The Local Swallow

It's always nice to see something else other than the same old Barn Swallow. Wire-tailed Swallow (Hirundo smithii) is one of the very few resident Hirundines in Thailand. It is rather uncommon and strictly found only in some parts of N/W Thailand. Lucky for me, a strong population inhabits along my village's Mae Taeng River. I went out birding around the river the other day and I spotted many Wire-tailed Swallows flying around acrobatically catching insects against the blue afternoon sky. I waited to see if they're gonna perch somewhere and finally the flock came perching down on a TV antenna nearby.

You can see how the bird's got its name. Male Wire-tailed has very long filamentous outermost tail feathers looking like wires trailing behind. Its underparts are pure white contrasting with glossy blue upperparts and crimson red cap. Female is a bit duller with pale buffish wash on its throat and with shorter 'wires'.

The flock mainly made up of juveniles.

The birds seemed to enjoy preening, stretching and sunbathing.
I tried some flight shots but didn't seem to be successful.
Of course, there were familiar faces, the Barn Swallows, a winter visitor in Thailand.

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.

The Second Brood

Here are more photos of the Barn Swallows at Mochika-hama. My guess is that it's the same couple which has already raised one successful brood earlier in June. Their former nest seems to be too dirty to reuse, so the parent birds decided to build a new one on the other side of the shop's door in the same way as the old one. The parents are now busy incubating their new eggs. Hope to see the new generation very soon!

PS. I'm now having problem with my own blog. The Followers and Recent Comments boxes are not showing up in my browsers. I normally use Firefox and both gadgets are not showing. I tried Google Chrome and the result was the same. However, both gadgets work well when I use IE. I'm wondering if any of you are also unable to see my Followers and Recent Comments as well. Lots of people seem to be suffering the same problem as mine too....

You can see the newly built nest on the sign on the left and the old one on the right.

I'm Hungry

I found this Barn Swallow's nest while I was riding my bicycle back from Beppu Eki after I got my new hair cut a few days ago. I was a bit surprised to see that the chicks were still relatively young comparing to other nests around the area, where most of them have already left the nests. Most of the chicks in this nest still have some downy feathers on the head and some parts of the body, and were still not ready to leave the nest. All five of them looked very healthy and were very much eager to get food from their parents. The parents came back every 3-4 minutes with some food to feed their chicks, and everytime the parent birds came flying close to the nest, the chicks raised their heads up high and made a very noisy begging call. I guess it would take about 1 week for these young chicks to be ready to leave their nest. Most of them were already exercising their wings, showing that they're quite anticipated to fly!

PS. More surprisingly, I saw another nest with an adult incubating the eggs! I'm pretty sure it's the same parent bird I've photographed in this post, since the nest was newly built on the exact opposite AIC sign. So I think this will be the second brood of this couple! We just can't underestimate the desire of these birds to breed.

Happy Family

Yesterday I went shopping at a supermarket in Mochika-hama and along the way I noticed 3 Barn Swallow nests. Last year, one family even built a nest in front of the supermarket. Of all the three nests, I found this one most appropriate to go and snap some shots. The chicks looked very healthy and active. At first they were sitting, walking and stretching outside the nest but later when I started to take photos, they all moved back into the nest. Parent birds always came back to feed the youngs in every 2 or 3 minutes. The chicks should be able to leave the nest in few days. It's happy to watch these little birds growing up successfully.

Four little hungry chicks

When the parents went out for food, they often fell asleep.

Can you spot the nest? It's just above the AIC sign!

Mud Collecting Season

The Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica) have been back for quite a long while and now it seems like their mud collecting season has officially started once again. These shots were taken yesterday at Rokushou-en. About 3 swallows came down to the river bank to get some mud for their nests.

This Grey-capped Greenfinch just came down to drink water though.

Nam Kham Nature Reserve 2010/01/02

The next morning we woke up at 5am before sunrise and walked up to the blind next to the large pond waiting for ducks but none were seen. Dr. Mong said that water level might have been too low for ducks to stay and feed in the pond. Dawn at Nam Kham was beautiful with a small group of Barn Swallows sunbathing on a dead tree. A Common Kingfisher, Common Moorhen and 2 shy White-breasted Waterhen (Amaurornis phoenicurus) were also seen at the pond. When the sun has risen high enough, a flock of Little and Intermediate Egrets came feeding all over the pond. I spent time taking photos of some Little Egrets that came walking near the blind.

The setting moon at dawn

A nice and warm morning.

A White-breasted Waterhen

Barn Swallows warming themselves up with morning light

A non-breeding Great Egret

A non-breeding Little Egret with an unfortunate shrimp

Love the reflection of the bird

That morning Phil and Andy caught a Chestnut-crowned Bush Warbler again and I was so happy to be able to see it. I went into the hide waiting for some birds to come to the waterhole. Many people from the G04Get group came and saw Baikal Bush Warbler coming to take a bath at the other waterhole inside the reedbed. I saw nothing special today, just the same badass rubythroat, munias and Dusky Warblers. The only interesting thing was a male Red Avadavat that came down to the reeds in front of the blind but disappeared just a few moment later. I went to the other hide and got quite many photos of another ringed male Siberian Rubythroat. I'm sure it's the same bird that I saw last year. A female Jerdon's Bushchat (Saxicola jerdoni) was a real surprise but she wasn't kind enough to give me a pose or two. Because we all have to drive back to Chiang Mai today and it's quite a long way to go, we had to leave Nam Kham around noon. I packed my things and said goodbye to this wonderful place and promise to come back again if I could.

A male Oriental Magpie-Robin; note color rings for resident birds

The same Siberian Rubythroat

And Mister No.2

This guy is much tougher to photograph.

Some more shots of the first bird before leaving

And White-rumped Munias