Red-rumped Swallow

August 1 was my last day with the 5D Mark II, so I hurried to Asami area to photograph a pair of Red-rumped Swallows (Cecropis daurica japonica) which was nesting in a building on the roadside. Furuso-san told me about this nest while we met at Shiraki few days earlier. She told me that the nest was very close and showed me some photos of the adult birds at close range taken by her digital compact camera. The birds still seemed to be building the nest when she took those photos, so they could still be seen even when they perched at the nest. As I arrived there in the morning of August 1, I could only see the head of a parent bird popping up from the already finished nest. I knew right then that it was not going to be easy anymore, and it really wasn't.

Red-rumped Swallows (Cecropis daurica japonica)

The bird's nest was located above the second floor's balcony. I really wished I could go up to the second floor and photograph the birds at eye level, but I just couldn't enter the building, so I had to take their photos from below. The birds seemed to be incubating the eggs and hardly showed up at the entrance of the nest. Parent birds switched their turns to incubate every 20 minutes or so. It was so difficult to take photos of them because even when they came back to the nest, they never stopped in front of the nest, but went right through into it. I almost gave up, but then around noon, one of the parent birds came perching on the wire in front of the nest to preen and sing. It constantly flew out and came back in 20 or 30 minutes. That's the only time when I could get some decent photos of it.

Parent bird singing and preening

I've always believed that Red-rumped Swallow has complete rufous nucal collar, different from its South-East Asian counterpart Striated Swallow (Cecropis striolata). Apart from being a bit larger and having bolder streaks on underparts, I've always thought that Striated Swallows can be distinguished from Red-rumpeds by its dark bluish nape. However, I was convinced that Red-rumped Swallows also don't necessarily have nuchal collar. Even when the bird turned its hind neck to me, I still couldn't see the rufous nuchal collar that many field guides illustrate. Now I begin to realise how difficult it actually is to distinguish the two species. Here's a nice photo of a Striated Swallow from Indonesia for comparison.

Getting in and going out!

Doi Angkang: 12-14 Aug 2010 I

So here's the full trip report for my visit to Doi Angkang during 12-14 August 2010. Alhough the weather was pretty much awful during the week before the trip, we occasionally had good periods of sunlight throughout the trip. We started off as we left Chiang Mai in the afternoon of the 12th and arrived safely at Doi Angkang around 4pm. We made the first stop at the viewpoint near the military base and saw a nice scenery of Fang town with a faint rainbow.

(From left to right) 1. Doi Luang Chiang Dao from the Chiang Dao city bypass 2. Birding in the pouring rain at Doi Angkang 3-4. Several pairs of Rusty-cheeked Scimitar-Babbler (Pomatorhinus erythrogenys) were found along the way especially around Ban Luang village.

We stayed the night in a small A-Frame house in Ang Kang health station's area. The next morning we found a flock of about 6 Striated Swallows (Hirundo striolata) perching on electrical wires in front of the station. We later found many these throughout the trip. Other birds that were seen around the station include Red-whiskered Bulbuls, Sooty-headed Bulbuls, Oriental Magpie-Robins and Spotted Doves.

We then moved to Ban Luang area for birding and luckily came across this young Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) perching on the roadside. The bird has reddish underparts with black cheeks indicating that it's a subspecies F.p.peregrinator. The bird later flew out and caught a couple of high flying butterflies, presumably Birdwing species (Troides spp.), but constantly dropped them off while eating in midair.

On the roadside near Ban Luang village, there was a fruiting tree which attracted many different species of birds, mainly bulbuls and this Dark-backed Sibia (Heterophasia melanoleuca). The bird has a remarkable thrilling call which can be heard easily throughout Doi Angkang. Other birds that came to feed were Crested Finchbill, Flavescent Bulbul, Sooty-headed Bulbul and Silver-eared(Chestnut-crowned) Laughingthrush.

