More photos from the trip to Doi Angkang last week. We've got a really good time eating, relaxing and watching birds from a very comfortable veranda of the Royal Project's restaurant. From our table, we could easily watch all the birds that were feeding down in the trees below while having our meals. There were lots of these Red-whiskered Bulbul (Pycnonotus jocosus) hanging around in the trees below the restaurant. One of them was a small fledgling which was still begging its parents for food. The parent birds would come back to feed the chick every 5 or 10 minutes, so we had a great time observing these beautiful birds interacting with each other.
This species of bulbul is the icon of my local birding club, the Lanna Bird & Nature Conservation Club (LBNC), as well because it was the main reason why the club was founded. Over a decade ago, this bulbul was heavily captured from their natural habitat and illegally sold as cage birds. People like it because of its sweet warbling song which gives it the name "pidjalew" in northern Thai dialect. A very huge competition of this bird with huge amount of winning prize was about to be hold in Chiang Mai in 1999, and to prevent this inappropriate competition, the LBNC was founded.
Finally the competition of that year was canceled and our club began to be active in the nation's environmental scene. Today, the club has been doing annual Red-whiskered Bulbul Count within Chiang Mai city area to see how the numbers of this bulbul have changed from year to year, and the result of this year was quite disappointing, with the number of cage birds increasing from last year, indicating that our work still has to be continued. BTW, let's enjoy how pretty this bird is when living freely in its natural habitat through these photos.
6 comments:
Wow this bulbul is beautiful. I have seen the common bulbul in Morocco, but the one you have is much more beautiful...
I'm sad to realize that people are putting it into cages and happy that you try to act against that....
You got a fantastic serie of pictures of it in Nature and people should be able to enjoy this, more than a bird in a cage!
I think the Bulbuls or any other birds would sing more beautifully when they're free. It's great to hear that the LBNC is doing a good job, so hopefully we'll see more and more of these prized songbirds back where they belong - in the wild. Excellent pictures, by the way!
Aha! Another bird I've seen!
Hi Ayuwat,
I'm from Kelantan, one of the nothern states of Malaysia bordering Thailand. There they are called 'Candit', RW Bulbuls are one of the prized cage birds for competition purposes. Although there are no official count, one could see that their numbers have dwindled quite considerably over the years, difficult to see one nowadays. I was back in my hometown 4 weeks ago and managed to see two birds....................., in cages.
I'm on your side Ayuwat. All birds are better seen in the wild and viewed through beautiful photographs such as yours.
Thanks a lot everyone!
Chris> Wow Morocco! Though the Common Bulbul might be less pretty than this one, I'm sure that there are still lots and lots of prettier birds over there.
Ryou> I hope so too! The black market of this bird is still very active and we still have a lot more to work in the future.
Stu> You're like living over here hahaha!
madibirder> Still nice to hear that the bird still exists over there in Kelantan. It is already extinct in the wild in southern Thailand and that's why people illegally trade it from the north.
Russell> Nice to hear that too! I think we need a strict regulation about bird caging here in Thailand.
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