailed Bee-Eaters ,which were all too shy for us to take some pics of them, and several singing Bright-headed Cisticola. The most common bird was the above White-vented Myna (Acridotheres grandis) which seemed to be so active in finding food along the dikes. There were lots of its relative, the Black-collared Starling, as well but they all stayed away from me and my lens.

The last species of bird that we luckily came across was the Baya Weaver (Ploceus philippinus) which was having a nesting colony near the roadside. These birds can amazingly weave their own nests out of grasses in a very neat and beautiful way. We found at least 4 nests hanging on the top of a Tropical Almond (Terminalia catappa) tree. Few female birds also came in with lots of preys in their beaks and made the alarm call as they saw us standing under their nests. We then left the area quietly so the birds could get in and feed their chicks.