We went for lunch at a small restaurant in Nor Lae village, which is pretty well known among birders in Chiang Mai. The restaurant's called Tama-Taté. After lunch, we did a small walk around an orchard inside the military camp nearby and found many small birds including the above 2 species of sunbirds. The bird in the big picture is an eclipse male Olive-backed Sunbird (Cinnyris jugularis), while the other in the two smaller pics below is an eclipse male Purple Sunbird (Cinnyris asiaticus). Though looking almost identical in eclipse plumage, you can see that the Olive-backed Sunbird has much yellower underparts, while the Purple's is dull greyish. The second pic of the bird also shows purplish-blue glossy feathers on its rump and tail indicating that it's a Purple not Olive-backed Sunbird.

Later we were chased by the rain and finally ended up chilling at the luxurious Royal Project's restaurant. From the restaurant, we saw many Red-whiskered Bulbuls which were posted earlier in this entry. Not only there were bulbuls, this beautiful male Black-throated Sunbird (Aethopyga saturata) was also flicking around as well. Unfortunately, due to very low light thus low speed shutter and the rapid movement of the bird, the above shot was the only shot that is acceptable.

Doi Angkang: Aug 22-23

Just being too lazy to write about birds from Doi Angkang trip two weeks ago. As I have said before, it rained most of the time and we couldn't go out birding so much, but we surprisingly got several interesting species within a very short period of time. We arrived Doi Angkang quite late in the afternoon. We stopped at the first viewpoint and got some swallows including Striated Swallow (Hirundo striolata) and the winter visitor Red-rumped Swallow (H. daurica) and Barn Swallow (H. rustica). Few Ashy Wood-Swallows (Artamus fuscus) were also perching on a very artistically beautiful dead tree. Near the car park we saw two Chestnut-capped Babblers (Timalia pileata) moving around in dense grass. It is quite common here at Doi Angkang, though relatively uncommon elsewhere. One of the bird was carrying a long dry grass, which supposed to be used for nest-building. Along the road we found one juvenile Crested Goshawk (Accipiter trivirgatus) perching on a dead tree before flying out as we tried to approach it. A noisy group of White-browed Scimitar-Babbler (Pomatorhinus schisticeps) mixed with White-browed Laughingthrush (Garrulax sannio) was also seen in a plum garden along the road too.

A Chestnut-capped Babbler carrying a dry grass preparing for its nest.

A juvenile Striated Swallow; Note its orange beak.

A worn Red-rumped Swallow; Note rufous nuchal collar.

In the evening we spent time birding around the checkpoint at Doi Angkang-Fang junction. Here we found 2 pairs of Long-tailed Minivet (Pericrocotus ethologus) moving together along the pine trees. A Japanese Tit (Parus minor) and a Chestnut-vented Nuthatch (Sitta nagaensis) were also feeding together with the minivets. A surprise was a pair of Spot-winged Grosbeak (Mycerobas melanozanthos) male and female which appeared at dusk. The male bird perched on a pine tree and gave a strange call which somewhat reminds me of a laughingthrush. Before dark, there was a nice bird-wave moving around in low bushes, which included 10+ Silver-eared Mesia mixed with Blue-winged Siva and a beautiful male Verditer Flycatcher. The next day we didn't go birding anywhere since it rained so hard, so we decided to leave after 12. Along the way back we also got a pair of Chestnut-bellied Nuthatch (Sitta castanea) feeding in a deciduous forest near Ban Arunothai village. They were the subspecies S.c.tonkinensis of NW Thailand, which has very dark chestnut underparts. Before leaving Ban Arunothai area, also we saw a lone Rufous-winged Buzzard (Butastor liventer) perching on a dead tree along the roadside. This guy was quite cooperative so I could finally managed to get some good shots of this species. In all we got over 70 species in only two days of birding! This should satisfy my hunger in birding for quite a while.

A male Long-tailed Minivet

Rufous-winged Buzzard, a raptor of open deciduous forest.

Oriental White-Eyes move fastly in small groups.