Homemade Photos

I used to get bored when I'm stuck at home during week days, but now I'm quite enjoying it! For some reasons, I feel like there are much more birds in my house than before. I wake up and enjoy seeing different species of birds coming to my house. Some species only pass by, but many are residing within my house area. The abundance of birds became the main reason why I want to stay home.

Rufous Treepie (Dendrocitta vagabunda) is an unusual bird to be found in the backyard, but a pair used to visit my house pretty often many years ago. I was so happy to find that a flock of about 4-5 birds are now coming back to my house again. It has a very strange call with an equally strange calling pose as well. The above shots were taken late in the evening and it was already dark, but I'm so happy to get these shots of this precious bird of my house.

There are 2 species of doves that can be found within my house, the Spotted and Zebra Dove. The above Zebra Dove (Geopelia striata) is one of the 4 individuals that usually come to my house. I guess it's a female bird judging from its richer pinkish breast. Male bird seems to have greyer, less rufous plumage.

The focused bird in the large picture is probably a female since it is has more barring on the sides of its breast. I really like watching these Zebra Doves because they are so small and cute. The bird is only about the same size as a quail. It is enjoyable to watch them walking and feeding together in pair. No wonder why it's one of the most popular cage birds in Thailand.

Here's the other dove that can be found around my house, the Spotted Dove (Streptopelia chinensis). It is much more abundant than the previous Zebra Dove, and much less attractive. It is by far the commonest dove in Thailand and also a very popular cage birds because of its deep sweet call. Lots of this bird enjoy feeding in the lawn and empty grounds around my house everyday.
This broken-legged Spotted Dove has been living in and around my house for many years now, probably more than 5 years. It is a female and I'm happy to see that it's still around producing new fledglings every year.

The Black-collared Starling (Sturnus nigricollis) used to be just a visitor to my house. Now a pair is nesting on the same Ditar Bark tree as the Coppersmith Barbet in the previous post. The nest is built on the top of the tree about 10-12 metres from the ground. The parents are very busy finding food to feed their youngs. I always see them perching with a mouthful of earthworms and other bugs. This is actually their second brood. The first has produced 2-3 fledglings which can be seen in this post.

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.